Episodes that made you realise there was a barrier between you and the world (for introverts)

[Reyne]

Introverts, the title says it all. Let's share our experiences and see if there are points in common.

I'll start.

As a child when I fell or had wounds I had no reaction. I would be impassive and people would think I was tough because I didn't feel pain. Other children would cry for everything. I would always appear stoic and serious.
For all my life I've wondered if it's true that I'm less sensitive than other people, since I've always been sure about the fact I do actually feel pain. Lately I've realised I totally feel pain (maybe a little bit less than the average person) but I have no spontaneous reaction to the outside.
As a child I used this as a "party trick". I would challenge older cousins and friends to inflict me pain, and they never managed to. I found pride in being perceived as some kind of monster. I felt invincible. Which I obviously was not, but yeah, children and their thought processes...

Later, as a teen, I remember slamming a guy against a wall because I felt provoked. When the more sensitive people of my classroom were worried about it, and tried to understand what happened and why, they were surprised to hear I was feeling like that, because I always appeared calm and cold. In that moment I realised there was a barrier between me and the outside world. To me my anger was clear. I even was sure it was obvious from my actions. Before slamming the guy, we actually played football, and I made tons of fouls and played very harsh. That was my way of experiencing my feeling of anger.
To their eyes those provocations were so minor that they had no impact on me, because my emotional reaction was non existent. And apparently the anger was not visible from my expression.

Other than this, feeling completely out of place in social situations like parties also made me feel like there was a barrier. Like, I would observe people have fun, chatting, dancing, while I would just... yeah, as I said, observe and feel out of place, kinda confused by an environment which was too fast paced.

[Baqer]

As a child when I fell or had wounds I had no reaction. I would be impassive and people would think I was tough because I didn't feel pain. Other children would cry for everything. I would always appear stoic and serious.

You ok dude?

[persimmonism]

Similar to your second example: In middle school, when my friends described me as a very calm, collected, unreactive, unexpressive person. That's the first time I realized the discrepancy between my perceived inner and outer landscape.
Still now, I get comments from people when I happen to express unease, because apparently I always appear internally calm. Stuff like "this is the first time I've seen you stressed/angry!" from peers I've known for a year already.

[FreelancePoliceman]

I would think this sort of question would be something like “when did you realize you breathe air?” for most. It’s just such an integral part of how you experience life, only by comparing yourself with others can you easily wonder about being any other way — is what I’d think.

When I was in 1st grade I noticed the other kids weren’t like me in that they were sociable and more emotionally expressive. But even many of them were introverts. I kept to myself a lot, and I noticed that no other kids in school spent their recess time alone playing with and examining bugs. And I noticed that most kids seemed to move about more easily in the world too, while I was always confused by anything I didn’t understand.

[Beautiful sky]

When I would take a book to a party and disappear into a room

[Rebelondeck]

From my earliest recollections, I've never felt that there were any barriers erected by the world against me but there's a definite door put there by me that only I could open and close. I was treated like an adult by adults at a very young age and most seemed to like and trust me. However, many of my peers didn't take to me at all because of my so-called "rapier tongue"; many blossoming relationships came to screeching halts because of my "insight and brutal honesty" (another phrase once quoted to me) but the edge has dulled over the years.

a.k.a. I/O

[ouronis]

I feel the "barrier" most strongly when I try to relate to most other people; there is 99% of the time some incompatibility there where either I or the other person don't understand each other enough to do anything. I know this barrier doesn't exist with everybody, though, since it really just is about empathy related to similar experiences, interests, or ways of thinking.

Parties are definitely like that, too. I usually have to fake enthusiasm for them because I don't find them entertaining, unless you find me doing some challenge or in a corner having a 3-hour long conversation with somebody. If those two things are not available, I dont really get it.

