Please delete this

[LostThomas]

I tried to delete this but there was no option...thank you.

 

[KayC]

And some of us are a mixture...I am, although I'd have to say I'm becoming more introvert the older I get.  Still, I find it helps to touch base with a person now and then, but rarely get it anymore.  Yesterday my neighbor across the street had a conversation with me, shouted back and forth (no one else outside), it was nice.  Later, walking Kodie, another neighbor and his dog joined me, but it made it hard to enjoy the walk because he kept stopping and taking pictures every few feet and his dog is literally nutso!!  He wound himself around Kodie's leash/Halti several times and the neighbor had to stop and get him untangled.  Was personally glad when we parted ways as it kind of threw off the peace we normally glean from our walks.  Most days I see no one.  I take Kodie to play with Jazzy and Iris can't be bothered, unlike how Mike was.  Yesterday her back gate to her gorge, cliff, river was wide open...I called the dogs back (yay, Kodie! He complies with my commands, Jazzy followed suit but had to think about it.) and I tried to shut the gate but could not with these hands.  I got it to stick just barely but knew if either of them leaned on it that it'd burst open.  I couldn't relax with it that way so went up to the house and told her about it...she couldn't be bothered from her meditation, took her 1/2 hour, she went through the gate and closed it.  So annoyed she put me through that stress, and she knew it was open.  I considered that irresponsible on her part.  And get this, she said Jazzy was in her kennel when we got there for having taken off!  (Shake head)

I miss Mike.  I miss Peggy.  But sometimes the more I see of people...

[AJ4]

I'm also an introvert.  I have always thought that you will see more introverts on the internet because the extroverts are always going out to look for people to talk to in real life, whereas we are happy being alone more.  And being on the internet counts as alone as far as energy expended goes.  
I wish everyone had a sympathetic ear, someone they could talk to.  Whether extravert or introvert, none of us was made to be completely alone.   

[Gail 8588]

AJ4, 

I agree with you that this format (an internet forum) probably draws a disproportionally high number of introverts. 

Gail

[KayC]

That is a lot of walking, I used to do six miles/day when I was in my 40s, but alas at 70 I'm probably half that.  I hate the snow but I love this place, if that makes any sense.  The neighbors, sense of community (what took place during the snowpocalypse will never leave me) and I feel such gratefulness that I live here.  Sometimes people telling me I should move put those seeds of doubt in my mind...yet then I remember all this and am very thankful for it.  Maybe I will have to move someday, not there yet.  Funny, the people who claim to worry about me are never here, or part of my life.  It's my neighbors who are and I love them and the beauty of this area.  We saw it through the wildfires last summer, the snows this winter...we'll see it through much more.  Not unlike grief.

[AJ4]

I heard Bonnie Raitt sing "Living for the ones" and I was in tears today, in my car.  

[Boggled]

On 3/3/2023 at 8:05 PM, LostThomas said:

I'm an introvert myself and that might explain why I'm noticing those comments the way I am.   It is so true here that people connect because of the linking grief and the credible feelings of those expressing them.   It's the sort of thing that not witnessing this I would assume would be an openness coming from extroverts and not introverts.   But that is not what I'm seeing here.   I can see where I fit, my mind fits, in the words of so many introverts sharing their feelings about their loss, what they struggle with, what they can and can't do.   It just breaks my heart to read about the loneliness people are experiencing.   The empathy deficit is such a hard reality for me to cope with but the agony of it is lessening now.  It's a distressing reality that simply saddens me.  There is no help for something like that.   It's very hard for me to say that, but that is a terrible reality for some people.   It makes me wonder where empathy comes from most, the introvert, or the extrovert?   So, I started thinking about my own little world, who is providing empathy and who really has no idea how to express it.   I've read it here before, people who would prefer isolation over having to cope with people that just didn't know how to talk with a grieving person.   I get that now.  Coping with loss and communicating about loss can be very different experiences for introverts and extroverts.   You have to learn to listen to them both.  But it's just not simple a lot of the time for me.   I have to work at it.   I'm learning a lot about people here.

I am an introvert.  If you follow Meyers-Briggs personalities, I'm an INTP.  I'm learning EMOTIONS.  I've never felt such emotional strength as this grieving has caused me to feel.  SORROW!!!!!!!!!!    Like there IS a string that connects from me to my husband across the veil!;  sorrow for him, and sorrow for myself and all that I had believed and expected was to be our continuing life together;  now it's "just me" here in this world.

