Right, duly noted.
I'm actually speaking completely generally though; I'm falling apart at this universally speaking. Perhaps I just need to learn how to debate?
When I'm presented with a context in which I need to prepare any sort of defense, 51% of my brain will sometimes go silly, and I'll get really anxious and irrationally fearful and tense up. Things rapidly go south from there; the biggest side-effect is that my memory completely shuts down, meaning that I cannot remember a) any of the things the other person said (so I cannot form an effective defense), b) any of the things I said (so if I say something incorrect[ly] I won't remember) and c) the way I say what I say, which means that my tone of voice might be off and I'll basically be too spaced-out to notice. The resulting arguments are almost comical in their narrow-focusedness, with the resulting back-and-forth many many degrees away from whatever the original point was (which typically gets lost within the first few seconds of conversation).
This is probably due to autism and some related undiagnosed anxiety disorder, but labels aside I've never really known where to start tackling something like this. I've given up on mental health support, which only has its own agenda (I don't want the brain-fog of drugs, so all the departments could care less), I just want to brain-hack my thinking onto the right track and I've no idea how.
FWIW, this is one of the reasons I'm actually reluctant to get a job, so I'm yet to get practical experience dealing with real-world issues.