How to get over being drained by other people?

[the state i am in]

notice what needs of yours aren't being met when you are around others. notice your own expectations. find something to build on and try to make the most of that. check in with yourself more frequently, so that you can recognize what you are feeling and experiencing and let go of things that do not serve you.

sometimes even just drawing your attention back down into your body can slow you down, especially when anxiety is one of the primary drains. if you feel like you are not great at relating to other people, their experiences and emotions, and if you are overly concerned about how they might be responding to you internally that you lose your own anchor, that is simply exhausting. drawing your attention to your body can help you relax and still the mind. it can also help provide better access to your own emotional self, which can in turn help you relax into a more socially efficient, relationally intelligent way of being with others.

if you don't know what you're feeling, it's really difficult to put communication with others in any kind of meaningful context. then you can get stuck trying to anticipate and be ahead of everything that could happen all the time, rather than flowing with and responding to the other person (and to yourself and your own needs) more effortlessly.

 

[WhoCares]

My feeling is change neither;
express the real strange eccentricities of your self fully
and if you are true to yourself you will (slowly! over time...) attract like-minded people!

I'm doing that, so far no takers.

 

[VagrantFarce]

It helps to recognise your own tendency to detach and think about other things very intently. That's essentially why you feel drained, your attention is elsewhere. Over time you recognise this tendency as kind of silly, you learn to take a breath, realise that you don't really have to think about this right now, and you're all relaxed again.

 

[Totenkindly]

Meh, I find myself drained because interacting with people drains me. I'm trying to provide them with cues meant to help them feel like we're connecting, spending energy putting myself in their shoes, offering certain words and body cues so that they can pick up on my investment, etc.

Detaching and thinking can actually be invigorating for me. All that body overhead? Don't need it. I can shut it all down. My mind goes anywhere without much effort, it's a minimal amount of energy.

I suppose one can over-invest in recreating the wheel and solving dumb problems to a minute level that don't need to be analyzed, but that's not typically where my energy drain goes. I kind of shudder any time the phone rings and I have to decide whether to answer it.

 

[Azure Flame]

If someone drains me I cut them out of my life.

But I'm an extrovert so Idunno if we share anything in this situation.

 

[zago]

I quickly get drained if the people I'm around aren't talking about something I'm interested in. 2 recent anecdotes:

1. Last night I was hearing 2 friends that I'm not all that close to talk about how the remodeling of their bathroom. This topic was losing me fast, and I could tell they were quite happy to talk about it, so I thrust myself into the conversation by asking if the husband had seen American Hustle. He hadn't, but I thought he might have, and the conversation shifted toward that. Similar occurrences happened a few times over the course of several hours. I can somewhat navigate conversations such that they hold my interest.

2. I don't know how it came up, but I was hanging out with 2 of my (many) divorced-women-in-their-40s friends and the one I'm closer told the other I don't believe in god. She turned to me and said, "you don't?!" At this point I had the option to try to minimize the topic and try not to offend or challenge anyone, or two just fucking go with how I actually feel about it. For my own sake, I knew I had to choose the second option, because in the past I have seen how constantly appeasing people like that just makes me hate them and keeps me distant. So I said, "FUCK no" and proceeded to challenge this woman's religious views. After 5-10 minutes she said I had totally killed her buzz (she had smoked a joint) and she decided it was time for her to head home. I had been enjoying the conversation, but I think it was too mental for her. I say, oh well. I'd rather have had that happen than to pretend to be the timid and polite guy for the sake of people's feelings about their dumb beliefs, which I have done all too often in my life.

If I can't change the topic towards one that I can deal with, the important thing is for me to find something else like my phone to read off of or to escape. Thanksgiving was the last time I was unable to do this, and I was truly miserable. 2 hours of my parents and their friends sitting around talking about the process of buying a new car. I couldn't believe it. I was the only one in the room utterly bored by the conversation, apparently.

 

[WhoCares]

I tend to just stare off into space then allow my body to wander off at some point. Its rarely noticed by others. It helps that my social life is confined to my job which is a series of repetitive tasks so I can wander off under the guise of ticking the next box. Thankfully most of the people I work with find each other fascinating while I find most of them boring as all get out, the problem for me practically solves itself.

 

[Ene]

Limited exoposure when possible.

 

[Coriolis]

Detaching and thinking can actually be invigorating for me. All that body overhead? Don't need it. I can shut it all down. My mind goes anywhere without much effort, it's a minimal amount of energy.

Same for me. It's like I can finally relax, and don't have to keep putting up a front.

1. Last night I was hearing 2 friends that I'm not all that close to talk about how the remodeling of their bathroom. This topic was losing me fast, and I could tell they were quite happy to talk about it, so I thrust myself into the conversation by asking if the husband had seen American Hustle. He hadn't, but I thought he might have, and the conversation shifted toward that. Similar occurrences happened a few times over the course of several hours. I can somewhat navigate conversations such that they hold my interest.

2. I don't know how it came up, but I was hanging out with 2 of my (many) divorced-women-in-their-40s friends and the one I'm closer told the other I don't believe in god. She turned to me and said, "you don't?!" At this point I had the option to try to minimize the topic and try not to offend or challenge anyone, or two just fucking go with how I actually feel about it. For my own sake, I knew I had to choose the second option, because in the past I have seen how constantly appeasing people like that just makes me hate them and keeps me distant. So I said, "FUCK no" and proceeded to challenge this woman's religious views. After 5-10 minutes she said I had totally killed her buzz (she had smoked a joint) and she decided it was time for her to head home. I had been enjoying the conversation, but I think it was too mental for her. I say, oh well. I'd rather have had that happen than to pretend to be the timid and polite guy for the sake of people's feelings about their dumb beliefs, which I have done all too often in my life.

I can relate to all this quite well. When I am willing to change the topic to make it more interesting, I usually take it deeper. So with bathroom remodelling, I might turn the discussion toward interior design, pros and cons of DIY vs. hiring out, even modern consumerism/priorities. In discussions like the one on God, I will usually do what you did, or see if I can steer the conversation away without ever mentioning my real position. This is more just to see whether I can do it than to hide the actual answer.