Introvert or Extrovert? Something of Both

Innie or outie.  Introvert or extrovert.  Hmm, I’m not sure that I’m either all the time.  One thing I’m certain of, I’m late with writing and posting WryteStuff assignments!  Takes me back to school days, although my reasons are different now.  I hated writing then, was absolutely lousy at it.  Hated school, let’s face it.  I failed most things, just didn’t shine anywhere.  To the world I was an introvert, a shy child who never opened her mouth.

The thing is, I always felt as if I was in prison.  I was sure I could shine if only somebody could give me a chance.  If only somebody could see me.  I didn’t feel like an introvert on the inside.  In fact it always puzzled me, how come I shut down when I’m with people?  Why can’t I do the things I’m somehow pretty sure I should be able to do?  Why can’t I ever think of anything to say?  It was horrible, I was afraid of everybody and terrified to ever be alone with anybody.  Even with people my own age – even children who were younger than me.

I went through periods of having a friend, but always I was the listener, I was the nice guy.  I never did the talking.  I learned how to pretend that I was cool with that.  But I wasn’t.  I wasn’t cool with anything.  It was bad enough being shy, but being so socially inadequate was torture.   And of course I presumed the problem was me.  So I understood why they all got sick of me and moved onto greener pastures.

The very worst part was these big dreams I had of becoming really good at playing the piano or singing, and later on at writing.  Some part of me was fine with dreaming, but another part of me was an arch tormentor who do you think you are?  Shame was my constant companion.  Never for a moment did I connect the prison I was in with all the stuff that was going on at home and how much I’d been persecuted and neglected.  And when I got molested at age 14 I guess the shame got embedded.  It was my fault.

I ran from home, town, country and continent as soon as I could and dashed around the world madly, much of it on a bicycle, trying to get out of my prison.  But wherever you go there you are.  I tried to give voice to that something in me longing to express itself but I couldn’t, the prison walls were too fortified.  I didn’t realize that actually I’d erected them to keep the world out.  I also didn’t realize that the prison was in my own head, in the way I’d been parented, in the way I had internalized not getting enough love and protection.

Fast forward to today.  I’ve been at absolute zero twice, but the last time I stopped in my tracks in a way.  Stopped and began facing myself and the truth of what had been done to me.  The truth of the conclusions I had drawn about myself, and how that had affected my behavior.  I got into therapy with somebody who could show me the workings of my mind, how the prison was constructed, how my self esteem and entitlement were eroded, and how I made it all about there being something wrong with me.  My therapist was the first person to actually see me and to tell me that that sense I had right deep inside me – that I could succeed at something – was a true sense, it wasn’t a self-indulgent fool’s dream.

Slowly my therapist helped me peel away the layers of my conditioned self so that the natural me could breath and come to life.  I began to play the piano and to sing.  And my writing took off.  I had words pouring out of me.  I designed and sewed my own clothes, I painted.  I learned how to express myself verbally, how to let myself feel the rawness of my emotions and express them as powerfully as I felt them in my own private space.  I came to know my power.

Slowly my shyness has dissipated and my fear of people diminished, as I’ve gained confidence in myself and begun to see my creativity take shape right before my eyes.  I knew it.  I knew this was real.  Now when people meet me they don’t see me as an introvert.  But the thing is, as much as I’m relieved and happy to be able to connect with people without fear and without imploding, there’s still a part of me that needs to come home and be alone and have my own space with nobody else in it.  Just me.

Does that make me a partial introvert, partial extrovert?  I don’t know.  I know that to some extent my childhood environment, the society I was born into, the religious dogma I was exposed to, and the things that happened to me all contributed to making me shut off from the world.  I think I became introverted as a defense measure.  I’m at least partially healed from that, which has allowed the part of me to emerge that needs to express in a big way and connect in a big-hearted way.  And I know that my healing will carry on for the rest of my life.

Because that’s what life is really, isn’t it?  It’s a healing process.  I do know that I'm more balanced than I've ever been.  On a good day, that is, let's keep it in perspective here! More than anything I’m relieved that my earliest perceptions of myself have been to some extent vindicated.  I wasn’t born to never be seen or heard…  I wasn’t born just to be an introvert.  I was born to find a way to be me.