For all those Little Smokyites who said, "she's not all there..." Ten Myths About Introverts

Myth # 1  Introverts don't like to talk.

This is not true!  Introverts just don't talk unless they have something to say.  They hate small talk ["Hate" is too strong of a word.  I'm going to say "very much dislike"].  Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won't shut up for days.  [Yep, my thing is science and non-theism, although the non-theism thing is kind of a topic that is no longer that interesting.  But it does mean I can have a real conversation with someone of like mind].

Myth #2 Introverts are shy.

Shyness has nothing to do with being an introvert.  Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact.  They don't interact for the sake of interacting.  If you want to talk to an introvert, just start talking.  Don't worry about being polite.

Myth #3 Introverts are rude.

Introverts often don't see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries.  They want everyone to just be real and honest.  Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting (SO exhausting!)

Myth #4 Introverts don't like people.

On the contrary, introverts intensely value the few friends they have.  They can count their close friends on one hand.  If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life [yep!].  Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you're in!

Myth #5 Introverts don't like to go out in public.

Nonsense!  Introverts just don't like to go out in public FOR AS LONG as other folks.  They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities.  They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don't need to be there for long to "get it".  They're ready to go home, recharge, and process it all.  In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for introverts.

Myth #6 Introverts always want to be alone.

Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts.  They think a lot.  They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve.  But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don't have anyone to share their discoveries with [another big YEP!].  They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 Introverts are weird.

Introverts are often individualists.  They don't follow the crowd.  They'd prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living.  They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don't make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

Myth #8 Introverts are aloof nerds.

Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions.  It's not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it's just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them. [But we ARE nerds, and proud of it!]

Myth #9 Introverts don't know how to relax and have fun.

Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places.  Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies.  If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down.  Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine.  Introverts and extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways.  Just look it up!

Myth #10 Introverts can fix themselves and become extroverts.

Introverts cannot "fix themselves" [and why would they want to?] and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race.  In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of introverts increases with IQ.

Excerpt from "The Body in Pain" by Elaine Scarry

"...Whatever pain achieves, it achieves in part through its unsharability and ensures this unsharability through its resistance to language.  'English', writes Virginia Woolf, 'which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear has no words for the shiver or the headache... The merest schoolgirl when she falls in love has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her, but let a sufferer try to describe pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.'  True of the headache, Woolf's account is of course more radically true of the severe and prolonged pain that may accompany cancer or burns or phantom limb or stroke [or M.E.], as well as of the severe and prolonged pain that may occur unaccompanied by any nameable disease.  Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned...

"...for physical pain - unlike any other state of consciousness - has no referential content.  It is not of or for anything.  It is precisely because it takes no object that it, more than any other phenomenon, resists objectification in language...

"...the conclusion that physicians do not trust (hence, hear) the human voice, that they in effect perceive the voice of the patient as an 'unreliable narrator' of bodily events, a voice which must be bypassed as quickly as possible so that they can get around and behind it to the physical events themselves [blood work, CT, etc].  But if the only external sign of the felt-experience of pain is the patient's verbal report, then to bypass the voice is to bypass the bodily event, to bypass the patient, to bypass the person in pain..."


Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, 1985