F*@# The Might-Have-Beens

Tags

depression, family, introversion, miscarriage, parenting, vacations

I want to talk about the awesome week I just spent in Ontario with my mother’s side of the family. I want to talk about potato canons, and drunken mistakes with chinese lanterns, and 1000 piece puzzles, and the weirdness of hanging out with a bunch of cousins who share many of my nerdy ways.

But I can’t get up the enthusiasm because I’m too exhausted.

That week WIPED me. And I clearly didn’t have a lot of energy going into the vacation.

Oddly, the exhaustion is not directly due to the fact that I spent a week in a cottage with 20 relatives.

A significant portion of my mother’s siblings and their children are introverts. So while they enjoyed each other immensely, no one was surprised or disapproving if you wanted to disappear to your bedroom for a while, or take a book down to read at the beach (I walked down to the beach with Owl one sunny morning and found SIX relations reading on lounge chairs and no one in the water).

But I was trying to do several things at once:

Warning. Warning. Introvert Levels Dangerously Low.

Tags

extroversion, introversion, introvert, life, overwork, play, setting limits, toddlers, work

So, basically everything I said here still applies.

I am not depressed. I’m not even taking antidepressants any more.

But some mornings, in the first half hour or so that I am at work, I struggle to fight back tears.

It’s not sadness, per se, although I still feel like my life got derailed back in May, and often catch myself moping over might-have-beens.

But I think that that is more a symptom than the real disease.

The fact is that if I were a car, my fuel light would be blinking and the fuel gage would be dipped below the E line. Pretty soon I’m going to make a scary clunk and just stop altogether.

It’s no one’s fault except, arguably, my own.

I am Introvert, hear me speak in a reasonable tone of voice!

Tags

conversation, extroversion, introversion, parties, props, psychology, social skills, The Introvert Advantage

I am an introvert.

I am not shy.  I am not quiet. But I am very much an introvert.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when people use “introverted” as a synonym for “shy”. That’s complete nonsense. I’m not remotely shy. I am a chatterbox. I smile at people in the elevator. I am comfortable with public speaking.

In high school, when I went to “Dramafest” in Halifax, I wore a black knit hat with very large and colourful butterflies on it. When I was in university, people recognized me by my colourful wool “elf hat” which I wore through the winter. I also had an eclectic collection of scarves. I joined the improv group.

Nevertheless, I am introverted.

Some extroverts think that they are introverts, when really they’re just shy. Some introverts think they’re extroverted, because they aren’t shy.

Which are you?

Introversion is about what you find easy, and what you find difficult. Your average person finds going to parties to be easy, and studying to be difficult. I am the opposite. I would rather study for a difficult test all night than go to a party full of people I don’t know. And it’s not about shyness. It’s just that talking to people is hard work, whereas studying just takes a certain amount of concentration, which is fairly easy.

The introverted brain works differently. An introvert has more brain activity than an extrovert, which makes it sound like we’re smarter, doesn’t it? In fact, the majority of gifted children do classify as introverted, but being an introvert doesn’t necessarily mean you are smarter (nor does being gifted make you introverted).

Counteracting our high levels of brain activity is our slower method of processing. It takes introverts longer to process information than it takes extroverts.

This has several consequences:

1. Introverts contemplate their actions for longer before they actually perform those actions. In other words, introverts look before they leap. Introverts are the thinkers and philosophers of the world, but they might get eaten by a tiger while they think about what to do.

2. Introverts don’t converse as easily as extroverts do. It takes them longer to process what has been said to them and to formulate a suitable reply. This often results in introverts being somewhat socially awkward because they aren’t good at the witty repartee… one of the many reasons we hate parties.

3. Stimulation overloads the introverted brain much more easily. While extroverts leap around looking for something to occupy their swift but underused brains, introverts are trying to prevent a blue-screen-of-death situation in their overloaded mental processor. So while extroverts are off installing surround-sound systems and racing off to mosh at a concert, introverts are trying to hole up in their bedrooms with a book and some dim lighting.

Ultimately, extroverts are stimulation seekers while introverts are stimulation escapists. Since extroverts outnumber introverts by three or four to one, it means that introverts are seen as “weird” and get assigned labels like “shy”. After all, the only reason an extrovert would rather stay home on Saturday night is shyness. Shyness is a horrible affliction, in the eyes of extroverts. A shy extrovert is desperate for human company, but afraid to seek it. Very sad.

It is to this miserable state of being which most introverts are mistakenly assigned by misunderstanding extroverts.

