The Extrovert Becomes Much, Much More Introverted

Lessons in Healing

Photo by Arun Anoop on Unsplash

I am extroverted. I am: Social, outgoing. I like people and always have. I like the energy and buzz of being around people.

That hasn’t changed. I doubt it will.

But—I am becoming more and more introverted the more that I heal. The more that I am calm. The longer I am sober and regulated, my central nervous system.

I used to say I tipped the scales heavily as to how far I fell on the spectrum of extroversion. But I do things now that surprise me—

Go home and put on my super comfy pajamas on a Friday night, when it’s raining. Away from people.

Quite frankly—

I don’t like people as much as I used to.

People are the absolute best, but they’re also the absolute worst.

I also know that I’m healing because I used to use people and their support, communication and emotions to regulate mine and my feelings of self worth.

I spend a lot of time alone now.

That used to daunt me, scare me. And quite frankly, it kept me in conversation with friends and guys that I now realize I am not all that interested in talking to, people with whom I have little in common with.

I am pretty perceptive and intuitive and I see a lot of masking. A lot of performing in conversation. Projections, over-compensating for insecurities.

It’s exhausting. It’s sad.

It doesn’t fill up my cup the way that it used to.

I like books. I like the older generation. I like simple and less TikTok.

My students make me anxious and tense because—bless their hearts—they’re so dopamine dependent and neurochemically altered and addled, that most can’t get through a class without constantly flipping on their phones, or texting, or listening to music, or stymying with shaking their legs, etc.

I scan. I pay attention. I see a lot.

It’s exhausting.

Teaching has always been about performance. But now, I feel that I have to be extra enthusiastic, exuberant and monitoring, gauging, doing a fine dance to capture and retain their attention so that I grasp those precious few minutes that I have to get their attention, to keep it, to try to teach them something.

At the risk of sound like an old fuddy duddy, it’s exhausting. It’s not what it used to be. It’s less fun.

It wears down my social batteries in ways that it never used to—

I am less extroverted than I used to be, but it’s growth—

I fill up my own up now and with the right folx around me.