Introverts & Love & Laughter

 I joined a subreddit for introverts and I'm here for the humor. I am what my friends call a randomly social introvert. If I like you, if I love you, I'll come out of my shell for you. But even then, I need my space. 

The late (and wonderfully funny) Patrice O'Neal was the male me. My last husband was not the best but I loved that he understood me. Take it, Patrice:

I will probably never be in another relationship. Unless I find my Patrice.

Peace

--Free

Introverts Unite! (Separately)

  Ran across this a while back and thought "Yeah!"

My people!

I'm not sure why my being a home-body-introverted-loner bothers people but I'm tired of being confronted about it.

The kinds of pouty-passive-aggressively rude things I hear when I just don't have the energy to be social:

"You never want to go anywhere." (Not true. I just don't want to go where you want to go or I don't want to go right now.)

"Why don't you want to...?" (Why do I always have to explain? I'm not asking why you do want to go.) ~see how repetitive this gets?~

"It's just for a couple of hours." (I don't want to go. Not for 5 seconds, 5 minutes, an hour. I don't want to go. Period.)

"There won't be many people there." (Many or any. Doesn't matter. I don't want to go. Maybe we can talk one-on-one for while, without an audience or props? Let's try that sometime.)

Or, not too long ago, I got a super-heated and extremely rude passive-aggressive swipe:

"That's because you never get out of the damn house!" (So what exactly is your problem with that?)

Yeah, that made me want to go hang out with the person and be social for real. Guilt me on something and see how fast I want even more to do the exact opposite of what you want me to do. Go ahead. Try it. I'll wait.

I am beginning to think I am not the problem here...

I recently started coming up with retorts to use for specific people and situations. I plan to start calling people on their traits. I know a lot of super-extroverted people and co-dependent, can't-move-without-their-sidekick people. I know people who use the Lord's name in vain so much that I get sore from all the cringing I do. I know people who have recreational habits that I don't like being around. Most people have no idea how gracious I am by not screaming all this at them while they are judging my loner personality.

The problem for extroverts is that we are, of course, outnumbered in social settings. We get called "wallflowers" or "stuck up" when we can't summon the energy or will to put on a socially-expected public facade and mingle, muggle, and do the social snuggles.

Also, like some introverts, I send mixed messages. I'm not overly shy and I can talk someone's ear off - if it's the right person and the right subject. Otherwise, I am faking interest, being Instagram-sincere, and parroting canned phrases to indicate engagement. And it's freaking tiring. It's stressful and draining and sometimes leaves me feeling unduly resentful.

I think that the reason people can be irritated by introverts is that they misunderstand the behaviors. Maybe they think we don't like their company (we do, in small bits and at the right time). Maybe they think we don't appreciate their personality (we do, in small bits and at the right time). And maybe it's because we clash with their social and emotional cycles (our 5 minutes of chattiness runs into their constant chattiness or our need to be introspective runs into their need to be, well, them).

Whatever the case, I'm putting my foot down. I have put up with people's harmless (but very irritating crap) because of love, friendship, or social grace. I've listened to the snide remarks about how "anti-social" (aka: being a witch-with-a-b) I am. However, from here on out, when someone tries to call me out or guilt me on my loner traits, I'm going to flip the mirror and let them know what I think about their irritating traits.

I'm over this and it's time to handle it.

This irritating but funny extrovert here...

My best friend and I were talking about all this the other day. She too is an introvert and, like me, she struggles with depression and social anxiety. She mused that her depression is always worse after having to deal with people who don't "get" her and her personality. I told her that I tend to stay away from people when my depression is worse because they sure don't make it better.

To be honest, I am very sensitive and find it easy to nosedive into depression at the slightest perceived wrong word or action. I don't mind about dings from strangers who don't know my life or struggles, but when someone who knows me insults or hurts me, I shut them down for a while. I realize that about myself. If I feel slighted, my first emotional bandaid is the deepest solitude and extreme avoidance. I don't want to willingly subject my balance of sanity to your thoughtless behavior until I know that I won't lash out in defense. Children learn quickly to avoid hot stoves; I likewise avoid certain social burns.

Besides, being around even the people you really like or really love can be draining at times. Here's the thing I want to tell them: My introverted personality is not about your extroverted personality. You should know me by now. And if you like or love me, you should know me really well. Don't make me go all Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes on you. Explaining is even more tiring...

