“Basically, an introvert is a person who is energized by being alone and whose energy is drained by being around other people.”
It’s been ten days since I’ve been alone, existed in a space by myself… I feel like I might implode. I’m grumpy and cranky and irritated.
It’s difficult to tell people you consider yourself an introvert when you talk too much, when you’re loud and wear bright colours and have a tendency to run around at social events wearing ridiculous things and manifesting everything that’s annoying about people with short attention spans.
Introverted… really.
But being ‘introverted’ doesn’t necessarily mean you’re shy or quiet. It can just mean you need time to… decompress.
I need silence. I need an extended period of not hearing the word ‘Mum’. I need my house to myself. I need to paint my fingernails, clean my bathroom, sing loudly to bad music. Even my cats are p*ssing me off. I hate feeling rattled and out of sorts like this.
It will pass. Two children, exuberantly high and excruciatingly loud, on a high of cheap chocolate and very little sleep…
Thank goodness they’re both back at their respective day-time establishments tomorrow.
This is the very tip of parental harassment, anyway.
School holidays… they’re coming. May God have mercy on us all.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree with this sentiment more – I am a mixture of both introvert and extrovert (your classic Libran). I find a lot of introverted people get judged by social people, as though there is something wrong with them for wanting to be on their own. I think sometimes social people can’t be on their own, and pushes these buttons. Each to their own and all that
Introverts are pretty cool people. Misunderstood in a world of extroverts, but cool.
At least in the school holidays you can have some lazy mornings, or well, lets just make it a day? That’s got to be one of my favourite things about the school holidays, that I don’t have to be anywhere most mornings.
That’s a new definition of introvert I haven’t heard before.
According to that definition I’m both an introvert and an extrovert. I’m energized by being around people and by being alone… but if I have too much of either, it can be a problem.
Thank god for me,then :-)……, Im a teacher, and I just love those kids. At the end of the long school holidays , I just want to be back at work, laughing and in the company of those little minds and personalities- You dread holidays…what to do with the kids- I ont think I have enough time with them…
But I cant wait for my home time- a bit of space, quiet and time to do my own thing…. go figure….
You would think I was an extrovert at work, but I know deep down, I really am an introvert..energised by my time at home , to do what I do best in the other time.
Many moons ago when I was a personality consultant (mostly educating workplaces on personality types to overcome conflict), we had a girl in one place who was bubbly and crazy but had everyone in tears when she explained her childhood as one of 6 kids, the other 5 and her parents were extroverts and her the sole introvert. She told how she had to climb trees and hide to get her me time in her crowded house and how nobody understood her. She explained how stressed and unhappy she was until she moved out and lived alone.
Doing the things that energise you are so important and from both sides, so often overlooked by mums. I’m an extrovert and you’d think is understand the need to recharge by being around people, but I so often forget.
Oh I hear you. Being touched too many times by too many people just makes me cranky. My poor kids have had to be told that I’m ‘low touch’ so they realise it’s not personal it’s just that I get exhausted by all the physical closeness. Leave me be to go to the library and not talk to anyone for a couple of hours and I’m a much nicer person.
My friend…
http://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/