Introvert vs. Extrovert. Which one are you?

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Naturally I am an extreme introvert. They thought I was a deaf mute when I was a kid. Even some family members did.

I can become an extrovert by artificial means, i.e my stimulant medication.

Although I talk a lot more to people that I feel comfortable with, even when I'm out and being chatty if a stranger comes into our circle I'll ignore them.

I definitely need to recharge after hanging out with people.

Introverted since birth. Ok, maybe two years old. Autism may have determined how introverted I was to be. I never had an interest in people until one day when I was 14 I thought I would make friends. It still took me a long time to ever miss not being around people. I really had to be put on stimulants to want to be around people, or you know, drunk. I wasn't overloaded by noise before the age of 23 or 24. Damn med side effects.

I'm also introverted since birth and other autistics are the total opposite of it.
I'm NOT saying that autistics aren't introverted at all, just that autistics are introverted and extroverted like other people and that many autistics who BEHAVE introverted do so because of sensory overload and because of comunication problems (and problems finding friends).

Oh boy. All these explanations because people (extroverts in particular) just don't want to admit the real reason: people are not all that interesting.

I have fairly recently learned that this is true for me. I always considered myself an extreme introvert - I would need to be alone to "recharge" after pretty much any social interaction. Then I started hanging out a bit with other aspies, and I also joined a social event filled with other nerdy introverted types. In both of these scenarios, I didn't get the need to get away and recharge, in fact I craved more of it.

I found it particularly interesting that even though I would reluctantly leave the event, as soon as I got to the crowded train station my "introversion" kicked in and I felt drained and needed to be alone.

So I do feel that my introversion can be greatly attributed to the nature of most social interactions, and the types of people (whether this is actual or imagined) I am around. I don't become an outgoing, outspoken, confident life-of-the-party type in the exceptions, but I believe I become much less introverted in the "energy" sense.

Yeah, well that's pretty much what anneurysm and I were talking about, how we were very extroverted as children and then became introverted as adults due to bad social experiences. Also how she knows many people who are extroverted, diagnosed ASD adults. I know one such person. So introversion isn't really a part of ASD, it can be a result of bad experiences due to ASD traits and it's not universal.

yes