Drains faster around some people

For those people who wonder what introverts do with their time - and I will speak only for this introvert because we are all different in many ways. Since I only feel fairly well and "normal" for about 3, maybe 4 days a week, my useful loner time is really important to me. My life revolves around my health so... Here is what a good day can be like.

• Cleaning - because things pile up easily in a small space and I find that I feel mentally better in a clean space.
• Feeding and caring for my plants. My plants are a huge part of my mental health therapy. They don't talk or make noise; they just radiate peace and calm and the complexity of the beauty of God's creation. Nature is really stunning to me.
• Blogging here or at Free & Faith or Lotta Laughs. (I have been neglecting the 3 or 4 other blogs because they are too much to keep track of on any kind of regular basis. I can just barely keep up with this one!)
• Reading my Bible and meditating on it. If not for my faith, I don't know where I would be during all these ups and downs of the past 10 or so years.
• Trying to write. I kind of gave up on setting goals for my writing. I can't seem to carry lines of thoughts long enough to put down and pick up where I am in a plot. Now, I just write as therapy and self-enjoyment. (I've been thinking of getting back into knitting or crocheting but don't feel very confident about patterns and designs.)
• To keep my mind as sharp as I can, I check out a lot of adult-learning sites. I even bought a basic Maths workbook once to review algebra. It was a nightmare.
• Sitting and watching this kind of video to calm my anxiety. I have a whole playlist. It's what I use my TV for most. This underwater theme from the Mario game is my long-time favorite music to relax too when I get super anxious. Soothing stuff.
• Preparing meals to last for a few days or a week - depending on how I am feeling or on my budget. Trying new ways to eat healthily is an ongoing quest for this chunky gal. Right now, I'm working on using cayenne, ginger, turmeric, and black rice to boost my mood, immune system, and get my weight in check.

But the one thing I do, no matter how I am feeling, is thinking. When I am out of commission, I can spend hours just thinking about almost anything: life and circumstances; blessings and struggles,; why people do this or that, or what someplace or the other looks like; if turmeric is really all that beneficial to our health and how in the world can I get more of it into my daily diet because the stuff is not that tasty on just any old thing; why it is that plants are so mentally healing; whatever happened to the girl in fifth grade who was so pretty but always looked so sad; what did my mother mean that time 30 years ago when she said I reminded her of Sister Carruth; why I sometimes can't remember my phone number (and still can't remember the house number) but have the main lyrics from "The Crawdad Song" stuck in my head after hearing it the first time when I was about 12 when Daddy sang it to me...

And I heard the Crawdad tune a few weeks ago while re-watching some "Andy Griffith Show" episodes on Prime.

Forgive the Andy Griffith stuff. I get on a kick of watching oldie shows and that one is in current rotation. 

I like the TV show version also

And how cool is it that the families of these men can always go back and look at them through the different ages of their lives?

Anyway.

My best friend has a line she sometimes tosses out when I ask if she plans to go out shopping or anywhere else: "Nope. Can't do people today." Let me tell you: Instacart is our thing!

The worse thing about some extroverts is how petty they can be. Just because you don't like being out and about all the freaking time, they get offended and will exclude you to prove a point. It's as though they are triumphantly (and childishly) saying, "See, you do need people!" 

Here is my triumphant (and almost-but-not-quite-as-childish) reply:

"Of course, we do, you ninny. We just don't need the round-the-clock, in our space, co-dependent, unnecessary, bodyguard-like company to feel okay with life. If that's your thing, have at it. It's not my thing. I put up with your personality needs so why don't you try returning the favor?"

I am, as you can probably tell, feeling some kind of way about this right now...

So, for all my fellow introverts out there, I am just asking the rest of you to stop and think before you go all judgemental and critical of us. We are who we are and you are who we are. Let's learn to get along better - but you know, with you over there and me over here.

Peace

--Free

Fear & Fragility in the Age of COVID

 This has been a heck of a week. I go out to dinner - me, the hermit queen. I go out ONE TIME... 

So I went out with my family for a bit of dinner last Friday and it was nice. The place we went to was taking all the safety measures - lots of distance between tables, staff wearing masks, the whole bit. Plus, there were only 2 parties in the entire place. My family of 3 was at a table on one side of the large dining room and another, larger party was on the other. In between serving us, we never saw the staff.

