Do you experience "social burnout?"

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I ran across an article in "Psychology Today" and asked my wife of 50 years to read it.............She said: "That's you!", and my wife is never wrong.

I posted this earlier in "In-Depth Adult Life Discussion" and Ectryon there suggested I post it more prominently.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles ... -introvert

I think it, plus my aspieness, pretty well describes much of me, and answered questions I had for many years.

Yes

I can get it real bad some days. Like growling at people bad.

Not just yes, but hell yes!

This is an interesting article.
If half the population is more introvert and the other half is more extrovert,
are then all people on the autistic spectrum extreme introverts?
Is that why so many moderately introvert people think they have autistic traits,
although their quality of life doesn't really get impaired to that degree?
To live in an extrovert society as an introvert would be perceived as quite a challenge,
because they are made to feel like an outsider by the dominant culture.
On such a sliding scale, it gets difficult to draw a line for this condition to become
truly debilitating.
Is it already given when you can't pursue certain careers, because they would be too demanding,
or do you have to be totally unable to cope with independent life to qualify?
And how quickly you get to the stage of burnout would also depend on the kind of life-style you tried to live.
If I had always lived like I do now, I wouldn't have burned out. But when I was young, there was too much pressure
to conform with the 'normal' demands of life and I didn't know that I had to avoid those to preserve my health.
If I had known about it, I could have taken the needs of my nervous system into consideration, and I wouldn't need to recover now.

Yes. A couple hours of having to talk to people and I'm usually ready to retreat to a quiet, dark place.

I do once in a while, especially on this pokemon forum I'm on. I get this overwhelming anxiety that I've talked beyond my limit, so I usually have to retreat back into being quiet and withdrawn from everyone. It doesn't happen all of the time, but I do experience it.

Yes, it takes about five minutes to burn me out.

You made me smile because my first reaction was almost identical

I think it also helps to put things (my life and memories) into perspective by seeing/understanding myself better, I now see what others have seen. Makes me smile, but then again I'm older than most & perhaps more ambivalent?

Oh, very much. I can only tolerate people so much. I go shopping with my mom and sisters and get totally burned out after a couple of hours. I'm glad my mom recognizes when I've reached my limit for the day, but I wish my dad would.

Yes I get burned out very easily. I can handle having short interactions with a lot of different people. If things are going smoothly, I enjoy it and it energizes me. But most people really annoy me, within a few minutes, and I feel like I just want to get the hell away from them.

I'm more of a hermit than an introvert. I just don't want to take part in society much the way it currently is. I think if I lived in a different culture, different time period, whatever, I would probably be more social.

absolutely. its the main thing that causes me problems, the need to withdraw after interacting with others. Social evenings are a nightmare when your partner is gregarious and sociable when all you want to do is go home and be alone

Seeking assessment for my son has lead me to realizing I am most likely on the spectrum as well, very close to AS (and all the tests listed in the sticky tread confirmed my suspicions). I have always experienced social burn out, even in my own home. Family gatherings and holidays are extremely tiring - I literally have to take a nap when I get home because it takes so much effort to be "on" for so long. Even with my own husband and children I get burned out, which sounds horrible to say. But I have to have alone time to pursue my interests or I get very short tempered and rude.

Double post

My husband is a social butterfly and I can relate to this so much! He never meets a stranger and I'm the one slinking off to avoid people in the grocery store.

Ditto.