Manic Depressive Illness: A guide to Caring for Introverts

I stumbled across this on facebook and thought it would be great to share on this blog, especially after my last post. This is definitely a great list and it really does represent the introvert.

(http://www.facebook.com/TheIntrovertEntrepreneur)

The following is my response to this chart on facebook, I thought I should re-post it on this blog, as an extension/continuation of my last post:

“What makes me happy is that, introversion is becoming a popular topic, for the longest time introverts were seen as “abnormal,” but with the increase in memoirs, blogs and discussion, introversion is slowly being accepted. What I hope is that introverts will no longer have to hide their nature and act like extroverts. This is something I have struggled with most of my life.

For the longest time I convinced myself I wasn’t introverted-I pushed myself in school, I did pr work for the football team at whittier college, I worked for president of the school, I worked at a labor union, I was a front desk agent at a hotel, I worked in politics and I also did telemarketing. Each of these jobs required me to be extroverted, to be the most vocal, outgoing person you could meet. The problem was that when I got home I was so drained and so depressed that my mental stability began to crumble.

To compensate, I started smoking weed and using pain killers because they provided me with the ability to become extroverted- to be able to make new friends, conduct presentations in front of hundreds of people, talk to random strangers and present myself as this alpha extrovert.

As you can most likely see, this did not end very well. In fact, it go so bad that I ended up in a psych ward/detox. I have finally realized that I am not an extrovert. It has taken me months upon months, to accept that fact. And what worries me, is that so many other introverts are going through same struggles.”

I hope this  makes sense, I’m about to fall over from exhaustion. It might be 6:53am, but to me it’s my nighttime. In an effort to avoid contact with other people, I stay up all night and sleep during the day. I’ve been doing this for a few months now, and unfortunately I have become used to this schedule. Although I have made a lot of progress, I’m still scared to be around other people. It really drives me nuts because I hate being alone.

I hope you are all doing well,

Dave.

The Confusing Life of an Introvert & Why it is so Dangerous to Force Ourselves to Become Extroverts

For the longest time, I tried to convince myself I was an extrovert.  In high school, I talked with everyone. I didn’t have many friends, but I had hundreds of acquaintances. Every day I would walk onto my high school campus and talk with as many people as I could. I would shake their hands, ask them how they were doing, what they were studying and what their future plans were. I loved the feeling of acceptance and the fact that I could “relate” with most of my classmates. It was an amazing rush, to be acknowledged by everyone. In fact by the time I graduated, I knew almost everyone on campus. However, there was a major problem.

I was really suffering inside.

By the time I got home, I was so mentally drained that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I would go to my room and spend hours and hours by myself.  And that was the problem, I was always alone. It didn’t matter how many hands I shook, or how friendly I was to everyone- in “reality” no one at school really cared about me. When school was over, I would be alone. No one ever called me, no one ever asked me to go to a party or to study with them, or go to a movie or to a fair. Yes I had two friends, but even they ended up leaving me.  By the time I was a sen,or in high school I had no friends.  When school ended, David was just another loner who everyone ignored. I know that life is a two-way street, and that I could have called some of classmates- but the problem was that, I was introverted. I was scared to talk on the phone, I was scared of going to parties, I was scared of  ”hanging” out with other people. However, I had convinced myself that the reason why I was “alone” was because no one cared about me.

(http://barbaralayla.blogspot.com/2010/07/misunderstanding-introverts-part-one.html)

As I noted above, that is not true. Unfortunately, I had convinced myself that I was an extrovert, but in “reality” I was an introvert. It has taken me years and countless fuck ups to realize that I’m an introvert. In college, I tried to make myself the life of the party. I started drinking heavily, I went to parties, I was “friends” with the football team and I always had alcohol with me. The problem was, I did not fit in. The football players made fun of me, messed with my head and treated me like utter shit when I was really drunk. But I didn’t care, I thought that meant I was part of the “football” group. It got so bad that I almost ended killing myself.

(warning the following is very graphic and might contain triggers) There was this party that I attended. I was already drunk when I got there, but I was so desperate to fit in that I started drinking even more. There were no clean cups, so I just picked up a random red cup that had been tossed on the ground. I went to one of the kegs and poured myself a drink, and then another, and then another, and then another. It was around that time someone walked up to me with a gallon of tequila. I was feeling “daring” at that moment, so I took the bottle and started chugging. About a minute later I stopped. I had consumed half the bottle. The other guy was impressed, but told me to be careful. I really didn’t care because I was having “fun.”

I stumbled towards the backyard and found a group of people drinking a bottle of jagermeister. I was intrigued, so I grabbed the bottle and started chugging. It was horrible tasting- warm, thick and sweet. But I just kept drinking until I finished it. Handing the bottle back to the group, I stumbled towards the house. Once inside, I tried dancing, but all I ended up doing was falling over. One of my “friends” came over to me, lauged at me for being so drunk and tore my shirt and punched me. I was pissed, but I was so drunk I  couldn’t do anything about it. So I walked outside and found another group to “hang out” with. Someone in the group slapped my back, I stumbbled a bit

and then I found myself in my bed covered in vomit. It was the next morning.

I had a splitting headache. Pushing myself up, I realized that I had vomit all over me. My sink was filled with vomit, my shoes were filled vomit and half my room was destroyed. At that point I  realized I had blacked out. It was about 10 pm when the black out started and I woke up around 9:30 am the next morning. I don’t know how I survived that night. Not only did I have alcohol poisoning, but I vomited while sleeping and luckily I didn’t choke on it.

(http://pleated-jeans.com/2011/11/07/extrovert-vs-introvert/)

This was one of the worst experiences of my life. In fact this is the first time I have written or thought about it in 7 years. As a result of my desperate attempt to be extroverted, I made a complete ass of myself, destroying most of my “friendships” because of my actions that night, as well as almost killing myself. As a result of the psychological trauma I had experienced, I never went out again. In fact, I spent the rest of that school year in my dorm room (I was in a single), only leaving to go to class or to get food.

Unfortunately, this was the first of many tramatic experiences I put myself through, because I was still convinced that I was an extrovert. In fact, one of the main reasons I started abusing pain killers was because they allowed me to become an extrovert. It truly amazes me, how desperate I was to be an extrovert. And I know I am not the only one. There are a tremendous amount of introverts in this world and if we are too survive, we need to be better understood. Yes, there has been a lot more attention placed on the plight of introverts, but that is not enough. Our world, unfortunately has been built for extroverts and until we can accept the fact that not everyone is an extrovert and that introverts are not deficient, maybe we can finally start healing the psychological wounds.

I want to end this post with a few questions: How many of you are introverts? And what has your life been like? (experiences, struggles, addictions etc)  Or how many of you are extroverts and what is your opinions of introverts?

That is all I can write at the moment, but I hope you are all doing well

Dave.

P.s I am looking for guest bloggers, so if you are intrested please email me at: manicdepressiveblog@yahoo.com I am also interested in writing guest blog posts for other sites.