Althouse: "An 'introvert' hangover is a pretty terrible thing to experience. It starts with an actual physical reaction to overstimulation."

August 20, 2016

"An 'introvert' hangover is a pretty terrible thing to experience. It starts with an actual physical reaction to overstimulation."

"Your ears might ring, your eyes start to blur, and you feel like you’re going to hyperventilate. Maybe your palms sweat. And then your mind feels like it kind of shuts down, building barriers around itself as if you had been driving on a wide open road, and now you’re suddenly driving in a narrow tunnel. All you want is to be at home, alone, where it’s quiet...."

11 comments:

traditionalguy said...: Huma, help me. They are asking me questions too fast.; 8/20/16, 9:13 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Panic Attack followed by Black-Out Drunk.

Yet no Hangover.

So I don't get their point.

Practice, people.

I am Laslo.; 8/20/16, 9:19 PM
Original Mike said...: I've had the experience at family events where there's too much going on around me and I just want to go home. At public events, I just do go home.; 8/20/16, 9:20 PM
wild chicken said...: Yeah. Hate big gatherings. I obsessively rehash everything and think about every person who was there, like it's imprinted on my brain. Booze helps but I'd like to stop that habit.

Really just want to be home with a book.; 8/20/16, 9:36 PM
Howard said...: Yeah, I get it except for the label it to excuse it to wallow in it and honor the defect like it's a feature. Suck it up and ignore the buzzing... it also works with tinnitus. Just fake being social, then after a while it becomes natural.; 8/20/16, 10:12 PM
Achilles said...: Most of my friends have stopped trying to drag me out to bars and events with a lot of people.

My head doesn't ring. It is more like mechanical white noise that comes from my brain. The only way to make it stop is to open my eyes after closing them for a while. It doesn't just go away. It isn't just about people though. There are other triggers.; 8/20/16, 10:55 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Used to think I was an introvert. I was shocked, and would spend long stretches working alone. But I would get up every couple hours and wander the halls a bit. Then I met my partner. This morning is probably typical. She is probably lying in bed, quietly, and I am in the other room typing away on one of the sofas. She doesn't really want to talk to me, or anyone else, for a couple hours every morning. I am leaving for a week or two, and she will ask to me, and maybe one or two others, on the phone every day. In contrast, I will be heading into town in an hour or so just to interact with people a bit. She got this from her mother, who is, if anything, worse. She (her mother) married into an intense European family where everyone loudly jokes, laughs, sings, and competes for attention. When they were all alive and got together, she would lock herself in her room after a half an hour. Both her surviving daughters got this from her, but it may be worse with my partner over her sister. Until I met her, I never really realized that my family really aren't introverts, at least as depicted in that article. Closest is one brother, who spends most of his time alone, but does come by the family a couple times a week, and you can't shut him up. But none of them react like my partner, and esp her mother, who truly do quickly suffer from personal interaction overload when dealing with intense social situations.; 8/21/16, 7:58 AM
Unknown said...: Can relate to this, but I'm not sure hangover it the right word. It's implying the hard part is after the socializing, but I think the hard part is during the socializing (at least if my social "batteries" get drained). I look forward to the recharging period when I can gather my thoughts and let the accumulated stress dissipate.; 8/21/16, 10:09 AM
Michael The Magnificent said...: Getting past innate introvertness requires practice. As part of my daily routine I used to ride my bicycle 10 miles from Brown Deer to Cedarburg and treat myself to a coffee. I'd always sit my myself, and one day decided to ask someone who was sitting alone if I could join them. People almost always said yes. Sometimes we'd have a conversation, sometimes not. It wasn't easy at first, but I got past my social anxiety. I've tried this in restaurants when dining by myself, but I first ask if they are dining by themselves before asking if I may join them.; 8/21/16, 12:27 PM
Bilwick said...: "Yeah, I get it except for the label it to excuse it to wallow in it and honor the defect like it's a feature. Suck it up and ignore the buzzing... it also works with tinnitus. Just fake being social, then after a while it becomes natural."

Because introversion is some kind of disease to be cured? Spoken like an extrovert. And if it could be cured, you probably wouldn't have many people to write books and screenplays and poetry, paint paintings, etc., etc. Not to mention inventions.; 8/21/16, 1:00 PM
Captain Ned said...: I wallowed in this through high school and college. Then I met she who (for reasons that escape me to this day) became my wife. She kicked that emo crap right out of my ass (though I'm still an introvert and need time to recover after putting on the face for a whole evening).

That said, I was nowhere near any level of social or emotional maturity to be going from rural VT to a 65% Metro NYC university in Hamilton, NY at age 17. That shell-shock just drove me backwards. Since the locale looked a whole lot like home, I got on far better with the "townies" than my fellow students.; 8/21/16, 6:43 PM