The Bathroom: A safe haven

If you are an introvert with anxiety, this blog is for you. Tell me if you relate. If you have an introverted friend with anxiety, this blog is for you to understand them.

You are in a group setting, it is loud, people are having fun and laughing and enjoying themselves. You may even be enjoying yourself. But then you say, "Be right back" and go use the bathroom.

Did you use the bathroom for...

a) Hyperventilating

b) Take your vitamins or pills to manage the heck out of the rest of the night

c) Breathe because you didn't even realize you were holding your breath

d) Peeing, while listening to the silence in the bathroom and muffled sound of people laughing or talking

If you chose any of these options, you are like me and you being in a group setting drains you. You are holding a lot together in order to be around people but if you aren't around people, they get upset or talk about you behind your back. And since you don't want that, you suffer through interacting with a group of people.

We are using so much energy to just look like we are having fun. Because we know it takes more energy out of us to deal with anyone talking about us. And at the end of the night, you best believe we are sleeping some extra hours, not because we had so much fun, but because we were holding some kind of energy together to be okay and look normal like everyone else.

Sometimes, when we speak to people, after the conversation is over and we are alone or with those few we feel safe with? We cry. Why? Because we are overwhelmed with how much energy and strength it took us to even have that conversation. If it's a difficult conversation we had with someone? We won't be hanging out with others for the next week because that one interaction took a lot out of us.

We love being alone, we love listening to silence, listening to the tv that is just running in the bathroom. We would rather put on the tv in the background to not feel alone than actual have a person around to not feel alone. It gives us energy, it gives us peace. And that is 100% normal and okay.

It does not make us social outcasts because we don't want to hang out with you all the time. It does not mean we don't like you as much, because we value spending time with ourselves. We cannot give you our best self without giving that energy back to ourselves. Just because YOU can be around people all the time and gain energy, does not mean everyone else can. And we need to normalize that in being okay. It does not mean we need to learn better social skills, it means you need to learn how to be happy with your own company or just respect my own happiness in my company.

Text us, we will text you a lot later, but it doesn't mean we don't value you, it means we are taking care of ourselves and we make choices that is best for us. Maybe answering your text right away was not that.

Being an introvert with anxiety does not mean you don't fit in or are not enough. It means other people do not have the capacity to accept you as you are, which is a different kind of person than them. And when those people don't accept how you function differently, you get to see the people who aren't worth your time. You are a different breed to not need anyone else's company to be satisfied but yourself. LOVE that about yourself and YOU choose who is worthy to be in your life.

The bathroom is my safe haven. The bathroom is where I can recharge immediately being in a group setting, and I don't care if people think I'm taking a dump. I need those minutes to keep going.