The third barrier comes in with my sense of the unconscious, or what you might be able to call Ni. I have a very good idea of how to subtly cause major changes in the dynamics of situations without people realizing what I did (though it's not with surgical timeliness and precision), and I often say my conscious mind is very stupid but my unconscious is very smart. This causes a barrier because I will purposefully instigate one to push the dynamics in one direction or another, and I'm sort of shifting my whole personality around this effort, which causes sudden estrangement from people I typically got along with

[Kalinoche buenanoche]

>¡0

[Warm Soapy Water]

Pretty much everything I do lol? Extroverts get energy from external objects and other people- introverts get energy from our own internal thoughts & feelings so our interaction with others is often too one-sided. And we seem too narcissistic and self-absorbed..and well we kinda are, but it's usually not intentionally malicious. I think sometimes we're too easily scapegoated or shitted upon - but more true for feeling type introverts. Feel the wrath of my Carrie, bitches!

What is easy for extroverts is like for us climbing mount everest in effort and exhaustion. Even simply saying 'hi' to others selflessly without making it about ME in my head can be daunting since my brain is so introverted lol. Then if you have social anxiety issues on top of introversion it can be even more painful. American society values extroversion not introversion as well.

There are a lot of self help books for introversion but I'm not sure they will really help as they might add too much to the introvert's narcissism. "Just be yourself" is a sweet sounding idea in theory- but in practice, being yourself is the problem, not the solution. What helped me the most like I always say was just getting out and about in my own way & still having the boundaries to be able to keep to myself. I explored the world but I wasn't forced by others to participate in it the way extroverts are ((what bad therapists didn't understand but good therapists did)) - this balance was the healthiest for me. And introverts are quick learners I think- cuz we get less distracted by the energy exchange of other objects- so we can really go deep into something and become powerful with it & share that power & knowledge with others.

And I'm more meant to truly love and be loved by a few people as opposed to the world even though I value Fe which I mean I like better anyway.

[rose]

When I was called weird at 5.
When I started to realize I didn't quite understand why people did the things they did. I was 6, since then I've tried to understand and it's still not working.
It's like an everyday thing by now, I can't learn it even after sacrificing so much for that. At best, I can play a role I hate.
That's pretty much why I'm not on my side, making other's idea of normal pass before my needs.
There's so many freaking normals, it's a joke.

[marooned]

i am not sure i feel a barrier at all? i was always very socially isolated but it's also that my childhood was kinda screwed up in that my dad especially didn't want my sister or i actually getting to know the other kids. we had dark family secrets he didn't want exposed, about how things really were in our household. the rare times i was invited to things i sometimes wouldn't run it by my parents bc i was too afraid of my dad's reaction, and my sister was a bit more brave and once when she let a friend over when he was there, he turned it into a nightmare so that girl would never want to come back. because there was so much isolation from everyone else, and no socialization with other kids, when i entered school i just seemed like an alien weirdo to everyone and it's like i remained isolated. i didn't know how to connect to the other kids, and my meek attempts didn't work, so i often was alone anyway. it's all probably why the 4 in my tritype i think is so-first... my whole childhood i felt like an alien, the outsider... but i don't know that this was because of introversion... my sister is also an introvert but even more introverted than me and she didn't speak at all in school and it's like she was frozen while she was there. i spoke/interacted more, though still i was often silent in class.

i suppose the "barrier" i am aware of is how some people want everyone to be like an extrovert... like if ppl at work complain about those that like to hunker down in their cube in darkness and block it off with a barrier... and they treat this as bad or wrong, but this is how a lot of introverts (including me) would prefer things to be... all the people is too much. i am always using objects on my desk to hide behind, stacks, displays, whatever, but i try to make it look like it happened organically not that i was doing it intentionally and if someone mentions i act surprised like i never noticed. but this is more a divide rather than a barrier.

it's made me a bit gleeful that the pandemic is causing places to offer remote positions to IT ppl because if they don't IT ppl can find a place that does haha... i'm not in IT, but i'm happy for them. stuff like programming requires intense thinking and i just know i'd be super annoyed having to do that in the busy cube land workplace. anyway it's where extroverts have lost some ground.

eta: i guess another thing that could be the "barrier" is that i always feel i'm in my separate world... but it doesn't feel like a "barrier," it just feels like the way everything is and always was... i know nothing else.