I would never have thought of myself as an emotional person.  Wow, after the grieving I've done, I've at long last begun to know that emotions have dreadful, sometimes overwhelming, strength and power.  I had not experienced this, ever before.  I still try to reason OUT OF emotions.   The only ploy I've found to deal with emotions when they get overwhelming, is DISTRACTION.  I read a book.  A good strong interesting novel will draw me in.  In my early grieving days, I had a "charming" (maybe it could be called "charming" in the magical sense of the word, as a "charm,")  old book, Penrod and Sam by Booth Tarkington.  https://www.amazon.com/Penrod-Sam-Booth-Tarkington/dp/1847025889  Reading it helped more than anything else at the time!  Another good old book that helped me, is The Secret Garden https://www.amazon.com/Secret-HarperClassics-Frances-Hodgson-Burnett/dp/006440188X/ref=sxin_18_ci_mcx_mi_sr_m_ts?content-id=amzn1.sym.263a7dc4-dd2f-4a1d-8f71-53a935ba328c%3Aamzn1.sym.263a7dc4-dd2f-4a1d-8f71-53a935ba328c&crid=QA2VR3O6AHDN&cv_ct_cx=the+secret+garden&keywords=the+secret+garden&pd_rd_i=006440188X&pd_rd_r=dd288e96-2f4d-4e2e-9bc4-bbee9e1b466a&pd_rd_w=V2Owb&pd_rd_wg=ZZaa0&pf_rd_p=263a7dc4-dd2f-4a1d-8f71-53a935ba328c&pf_rd_r=Z0GQNJYD5W5485JSARQK&qid=1678290432&s=books&sprefix=the+secret+garden%2Cstripbooks%2C153&sr=1-1-adf8a58d-854e-4c79-9f56-e84cb8dfa902 by Frances Hodgson Burnett.   It's DISTRACTION, to be taken out of the incredible, overwhelming emotions, I was doing it without realizing I needed DISTRACTION, but I know these charming books helped me.  (One result from reading The Secret Garden, I decided to buy a jump rope!)  

[Boggled]

On 3/4/2023 at 7:00 AM, AJ4 said:

I have always thought that you will see more introverts on the internet because the extroverts are always going out to look for people to talk to in real life, whereas we are happy being alone more. 

AJ4, your logic is excellent.  It is a good thing when someone posts something that just rings so true and makes so much sense.

[Boggled]

Thomas, I just read a bit about INFJ;  you're "future oriented?"  oh, my goodness.  

I'm so sorry ... yeah everybody does say that, but it's TRUE, isn't it, when you ... well ... EMPATHIZE enough to realize the real emotional ... what word would fit? ... turmoil, chaos, DISASTER, PAIN! ... overwhelming shattering vortex of feeling!?  ... this is one of the things I've learned.  Emotions.  Sure, I've felt emotions but never anything this deep and strong;  it does seem to come up and out deep, DEEP, DEEP,  DEEEEEEP!!!!!!!, as nothing I've ever felt before.

 

[Ronni_W]

For me, the difference has not been who has the "introverted" versus the "extroverted" personality, but rather, who has the life experience, or, if not the experience, then the "heart" or "spirit" of being -- or wanting/trying to be -- genuinely caring, compassionate, kind, etc. Both "introverts" and "extroverts" can be or show one or any combination of those; yet, equally, being one or the other (an 'introvert' or an 'extrovert') does not guarantee that the person does have these types of characteristics or qualities.

Similarly, I don't see it that it is only "extroverts" who can or are willing to be "courageously, bravely" open and honest with and about their feelings and struggles, and emotional pain and grief. I do know lots of "introverts" who are exceptionally brave and courageous, not only with their own "stuff", but also when it comes to aiding, helping and supporting others who are suffering and in need.

I was reading something earlier about how we "use and abuse" time, in terms of past, present and future. I myself need to fix my issue of "imposing" or "superimposing" onto my future time, my any (impermanent, temporary, comes-and-goes) dreads and fears and doubts and confusions that I sense in my present. (I haven't even *started* on how the heck to stop recalling all my stuff from my past, that helps, contributes to and supports me myself to feel (impose/superimpose) such deep sadness, grief and anguish onto my own present. Don't even know where to start, to stop doing that to myself!)

As for Myers-Briggs, and all of the rest of the so-called "experts" who would try to stereotype or type-cast me...NO! I won't let them do it. Those are their theories and their labels, that made them rich and famous. We do not have to take it, and submit and accept that we are stuck like that forever, just because they wrote it, and then we read it in a book, or saw it on Youtube, Instagram or Tik-Tok. We really don't. We, each one of us, we each do have the personal power to change our own stuff that we want to change, if we want to change it. (Again, though, for my own self, this ain't no easy task nor breezy 'walk in the park'; I'm finding it hell's difficult!)

Love and hugs to one and all.   Ronni