One time when I was in highschool, I was having those flashbacks. Memories of things I said that made me cringe. So I decided in order to stop creating more of those, I would keep quiet as much as possible. I’d only talk when someone talks to me.
The next day a classmate had a fight with his friend and switched places to sit next to me. I kept my rule and only spoke when spoken to. It was awkward silence the whole day. By the end I saw him moving back to sit with his old friend.
“I thought you were with droning_in_my_ears?”
“I tried, but he doesn’t say anything!”
Damn. Could’ve made a new friend. That’s when I decided better cringe than boring and ended my mute phase.
As an adult, I find people appreciate me more when I speak less. If I don’t say much, speak slowly, and only open my mouth when the conversation will be improved by it, I tend to be well liked.
The more someone really gets to know me, the less they tend to like me. I think. My wife tells me people like me a lot, but I don’t really see any evidence of that. I think I’m just easy to tolerate.
As to the subject of cringe memories, I have a whole litany I run through every time my brain tries telling me I’m a shit person. No real advice there other than the worst cringe memories were formative for me, making sure I never felt that humiliation again.