[Aquamarine]

I guess a barrier for me would be mostly caused by social anxiety and constantly being around people who would tell me that I was too quiet all the time, that I needed to talk more, that I was too sensitive. Obviously that made me put up more of a wall between myself and other people as I felt nobody accepted me the way I was, and people were always trying to change me. I felt like they wanted me to act more extroverted in some ways too. Almost as if I'd be doomed in life if I didn't act that way. Also being severely emotionally inept and struggling with forming relationships with people, I felt as if everyone around me had an easier time doing these things which made me feel even more distant.

I do feel somewhat that whatever barrier there is was created by me and not others.

[MathHysteriaOfSoul]

The only barrier I see is between reality and my expectations of it

[Poptart]

There was a 3-4 year period in my life where I was spending a lot of time at work. I would leave at 7 am and not get home until 8 pm (I had a long commute and would stay late because I liked being at work better than I liked being at home lol). I was too tired to do anything after work, so I would usually just go home to my boyfriend at the time and try to go to sleep. I spent my weekends catching up on errands and cleaning the house. My life revolved around work and my boyfriend. I couldn’t name any movies or music that were released during this time, and I wasn’t looking at social media or Reddit or any other forums. I felt like I was living under a rock, but I didn’t mind lol. Despite being in a shitty relationship with my ex, I was still pretty happy. Nothing beats having a job that fulfills you imo. I’m not happy with my current job where I work from home, and it’s hard not to feel discouraged and demotivated all of the time lol. I have this irrational fear that I will never find a job that I like again, which I know is stupid, but I still feel that way lol.

[MathHysteriaOfSoul]

There was a 3-4 year period in my life where I was spending a lot of time at work. I would leave at 7 am and not get home until 8 pm (I had a long commute and would stay late because I liked being at work better than I liked being at home lol). I was too tired to do anything after work, so I would usually just go home to my boyfriend at the time and try to go to sleep. I spent my weekends catching up on errands and cleaning the house. My life revolved around work and my boyfriend. I couldn’t name any movies or music that were released during this time, and I wasn’t looking at social media or Reddit or any other forums. I felt like I was living under a rock, but I didn’t mind lol. Despite being in a shitty relationship with my ex, I was still pretty happy. Nothing beats having a job that fulfills you imo. I’m not happy with my current job where I work from home, and it’s hard not to feel discouraged and demotivated all of the time lol. I have this irrational fear that I will never find a job that I like again, which I know is stupid, but I still feel that way lol.

I know an ISTp woman whose life is pretty much this, except that she doesn"t have a boyfriend and from time to time she travels to places where she can take pictures and make me jealous of her sensing capabilities

[MissDucki]

There was a 3-4 year period in my life where I was spending a lot of time at work. I would leave at 7 am and not get home until 8 pm (I had a long commute and would stay late because I liked being at work better than I liked being at home lol). I was too tired to do anything after work, so I would usually just go home to my boyfriend at the time and try to go to sleep. I spent my weekends catching up on errands and cleaning the house. My life revolved around work and my boyfriend. I couldn’t name any movies or music that were released during this time, and I wasn’t looking at social media or Reddit or any other forums. I felt like I was living under a rock, but I didn’t mind lol. Despite being in a shitty relationship with my ex, I was still pretty happy. Nothing beats having a job that fulfills you imo. I’m not happy with my current job where I work from home, and it’s hard not to feel discouraged and demotivated all of the time lol. I have this irrational fear that I will never find a job that I like again, which I know is stupid, but I still feel that way lol.

Don't be discouraged! It's your Si talking Missy! Seriously, there will be a job out there that will fulfill you. Sometimes they come when we least expect it. Keep your head up!
Always go for your dreams not matter what. You are hard working and funny as hell and you can definitely use that charm and skills in your interviews and networking. It is okay and normal that you feel that way. It is always darkest before the dawn. But, I know you will find your dawn

[Poptart]

Aww thank you @MissDucki

[MissDucki]

I literately cried when I found out the word 'introvert', it was life changing to know I wasn't crazy for wanting to spend time alone. I wrote about it in a project about how much it made a difference for me. I always felt a bit out of place, so it was nice to know that I was normal. It's nice to know there was some place I fit in the world.