hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on introversion
social anxiety or avoidance i'm your host dr dawn elise snipes
there's often a lot of debate in the uh general public about whether someone is
avoidant or quote anti-social whether they have social anxiety or whether they're introverted
or whether someone who's an introvert is actually quote anti-social so let's clear
up some terms here anti-social clinically is a personality disorder that's characterized
by someone who manipulates others to their own gain and does not care if they hurt
other people and has no empathy so that is not what we're talking about here
avoidance or someone who does not care to be social may occur as a result of attachment
trauma and that attachment trauma may have taught them from their prior experiences
those people were not trustworthy those people were not safe to be around so they may
expect that from other people in their present and in their future they may not have the energy
to deal with other people because they've been so disappointed they don't want to be hurt anymore
so they wall everybody off okay that's different than introversion now you can have somebody
who's an introvert and avoidant you can have somebody that's an introvert with social anxiety
you can have somebody who's an introvert who has avoidant attachment and social anxiety you can
have all these in a combination but introversion the point is introversion is very very different
and it gets a bad rap introversion is one end of the temperament spectrum you've got introversion
and extroversion and then you've got somewhere in between most people are somewhere in between
they have characteristics of both but they may predominate more on more to one end than the other
behaviors also can vary depending on the situation and the person's current
stress levels for example i can handle things that are outside of my preferred temperament
requirements a lot better if i am well rested and if i'm not stressed out if i'm stressed out then i
want to be in environments that are more nurturing or conducive to my temperament so let's talk about
some of these things introverts in my clinical experience may be highly sensitive people and
hsps highly sensitive people when they're around other people they are so empathic that it can be
exhausting it's not that they don't like other people but being around other people is draining
for them being around other people for extroverts is energizing so that's one of the big differences
it's not that introverts don't like other people being around other people can be very draining
so it could be because they're hsps and it's exhausting you got that one or it could be because
they need to exert extra effort to understand other people you know they are well aware of
what's going on inside them but it takes more energy to focus outside of their own head on other
people and pay attention to what's going on with them so there are two different reasons that being
around other people may be exhausting but for enter introverts often that's the case it's not
that they don't like other people they just have to do it in small bits my daughter's an introvert
and she will very matter of factly tell me after we've been out somewhere when she
was younger we'd come home from shopping or or what have you and she'd go up to a room and say
far too much extroverting for today i need to i need to decompress and she'd go to her room
okay you know as long as you're aware of what your needs are and what your limits are that's fine
introverts tend to be great listeners listening doesn't take as much energy as
interacting and my stepfather is very much an introvert and he would be as my mother would
say a man of few words he didn't have a lot to contribute he didn't spend a whole lot of time
thinking about okay what do i have to say to this and you know how can i engage
in an interactive discussion that wasn't really important to him he was interested in what other
people had to say and he cared about what they had to say and he wanted to hear it
but he wasn't necessarily interested in getting involved in every discussion
now i'm going to jump ahead for a second a lot of introverts do like in-depth discussions about
things that they're interested in and again they often find small talk tedious so if we would start
to talk about politics or something that he was interested in he would open right up but things
that he didn't have a lot of knowledge on didn't have a lot to contribute he didn't feel the need
to really interact so some people would say you know well does he not like us why is he not
interacting and it's important to recognize that for him he just didn't see the point if he had
something to say he would and the rest of the time he wanted to hear what other people had to say
people who are introverts often tend to get exhausted in large groups they can do
it and sometimes they even enjoy it but some some of your social introverts if you will
enjoy going out and being with people but in small doses and they'll go to the football game or
they'll go to play poker with friends or they'll go to things but then they need to come home
and have quiet time or decompression time because being in large groups of people can be exhausting
some introverts prefer being alone or in small groups my husband's an introvert and he
has no problem with solitary activities he can go weeks you know um
quarantine did not bother him a bet bit he was like oh this is great i don't have to interact
with people um and and that's fine with him he doesn't mind people he likes some people
but he also does not mind being alone if we do get together he prefers small groups
you know a double date for example as opposed to going to a party with 50 people
introverts often have a few very close friends and they know their friends deeply
whereas extroverts tend to have a lot of acquaintances you know they know everybody
in the neighborhood the introvert may know one person it's not because they don't like
their neighbors but because it takes so much energy to engage with other people
and because their idea of interaction is often one of quality and depth it takes a lot of energy
to develop that so they don't have the energy to develop develop that with the whole neighborhood
introverts often dislike interruptions and chaos they get focused and they tend to like to maintain
their focus if there are interruptions or a lot of chaos going on around them
it can feel exhausting because their train of thought is is getting interrupted a lot
introverts often know a lot about a few things versus a little about a lot of things so think
about college instead of taking a survey of psychology or a survey of criminology or something
they would this would be like taking abnormal psych 101 102 and 103. they want to know the
deep dive on things and this is again why they may not enjoy conversing superficially about a bunch
of stuff but if they can talk in depth about something for a lot of introverts that is very
enticing for them now this isn't true of all introverts remember i said that
most people are a combination of introvert and extrovert characteristics but it is important
if you are in a relationship with an introvert to also recognize these things it's not that
they can't be in in large groups um even if they prefer small groups but they need to plan ahead
knowing your temperament and preferences can help you choose environments that are more nurturing
and plan effectively to reduce or minimize distress in your less preferred situations
if you have to do something that is stressful you know you don't like
being in large groups or especially for a long time then planning ahead
i had a conference last year and my husband was very integral in facilitating
everything else that went on during the conference besides the teaching which is what i was doing
but that was a whole lot of extroverting for him and at the end of the day i knew it was important
for him to be able to just come back to the cabin and have some wind down time because that was just
mentally and physically completely exhausting and he recognized that too so we didn't plan on going
out and doing you know exploration or something after the each night after the conference
because um i was tired from talking all day and he was exhausted from extroverting
introverts can be the yin to the extroverts yang introverts can be balanced out extroverts
we work well together you know the extrovert may learn a lot about a lot of different things and
the introvert says okay pick one you want to know a lot in depth and i'll learn about that
so that's interesting now for example i am i identify as an extrovert
however i'm one of those people i want to learn everything there is to know about fill in the
blank i started organic gardening i wanted to know everything there was to know about
organic gardening so i ordered books and i read and i read and i talked and i went to classes
when i had my son who was a micro preemie i wanted to know everything there was to know about
parenting premature infants so again i ordered at that point there were only like six books on the
topic so that was a pretty easy easy go through but it is important to recognize that people
with different temperaments can't actually do really well in relationships if you recognize the
benefits of the other person's temperament or you recognize what the other person needs and
you meet somewhere in the middle um introverts can have social anxiety but not all people
with social anxiety are introverts there are extroverts that also have social anxiety so
again it's really important not to con confuse temperament with diagnosis and temperament is
something that's relatively innate it's like me having brown eyes it's just the way the way
i'm wired the way i'm built and there's nothing wrong with one type of temperament or the other
it's a matter of figuring out
how where do you fit where what part of the puzzle do you fit in and where are you most comfortable