It's 9.20pm on a Saturday and I've gone to bed. My partner and our friend and soon ex-housemate are sitting down stairs chatting and waiting for the syrup dumpling dessert to be ready. It's our friends last night with us and how ever much I'd like to stay up and chat and laugh and enjoy their company, my brain is screaming for me to stop talking, get out of there and give it some quiet time.
It had all the red flags out earlier, but as usual I missed the cues to take my leave, take a nap, be alone for a short while, what ever really to give me half a chance to recharge.
Hi all, My name is Mon and I'm an introvert.
I can't remember when exactly I realised I was an introvert, but since, I've discovered that I'm on the higher end of the introverted scale and I have also a highly sensitive personality.
For you all that have no idea what I'm talking about, and wondering if I've gotten myself some kind of weird disease, this is not the case. Introversion, like extroversion or ambiversion, are phycological preferences. In other words different personalities groups that gain and lose energy in different ways.
Introverts gain energy from solitude, from the inner processes of our minds, whilst we lose it from socialising and interacting with the outside world.
In comparison, extroverts thrive on interactions with other people and social situations, and can get tired and bored from spending time by themselves. There's a plethora of information regarding introversion/extroversion online, but a good place you could start is at http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.htm
Adding to this, and having a highly sensitive personality for me isn't just added emotional responses but a sensitivity to noise, to temperatures, to how clothes fit and peoples energies and moods around me.
So I feel everything 20 times more than everyone else, I think about things 20 times more than everyone else, and I spend 20 times more time by myself than, well, not everyone else, but my extroverted friends.
Last night was a classic example. We had earlier that day been out for lunch with a couple of friends and their baby, and spend a few hours socialising, eating and walking. It was a great day, but on the walk home I could feel myself slipping into my quiet-ness, when I have talked enough and need to stop talking to recharge. This didn't work too well as my housemate - a delightful, chatty, happy über-extrovert - came home at the same time as me and started planning our dinner.
I could have gone upstairs and taken a time out, but because I enjoy her company, and it was her last day with us I thought it to be rude to just leave her to it. So we talked, she cooked, my parter came home and joined in, and slowly but surely I could feel myself becoming frustrated, angry, irritable and less and less pleasant. Realising too late that I've pushed myself too far and therefore running on empty. And although I went to bed early, I couldn't sleep. My head was too wired and I know it will now take a few days for me to get back to where I want to be.
Whilst not being able to sleep I was thinking of writing all this down. For myself, for someone else that also struggles with our societies expectations of us always wanting more social interaction, louder conversations and more outgoing natures.
I am not sure where writing this will take me, but if it allows me or someone else to sort out the thought processes and behaviours of an introverted personality I couldn't be more pleased.
It might be a slow process, but for me it's very much worth it.
If you'd like to read more about introversion, I highly recommend Susan Cain's book Quiet - The Power of Introverts In a World That Can't Stop Talking. http://www.quietrev.com/quiet-the-book/
So if this will be all I ever write or this is the start of something, no one knows.
M
