INTROVERT: So I Married an Extravert

The day I learned I was an introvert, it was like the clouds opened up and a shining glow poured through and over me, lighting up everything around me in a warm glow, and everything finally made sense in my life.  And I lived happily ever after... Umm nope. Not even close.  It was about 12 years ago now, and sometimes I feel like I'm even more confused today than I was back then. I even wonder if I'd have been better off never knowing this about myself, living in a permanent state of exhaustion, and thinking I was just a bit lazy...  Realistically, knowing is better than not knowing in this case - in my opinion. There have been so many huge eye-opening discoveries along the way, and I am so much better at being able to understand my moods and my energy now. And I don't try to keep up with people who are quite clearly NOT introverts. Including the one I married 21 years ago.  To be honest, I often think it's been harder on him than it has me. He sees no reason to chan...

I’m trying to keep a promise to myself.  It shouldn’t be difficult, but it is.  It’s just to be myself.  How hard can it be?!! But literally decades of  -‘Fake it ‘til you make it!!’,  - trying to be an extravert,  - pushing myself to the point of exhaustion,  - keeping up with my extravert husbands socialising (historically by plying myself substantially with alcohol) has left me overwhelmed and almost devoid of energy most days.  So recently, when I made the nerve-wracking decision to do more writing and to (eek! 😳) share it more openly and honestly, as myself - I was surprised, after the initial flurry of gut-wrenching nerves about real people - who I might actually know! - reading my blog, that the feeling morphed into something else.  I realised I felt a huge sense of freedom.  Freedom from hiding behind the persona I’d spent over 40 years creating.  Freedom to speak out about things I’m passionate about - I’m not one for conf...

Hmm, not always true is it? I had a good friend tell me many years ago that once she turned 40, she didn't care what people thought of her any more. I found myself surprisingly then looking forward to turning 40. But my 40th came and went, and my consistent fear of what others thought of me and what I did or didn't do, stayed firmly front of mind. If anything, it got worse, for a while. I would worry about what I hadn't achieved in my life. About things in my past that I wished I could go back and change. Was I a 'good enough' wife and mum? What's the point of the work that I do? And of course, about whether I should pursue writing, which I'd wanted to do for a long, long time. I am so uncomfortable with confrontation, that the idea of saying or doing something that might offend someone actually makes me freeze, and do...nothing! Putting things off, procrastination, fear of failure. All of these were a daily part of my overthinking (covered in a previous ep...

  If I had a $ for every time someone told me to "stop being so sensitive " during my lifetime. Let’s just say, I’d be paying people to ghost-write this blog for me, or to at least edit the mistakes out of it🤣🤣! Jokes aside, it’s been a recurring theme, and - I can’t deny, sometimes I have been seriously over-reacting to situations, and can look back and completely see where the person was coming from.  How-ever..🤨 My high sensitivity is actually a bit of a superpower, and I’m very proud of it, so I get quite defensive of it. It’s almost like another personality (I have a few, as those who know me well would agree - many had no clue I was an introvert in my party years!😈🤘🎸), and she has helped me avoid making some pretty bad decisions in my life by putting up the red flags and blowing sirens in my ears! So when she tells me to jump, I can tend to ask how high, without question. My trust is that strong. The fight or flight response that my body has to certain situations ...

Recently, I've been trying to make time to respond and comment online, about issues I really care about.  It's not something that comes naturally to me.  Actually, that's not completely true - it comes naturally to me to have a strong opinion about things, to have something to say. But actually saying it - well, that is not so easy. I got to the point where I was so fed up of  spending ten minutes carving out the perfect response, the right words, not too much or too little, so as not to bore people,  then another oh - anywhere between 30 minutes, to a week or so - reading it, re-reading it, checking six times for mistakes,  thinking about who might read it, and how it might offend them, and whether I was prepared for any backlash or misunderstanding that might come from my intended response,  and whether I had considered my comments from all possible angles.  Sometimes I'd even go off down the rabbit hole doing research, to be open-minded about my opi...

I find holidays to be such a conflict for me, as an introvert. On the one hand, I am in desperate need of a break from the everyday 'stuff', but on the other hand, having no routine is quite stressful for me! If I had no-one else to think about, I'd likely be ok, but having a family to keep entertained and, well - alive, makes it a constant barrage of decisions to be made 🤪🤯. I wouldn't change my family for anything, but I do need to get better at giving myself the breaks that I need. Maybe I need to take time off during school terms, while Mr Extravert is at work - take a week off and just zone out staring out at my garden, until I actually get bored and then I can get on with my favourite pastimes - reading and writing. You can see from how infrequent this blog is, how often I manage to sit down and write. Not that the notion doesn't cross my mind, often. I'm also writing two books at the moment - started one of them in 2016, and could probably count on both...