I wish being quiet wasn't treated as a sickness...

And being introverted, shy, sensitive, having social anxiety, maybe being on the spectrum, and/or not enjoying mainstream/popular activities

For context, I’m writing this first part at least on March 13th, 2025 at 4:06pm. I’m sitting in my beautiful hotel room in Montenegro with an ocean view for one of our hub days (these are where all the Peace Corps volunteers come together from our different host families' villages to one location for some additional training). I turned the heat on, and I am under the covers. I feel good.

While being in the Peace Corps these past three months has definitely had its challenges, there have also been immense privileges that I will never take for granted. For instance:

• this is my first time in Europe, and I didn’t have to pay any money to be here

• I am fed delicious food constantly, far more than I could ever eat

• I am learning to speak Albanian and learning so much about the culture, history, and traditions here in a really intimate, immersive, and unique way thanks to my generous host family, language teachers, and Peace Corps staff

I also get the privilege of meeting 48 other people who decided to join the Peace Corps in Albania and Montenegro. Many of them expressed that they joined the Peace Corps in attempts to find work that felt more meaningful than their previous jobs, and I think that’s really cool and refreshing to hear. We’ve done different activities during training to prepare us for our work ahead, get to know each other, and get to know ourselves. But there was one activity in particular that kind of surprised me and made me want to reflect more. We made identity maps and listed the different values and characteristics that make us who we are. I’ve made an identity map before, but this time, we were instructed to cross out different characteristics until we had only one left that we felt we identified the most with. 

While doing this activity, I tried to think about which aspects of my personality had been most apparent to me since being in the Peace Corps. I knew no one here, and I was in a place I had never been before doing work I had never really done before. Nothing was familiar, so I felt there were fewer chances of external influences and a higher likelihood that some core and true aspects of my personality would shine through. I was excited to meet these “pure” parts. 

On the first day, I thought for sure that being black would be the obvious winner being 1 of 2 black people in my cohort of 48 people and being in a European country with very little diversity. But overtime, it became clear to me that my quiet and reserved nature was the stand out. I had already figured out from going to different conferences and events and just existing in the world for 24 years that feeling pressured to interact with large groups of people for long periods of time was severely overstimulating and draining for me. But I didn’t want this to keep me from pursuing opportunities that could be good for me. 

Conversations with people I connect with don’t drain me. They actually light me up and make me feel grateful to be alive. When I feel like I can be honest with a person and not fear judgment, I can talk for hours and hours. In contrast, being around people I don’t connect with for too long makes me itch. My solitude becomes like a drug I’m crawling to get back to. I guess the “problem” is that I rarely connect and feel safe with people in this way. As a result, people have made comments to me all my life about how quiet I am, and there is a clear negative, judgmental, and condescending connotation. I have always felt that the way I am is not only wrong and offensive, but could very well lead to unemployment (shout out all those job descriptions with qualifications that include the words bubbly, outgoing, people person). 

Coming across people who I find are easy to talk to or appreciate me for who I am is rare, but much appreciated. My ex had a lot of issues (lol), but he once expressed to me that he observed that I don’t talk just to talk or fill a space. I talk when I have something to say, and he thought that was unique and refreshing. He respected and admired that about me. A lot of people just see me as deficient, a problem, an alien that needs to change and adjust and conform immediately. So, when he told me this, I let out an enormous internal sigh of relief. I felt seen, and I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear those words. All my life, I thought that in order to be accepted in this society, I would have to tap dance and perform for people 24/7. I could never relax, exhale, be myself, and not be looked down upon for doing so. But this comment made me think that maybe there was a world where I could be 100% myself and be loved and appreciated for it. That’s an incredible feeling.

I’m reading this book now about how a lot of the world's leaders and people in powerful positions are there because they’re loud, confident, and charismatic, not because they’re actually smart, good leaders, or even good people. Our current president is an excellent example of that. I’m starting to look at this whole thing as more of a systemic flaw in the values our society considers good vs bad rather than an individual flaw I need to fix. Human connection is important, but if it’s not authentic, what’s the point? If it is based on manipulation, an unhealthy fear of solitude, or an unhealthy need for validation, it will actually cause more harm than good. There is a balance we can find, but right now, I believe quiet people are severely misunderstood and no pun intended, unheard (lol). This really bothers me. So, before you tell someone how quiet they are or ask them why they’re so quiet, maybe pause first and consider that you’re being:

• Condescending; insinuating that we need to change and be more like the perfect person that you are. Please.

• Annoying; if we make you uncomfortable or fascinate you, you should still leave us alone because we likely don’t want to talk to someone that feels this way about us :)

• Rude; we’ve likely heard this all our lives and it’s likely a big insecurity

I don’t want to fill silences just because it’s awkward. I don’t want to perform and say things I don’t mean. I don’t want to constantly put myself in situations I don’t want to be in just so people don’t think badly about me. I don’t have the energy or the desire to do so. I have one life, and I can think of a lot more enjoyable and productive uses of my time, so I’m done feeling ashamed for literally just being myself. 

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts!

These are some videos that have made me feel seen: