Dear Peaches:

My comment is on two issues:

1. The introvert/extrovert connection to anxiety: you identified yourself to be an introvert and you explained what it means, for you: “when I get around a group of people I sink into my comfort zone become quiet. I have to warm up or feel things out in order to engage”-

I used to think that extroverted people are people without anxiety. It is only recently that I learned that it is not necessarily so. It easily looks like confidence, like lack of fear from the introvert’s point of view. But it happens that an extrovert is not a person who is confident and free of fear, but a fearful, anxious person who instead of withdrawing into himself (or herself), rushes out, blurts out, expresses. Maybe later on he or she plays back what he said, criticizing himself for having said it, laments about what people thought about him and so on. But at the moment, when in the group of people she rushed through the fear into that extroverted behavior. Just like the introvert is not “in the moment”, withdrawing, so are many of the extroverted, not in the moment, rushing ahead.

2. On anxiety, how common it is and healing. You wrote: “I have not walked completely into my womanhood to where I have total confidence in who I am as a person and NO FEAR’- I don’t know if there is a single person in the world who has “total confidence…NO FEAR”. Maybe there is a single person, maybe two. Maybe more. But who are these people and how is it that I never met them or heard them or read from them… Maybe I will someday.

Having experienced tons of anxiety myself over decades, I do believe, from very personal experience, that healing from anxiety is possible and available for us, humans. It takes perseverance through the long, long process, lots of patience. I do experience less anxiety but more awareness of every bit of it that I am still experiencing.

anita

* Dear Airene: I didn’t consider it myself until I did consider it very recently. Thank you for the note.

Dear Peaches:

Fear, ongoing (anxiety) is a very powerful emotion. I think it is the most powerful emotion there is. It makes sense that it is because it is supposed to alert us to real danger. Keeping safe is any animal’s first priority, before eating, before mating, etc. First attention is to danger.

When you (and I) fear being judged and disliked, your fear is a biological fear of a social animal, to be rejected from the social group, the herd, for example. Without the social group (protection from predators, cooperative feeding, etc.), a social animal is in physical danger.

So we are social animals but our safety is not dependent on strangers liking us, right? But biologically we are designed to care if others like us and feel threatened when they don’t.

And then to add to this fear, when you judge yourself saying that you “should ‘grow out’ of that faze by now”, you are sending yourself the message that there is something wrong with you for not growing out of this phase my now. It is scary for a person to consider that there is something wrong with them.

So we add fear on top of fear.

(I don’t think anxiety is a phase, unfortunately, it is a condition, possible to heal from but it takes a long, long time, unbelievable amounts of patience, mindfulness, perseverance)

anita

Hey Peaches!

I definitely vouch for what Anita says about introverts/ extroverts. Myself, I’ve always been fairly extraverted in social situations, and it can definitely come from a place of anxiety and awkwardness. That feeling of needing to fill the space with conversation with whoever is around you! Then later on cringing at some of the silly things you end up saying for the sake of talking!

I definately don’t think being introverted is a bad thing in terms of looking for love. When there’s so many other personality traits out there that can come from a nasty or toxic place, I wouldn’t think twice about it at all. Being your authentic self would be the most attractive thing of all.

I think it’s great your working on yourself and reflecting on your wants and needs as a young adult.

Peaches,

Check out Susan Cain’s book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.  Cain argues that modern Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and capabilities of introverted people, leading to “a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.”  You can get a preview of what she is saying by looking up her TED talk.  She validates us introverts extensively.

Mark