We had a decent lunch and it was fun to be chatting and hanging out where we didn't have to clear away or wash dishes. Afterward, we went for a little drive around the lake. Then I went home. I was out of my apartment for less than 2 hours. Maybe an hour and 40 minutes. It was just enough time to enjoy my family and not too much for my anxiety to kick in.

That was Friday afternoon. By Saturday evening, I wasn't feeling great. I felt hot and dried out, then cold and clammy. The skin on my belly felt so hot at one point, it scared me. I never get fevers. I think I had one once when I was in the hospital with sarcoidosis.  

I had been feeling so icky that I had put my computer on the bed so I could do my Bible reading without getting up. I stopped everything and ordered a thermometer online.

And then I slept. I think I must have slept from that Saturday off and on until my family called to see if I was coming to dinner at their house. They hadn't gotten my message about not feeling well. And that is scary. Scary to think that my messages were getting missed. Great. So no Easter dinner with the family for me.  I had cold medicine in an emergency kit so I took some and carried bottled water, a roll of tissue and some baby wipes back to bed with me.

I slept through the usual family text messages we send for holidays. When I missed one from Arizona, one of my brothers there called to check on me. I was feeling better. Must have been all the sleep. 

After lectures about COVID and vaccines from my worried brother, I went back to sleep. And I slept clean through until Monday around 10 when the mailman knocked. My thermometer was here. And I wasn't feeling so great. 

Other than my sarcoid and the meds I take for it, I don't get super sick. I get every cold that comes within a hundred yards of our town but I don't get sick the way I felt sick this time. The hot-dry-cold-clammy-chilled-burning up.... That worried me but I knew I hadn't lost my sense of taste because I was sure tasting the cough drops I had.  I was too wiped out to Google for COVID symptoms. 

I waited for the thermometer to arrive and when it did, I was grateful it was easy to figure out. It's simple and easy to read. I was in no mood for figuring things out.

From the memory function, I know that my temp ran from 98.1 to 99.6 to an even 100. And, as I said, I don't get fevers. I don't think I've ever gotten past 98.5.

At the time, I didn't appreciate the helpful frowny-face that the thermometer displays for high temps. It was still smiling at above 98 but started scowling for 100 degrees.

This is the thing about living alone. You get used to dealing with your anxiety and nerves on your own on a daily basis. I have felt unwell and not worried before because I knew what was wrong and I knew it would pass. I get slightly ill once a week from meds. I sometimes have problems with my balance. I know what to do in those cases. Drink plenty of fluids for the weekly sickness and when I get unsteady on my feet, I sit or lay down for long periods. No big. But this... This was like a regular old nasty flu bug.

Me: no unusual shortness of breath & no coughing

I didn't want to worry my family so I just kept telling them that I had a bad cold and was resting up. But at one point, I scared myself when I couldn't come out of the chills. I texted my SIL that I would go to the clinic if I didn't feel better soon.

Spoiler: I survived. I started feeling better this morning. I was able to get up and make toast and tea. I still don't have the energy to trust standing in the shower (as badly as I need one!) but I have been up and on my feet. I took out my trash. I just ordered some things from the store - soup, bread, peanut butter, more cold meds, and some coconut water to help re-hydrate. I'm still staying extra-isolated. I don't want to come in contact with anyone for at least another couple of weeks. Just in case. I'm not seeing my family and when I get groceries, I have the delivery left outside my door. Just. In. Case. From what I understand, 20 days is a safe period of isolation. No problem here.

I'm just ranting a little here. I guess I want to commiserate with all my other Living Single singles. Now that we are living in the age of this superbug virus, life feels a little more fragile. Or at least it does for me.

Just so you all know, I am not afraid of dying. I think I've said that here before. Being dead doesn't bother me because I won't stay dead. It's the whole "getting dead" part that doesn't sound fun.

Anyway.

I am back. I think. While I am isolating, I have plenty of backed-up reviews to do. I have been saving things up for a couple of months so... 

For now, I am happy to be able to sit up and focus on something other than feeling icky.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: I am publishing this post a few days after writing it. I had one day when the fatigue came back for a brief visit. Now I am back to my usual run-of-the-mill fatigue and, boy, I won't complain about it so much anymore!