Growing up, it was always easy for me to meet new people, make friends, and just be socially present all the time, or at least that’s what I’m told. Every one of my younger memories has only relayed tales of loving strangers till they were friends, and loving friends till they were family. Pair this with a large, open-minded, all around loving family, and my personality quickly developed to embody pretty much every characteristic of what’s defined as an “outgoing” person. But twenty (soon to be twenty-one) years of life and with it various ups and downs, changes are bound to happen. So slowly that young openly outgoing personality has shifted to an intermediate between polar halves of the “going” spectrum. In other words, I’ve found myself, in my young twenties, becoming an introverted extrovert.

The concept of introverts and extroverts stems from the categorization of personality types. In fact the earliest memory of this basic psychology for much of my generation comes from the Myers Briggs test. First introduced in elementary school into middle school it quickly became a rite of passage. Soon every kid was running around school shouting out code words that split people up into further groups, all you heard in every room were shouts of INTJs, ESFPs, and other variations of the abbreviated letters. Now it’s become a language of its own that every millennial understands with no explanation. Of course, each variation stems from the words Introversion, Extroversion, Sensing, Intuition, Thinking, Feeling, Judging, and Perceiving. Each category, otherwise referenced as dichotomies, identify a person on their majority personality type based on a series of questions. Of course, when you get the results, nothing is black and white, percentages are divided up and each person receives a complex mix, however, the majority within each dichotomy wins and determines the individual Myers Briggs Test Indicator (MBTI). As it is with most quizzes, it’s quite easy to tell which answer will result in racking up points for specific dichotomies. In fact, when I was younger I challenged myself in producing as many different results as I could, just because I could tell which answers would lead me to what personality type. Of course, when the questions are answered honestly I got the typical abbreviation beginning with an E, identifying me as an Extrovert. Even if I can’t remember the exact first MBTI I received, I knew that the first few results would always begin with an E. But of course it would.

I am what you call a “people person”. I never found it excruciatingly hard to make friends, even if I was thrown into completely new environments all the time. I’m loud (very loud) and generally find myself more excited when dealing with the unknown than nervous. Ok well, I used to be all those things. In a way I still am but it’s as if someone lowered the brightness by more than half of those qualities. I still hold strong to a lot of these qualities, but now the excitement to try new things goes hand in hand with a constant dread and preference to, how do I say this, not. Right now if it all came down to it, I would just rather not.

But after years of being the typical EN whatever it is I was feeling that day, it’s hard for the world to accept that I can be introverted. When I would rather stay in and read, people immediately assume that something’s wrong or that I’m not feeling well. Then I find myself creating the most elaborate plans all to avoid a simple social task that I honestly cannot even summon the energy to think of, let alone actually do it. But at the same time, I also thrive in social situations and enjoy using my creativity to provide solutions for people. Slowly I’ve found myself at a standstill in the exact middle of the two opposing dichotomies. With an unstable, yet still standing, home on the extroverted grounds, I’ve found myself planting and growing things on the introverted ground. With this, I find myself fighting my entire world, and trying to have them understand that no I’m not always sick when I’m extremely reluctant to go out or put on my social girl pants. I just find myself becoming comfortably introverted when it comes to those things. But along with these comes an insanely turbulent internal struggle with my ability to speak easily with people, yet completely dreading it. I know I can, and that it won’t be hard for me to find the right words, yet I simply can’t shake off the fear that the other person will just completely hate or misunderstand me and for that I should just turn around and walk away. I love people and conversations, but I fear them at the same time.

Personally it’s been a gradual shift because I’ve witnessed the change in my responses and perception of so many situations that I once would’ve relished being the center of attention for, but for everyone else it hasn’t been gradual at all. My family who knows me as a people-loving extrovert, have struggled with apprehensions and disdain for all the activities I was once standing in the front for. To them, it’s like after so many years, I all of a sudden became shy and they can’t figure out who or what may have caused it.

The simple answer is, there is no single cause. If you look at it from a psychological perspective, the human mind is at the base of the every adapting nature of humankind. Basically, mumbo jumbo for humans has changing personalities because the mind is made to grow and change. As you go through life it’s natural to pick up on experiences and emotions that you favor more over others, and the list is constantly changing. What once was your favorite may not even be on the list anymore in a few years. In the same way that a person that has always grown up extroverted may grow up in their respective environment shifting to the introverted side.

So to all my introverted extroverts, or extroverted introverts, I know it’s confusing being stuck in the middle. It’s annoying not having one solid home, but honestly, what’s a better place to build a home than in the middle and avoid the definitiveness of labels. We may not be 100% of anything, but a little bit of everything makes us who we are.