substitute
New member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,601
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
I'm beginning to come out of my shell, I don't know what changed. But I think being forced to take care of issues by calling helped alot.
Yeah that was a big hurdle for me too, years ago, when I left home I had to confront the whole 'using the telephone' thing to get my shit together. I still really hate calling to sort bills and stuff but it's for a different reason now, I'm not shy any more it's just that the companies are incompetent and the call centre people are usually badly trained and it's just frustrating dealing with them lol
Though I will still say I'm an introvert because though I often feel fine now around large groups of people I find my self yawning about an hour or two in and just needing to find a quiet spot.
Yeah I don't mean to seem like I'm saying people can be turned into extraverts, I wasn't turned into one, I was one all the time, I wasn't avoiding people because of needing time alone to recharge my batteries and stuff, the time I spent alone didn't make me feel good at all and I was depressed all the time. I was only avoiding people because of social anxiety and now that anxiety is largely 'cured', socializing energizes me totally as it would've done before if not for the issues I had.
But even introverts need friends and people to relate to, in smaller numbers and shorter periods than extraverts, granted, but all the same, the principle of needing to overcome anxiety applies... if anything my story just goes to show that extraverts can be just as much victims of social anxiety and often have to go through similarly painful processes in order to be 'trained'
entropie - your story echoes my own in that it took a total breakdown and then the drive to 'come back' stronger, to give you the will and whatever, to push yourself 'out there'.