In actuality, while shy introverts do exist, they don’t suffer much from it. They wouldn’t want to go to a party even if they were brimming with confidence. Talking to people, especially strangers, is simply hard work. Loud noise and flashing lights are unpleasant, overwhelming and ultimately exhausting. It’s not fun, if you’re an introvert. Fun would be a quiet night in with a couple of friends who are used to the odd way you phrase your sentences. Fun would be a hot bath, a cold drink, and a good book.

Introverts suffer through mixers and bustling night clubs the way that extroverts suffer through War and Peace.

In The Introvert Advantage, the author recommends using a “prop” to help make interacting with strangers easier. I totally use this strategy.

One of my favourite perks of being a service dog trainer was access to dogs who were allowed to go into public. I could take one of my dogs to the movies, to a restaurant, and to a party full of strangers.  I would be stopped again and again by curious strangers who wanted to know about the dog. This is not something you want if you are shy. But I am not shy. I am introverted. So I thought it was great.

A prop, like a cute Labrador or a funny hat or interesting jewellery, gives you something to talk about with strangers. Suddenly talking to a stranger becomes much easier. I had my service dog speeches down pat, and I rattled them off effortlessly when I was stuck talking to a stranger. Perfect Husband could have mouthed my answers along with me. Easy!

I miss having a dog always at my heels, but the Babby is proving almost as good a prop. I was at a baby shower yesterday, filled with people I didn’t know, but who wanted to talk to me about my baby. I wasn’t even exhausted by it, because Babby made things easy.

You can trust me, any party I’m invited to? I’ll be bringing the baby.

Much easier and less exhausting, that way.

One of my pre-Babby prop-babies, who I got to see at the shower yesterday!

The only thing that confuses me is this:

Babby seems to LOVE going out into public and being stimulated by others. He gets bored and fussy at home. Does this mean he is an extrovert?

Extroverted? Or just... not shy?

 

I’m an introvert. PH is an introvert.  How on Earth did we produce an extroverted child, and is this going to cause us problems later on?

No more fun, thanks

Tags

conference, introversion, introvert, lazy day, montessori, parties, reading, Sunday

I’m having the laziest day evar. I just put on my clothes, and it’s THREE PM.

This is why I wanted a yard. The dogs peed before I even had to get dressed.

It seems ridiculously extravagant to still be lying on the bed reading in my bathrobe well into the afternoon, but I needed the rest. Yesterday wasn’t really a day off. I had to go to a conference to keep up my continuing education credits with the AHTA, so it was like another work day. Spending a day surrounded by total strangers does not make for a restful time. Although it was actually a lot better than I thought I would be. It reminded me that I am, and always will be, a product of Montessori:

I find structured labs where I have to follow structured activities (many of which I do not find educational) rather stressful. It usually involves a certain amount of interaction with the people in your class, which in this situation would be total strangers. It also requires that you shoulder a certain amount of responsibility. Here I am, doing something for the very first time, and I’m just supposed to fetch supplies and follow instructions on my own, instead of being personally taught and guided.

That is what I was expecting of the wet labs at the conference, but they weren’t like that at all. They basically treated us with a “you paid to be here so come on down and get your money’s worth” attitude which I highly appreciated. We were allowed to wonder around, watch demonstrations and do as much or as little hands-on practice as we felt comfortable with.

…Which meant that I played with the goniometer, but just watched people use the Gulich. I waved my hand over the Pulsing Magnetic therapy bed, and let them attach electrodes to my arm to feel what muscular electric stimulation feels like (WEIRD). They gave me full control over how high I turned it up, which meant I felt quite comfortable cranking it up quite high, trying to get my hand to twitch. Then I helped myself to the peppermint and tea trea muscle relaxing oils.

If they had created a structured lab, I would have hated every minute of it, even while learning. But this was actually quite pleasant. This is what Montessori school was like. They didn’t FORCE us to learn. They set certain goals, like you had to do a minimum of one math activity, one English activity and so on, but from there on the choice was yours. They assumed that you wanted to play and learn, and so it never occurred to any of us to fight it.

So really the conference was great, just what I would have wanted. But it was still an exhausting day for an introvert – strange place, strange people, strange gadgets…

Then Perfect Husband and I had a party to go to that evening. The hosts are good friends, but a lot of the people there are strangers. Which meant more socializing with strangers.

See, it’s not that it was a bad day. I learned a lot, and then had a nice, fun evening out talking to some really cool people and breaking my heart over an incredibly adorable blond boy, who seemed fascinated by my husband and kept dragging him around by the finger saying “night night?”

But for an introvert? That was NOT a day off.

After an eight hour sleep and then another five hours of reading lazily, I finally think I have the energy to face the day.

And it’s raining.