Satine
Well-known member
I'll start by saying that I don't have social phobia but I am an introvert and have only recently realised what I am, how I contrast with extroverts and that it's okay for me to be an introvert.
I worked with my family for five years. They're dysfunctional: my mum is poised somewhere between narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder (as far as I can tell. But even if she technically isn't, those two disorders are a very helpful field guide for understanding what she's like) and my dad is a passive-aggressive (ditto). I have been working for years on making myself less damaged as a result of being brought up by them and have come a long way, but I'm still not 'normal' yet.
And then I was made redundant, and I learned how not-there-yet I am.
I took a job in an insurance office with dozens of other staff. The company as a whole had/has a very strong extrovert flavour and I am an introvert. I didn't spot this at first but by the time I did, I'd already settled in there. And perhaps other introverts here can understand when I say I don't interview well and didn't feel able to just drop the job and go elsewhere.
I spent 18 months in that place and it was one of the loneliest times of my life. I cried a lot, considered suicide on a daily basis, and kept strong tabs on how the family business was going on the off-chance it'd get healthy enough for me to go back.
Finally I managed to come back and have been here for a year. But given that my family is so messed up, I want to heal myself to the extent that I can be in a group like the insurance company. I might well not eventually choose to work somewhere like that - I dislike being a corporate slave - but to know I could get by in a place like that as a social group would be such a salve to me.
Even a year on the memory of the loneliness I felt there haunts me. More than I wish it did.
Just a couple of days ago I sent an email to the recruitment agency that placed me there, asking them whether, if I had to go to them again and openly admitted I was an introvert, whether they'd turn me away or refuse to place me anywhere. I've not had a response yet.
My family have never really given me space to be who I am - I don't fit in outside of my family unit or in it, really. I worry that the recruitment peoples' response will be that I'm an idiot for even bringing it up and perhaps that I am embarrassing them too.
Has anyone else had similar experiences?
I worked with my family for five years. They're dysfunctional: my mum is poised somewhere between narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder (as far as I can tell. But even if she technically isn't, those two disorders are a very helpful field guide for understanding what she's like) and my dad is a passive-aggressive (ditto). I have been working for years on making myself less damaged as a result of being brought up by them and have come a long way, but I'm still not 'normal' yet.
And then I was made redundant, and I learned how not-there-yet I am.
I took a job in an insurance office with dozens of other staff. The company as a whole had/has a very strong extrovert flavour and I am an introvert. I didn't spot this at first but by the time I did, I'd already settled in there. And perhaps other introverts here can understand when I say I don't interview well and didn't feel able to just drop the job and go elsewhere.
I spent 18 months in that place and it was one of the loneliest times of my life. I cried a lot, considered suicide on a daily basis, and kept strong tabs on how the family business was going on the off-chance it'd get healthy enough for me to go back.
Finally I managed to come back and have been here for a year. But given that my family is so messed up, I want to heal myself to the extent that I can be in a group like the insurance company. I might well not eventually choose to work somewhere like that - I dislike being a corporate slave - but to know I could get by in a place like that as a social group would be such a salve to me.
Even a year on the memory of the loneliness I felt there haunts me. More than I wish it did.
Just a couple of days ago I sent an email to the recruitment agency that placed me there, asking them whether, if I had to go to them again and openly admitted I was an introvert, whether they'd turn me away or refuse to place me anywhere. I've not had a response yet.
My family have never really given me space to be who I am - I don't fit in outside of my family unit or in it, really. I worry that the recruitment peoples' response will be that I'm an idiot for even bringing it up and perhaps that I am embarrassing them too.
Has anyone else had similar experiences?
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