Does being around people you love drain you emotionally?

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I get overwhelmed when being around people for too long, even if I love and know them well.

Yes. I need my "alone" time, hours of it, every single day. In the evening. Thankfully my wife is the same way yet to a far less extent than me.

We have no qualms about the fact that we've told our kids when raising them that sometimes "we need a break from each other". We started something when they were very young called "Quiet Time". Quiet Time is not a punishment for them. It's not a "Time Out". It is a requirement where they must spend an hour or so in their rooms by themselves reading, playing with toys, etc. We don't do it every day but we do it often. They no longer protest and are fine with it.

I think it's a very good thing to teach kids to be able to entertain themselves by themselves. The NT world is rife with people who are actually scared to spend time.....by themselves and instead keep themselves continually occupied and hyper-stimulated in order to avoid silence and have to then face their own minds.

My mom does this to me and my sister often, sometimes over the smallest things.

With my mom, never. With my sister, maybe never.
With relatives, maybe.

With friends, it may take days and days for it.


And I still like to go alone.

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My wife is the only person I can be completely myself around. To the point where I can have my "alone" time even if she's there. That said, I certainly relish the times where I'm able to be at home completely alone. I can spend an entire afternoon with my closest of friends, but I'll be completely drained after. I've made a point of living no less than a 2 hours drive away from family so that I can have more control over when I interact with them in person. Being around people I love is most certainly draining, but it varies.

My family pretty much leaves me alone. In good way, not a neglectful way.

No. I could be around my BFF (and other loved ones) for days without getting drained in any way. The only exception to this rule would be my mother - I can only stand being with her for a few days before needing some time to myself, but that's mostly due to how our interactions tend to devolve into her treating me as though I were still 13. There's only so much of that I can put up with.

I can cope with my dad the best because he's very straight forward and hard to offend. My mum is the opposite, and every conversation is a minefield. So while twenty minutes with my dad is about right, five minutes at a time of my mum is more than enough to exhaust me. Luckily they're divorced.

It really depends but it's not because I like them that they will never be as annoying as anyone else. In fact, some people think that once they are so close to me, they have the rights to be more annoying and disrespectful than anyone else.

It really depends. I don't think it's being around people that drains me, so much as what I have to do with them. If all I'm having to do is be present, it's fine. Playing board games or card games or things like that are fine too.

If I'm having to socialise or make small talk, it will be stressful and draining if I have to do it for too long, although less so than if it's with people I don't know.

It is worth mentioning that it seems like I'm less likely to have to do the activities that I find stressful around people I know well, particularly if I'm with them for a long time. If I'm with family for multiple days at a time, I probably won't have to do that much socialisation and small talk; in such a situation, I probably will mostly just have to be present and occasionally play a board game.

On the other hand, if I'm with people I don't know well for a few hours, I'll probably be expected to socialise and make small talk for the entire time, which I will find stressful and draining.

A few hours around somebody can do it for me, but it depends on who they are. I generally like to be around people and socialise but it can take a lot out of me.

It depends on what we are doing or what we are talking about. Sometimes I just like to sit quietly and say and do nothing and just be with my loved one in the room.

When I was a kid and needed alone time, I would just space out and daydream where ever I was right next to family or whoever else I was with. From about age 12 and into my 20's I needed plenty of alone time even when being around loved ones. I withdrew to my room or other place where I could be alone. My need to be alone when being around family wasn't really due to being drained by them, it was due to wanting (needing) to be on my own and think about stuff and daydream in peace. But if I couldn't, then I'd feel drained. And get irritable.

Somewhere in my 30's I only needed to have alone time when with loved ones (my mother) if I was very agitated about something, which happened very rarely. I don't tend to need alone time anymore when I'm home. Her presence doesn't drain me, while my father's sometimes can.

It's only around non-immediate family that I easily feel drained, and I have since my teen years. I never got drained from simple interaction (like a typical school day) as a kid. I have experienced several times throughout the last decade that people can drain me as easily online as IRL. But these aren't loved ones, so off topic.

I did have one person once who did drain me despite how I felt about him. I don't know if it was his personality or the time we spent together actively being together (as opposed to the easy going being with family where we just go about our every day lives), but after some hours with him, I was almost always ready for bed, dead tired.

So it depends on who it is, how they affect me.

tl;dr: My mom, never. My father, sometimes. Relatives, friends, acquaintances, yes.
I think it might be the case because when at home we're relaxing and doing chores, and interests and whatnot, and only sometimes actively interacting and even when we do, we know each other so well, it's just easy going. But with everyone else it's direct interaction without stop, and they're always focused on you even when the focus isn't meant to be negative.