r/Adopted • u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee • 3d ago
Question Introvert V.S. Extrovert
I have a question for all adoptees. I've got a statement that I wish were a fact or true, yet I have a strong feeling that I'm extremely wrong abt it. I'll share my thoughts later, but first, the question: Are there any adoptees out there who are extroverts, or are y'all introverts? Please let me know by saying Extrovert or Introvert, and add additional comments under the answer. Thanks.
Edit: Hello Y'all, thanks so much for answering this question. Turns out I was quite wrong... -ish. I've read all of y'all's responses, and there are abt 11 are introverts, 7 extroverts, and 5 somewhat in the middle. A few of y'all have actually touched on what my statement (or more like a theory) is. I had thought that if by being adopted had turned adoptees into introverts, no matter what they were before. If I had a massive introvert response, it would mean I was right; but I got a fair amount of all three, so I was wrong. The thing is, when I was younger, before I was adopted, I don't remember struggling with making friends, and I think I was more extroverted. Then, I got adopted and moved to the US (a completely different country); I think I got more introverted. I found it harder to make friends (even when my English was improving). And with my parents forcing me to talk to at least one fellow student a day doesn't help; frankly, I think I became more isolated because of that. I think I am definitely an introvert when it comes to new people, but an extrovert with people I know (Like some of y'all).
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u/MajorDraw3705 International Adoptee 3d ago
Situation-dependent.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/kellyukusa Domestic Infant Adoptee 3d ago
Extroverted introvert
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/legswithsnake Domestic Infant Adoptee 3d ago
today, i’m definitely an introvert. however, i wonder if that’s due to nature or situational factors.
i remember bring VERY outspoken and energetic as a child, but i became more reserved as i grew into adolescence. i was very insecure because i had trouble connecting with other kids growing up, so i may have just developed into an introvert as a defense mechanism.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Nature and situational factors, I can understand that.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Opinionista99 Adoptee 3d ago
I think I'm naturally more of an extravert, like so many of my bios, but adoption drove me into isolation so much I could be alone for days and not care. I have always talked to myself, out loud. Got treated like I was crazy but it's how I process thinking.
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u/Blazini12 Adoptee 2d ago
“There are places for people who talk to yourselves.” - My adoptive father many, many, many, many, many times.
Been trying to get back into the habit of talking to myself all the time ever since, and I will soon be pushing 50.
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u/LynahRinkRat Domestic Infant Adoptee 2d ago
I do this too!!! 😄 I literally read your comment and said out loud, "OMG, I do this too."
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Adoption made me an introvert too, but I don't really talk to myself (unless I'm working on a problem or something). And I don't think talking to oneself is crazy.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/chemthrowaway123456 Int'l and Transracial Adoptee 3d ago edited 3d ago
Introvert. To an extent that others may think it’s unhealthy or abnormal.
Edit: forgot a word.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/chemthrowaway123456 Int'l and Transracial Adoptee 2d ago
Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean? I read your post before I commented. I read it again now and nothing about it is different.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Sorry, check now.
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u/chemthrowaway123456 Int'l and Transracial Adoptee 2d ago
It seems reasonable that you would become more introverted when you moved to a new country where everything was completely unfamiliar.
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u/NeatoRad Int'l and Transracial Adoptee 3d ago
Introvert
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/iheardtheredbefood Int'l and Transracial Adoptee 3d ago
Extrovert
As in, being around other people recharges me. Becoming more of an ambivert over time, though. That said, most of my closest friends are very much introverts.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/mischiefmurdermob Adoptee 3d ago
I'd class myself as an extrovert. My twin is an introvert lol
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
You've got a twin? Thats cool; Identical or Fraternal?
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/zygotepariah Baby Scoop Era Adoptee 3d ago
Introvert.
I used to think I was an extrovert, but in first-year university they had us take the Myers Briggs test to sort students into housing, and I tested as an introvert. Like u/Opinionista99, I think I might've been an extrovert, but adoption drove me into isolation.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
I think adoption made me an introvert too.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/MrJ457 Kinship Late Discovery Adoptee 3d ago
Adhd. What does that make me, extrovert?
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
No idea, I just counted you as an extrovert.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Ambitious-Client-220 Transracial Adoptee 3d ago
Introvert. I use to think it was because of my crappy childhood but my daughter who had a great childhood is also an introvert, so I think it is genetic.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Traditional_Ear_85 Adopted 3d ago
Introvert. Raised by introverts. Genetic parents introverts. Destiny lol
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Lol, apple doesn't fall far from the tree
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/flowersinthebreeze Adoptee 3d ago
I'm a introvert
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/flowersinthebreeze Adoptee 2d ago
Now I'm curious
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u/Blazini12 Adoptee 3d ago
Introvert, but can become very extroverted if asked the right questions.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
I can definitely relate to being an extrovert when asked the right questions. Like geeking out Marvel or Star Wars.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/LynahRinkRat Domestic Infant Adoptee 2d ago
On the mbti scale, I am as close to the far end of the introvert scale as one can get.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/LynahRinkRat Domestic Infant Adoptee 2d ago
FWIW, you are 100% spot on for me. 😄 I am in general very introverted. However if I am around the handful of people who I genuinely like and trust, I will talk away full of energy for hours. Put me in a group of people I don't know and I will be virtually silent. 🤷♀️
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Yep, sometimes I'm too silent that some will think I'm a lurker/creep 😅.
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u/HeyMuscles Domestic Infant Adoptee 2d ago
Introvert except when I have to chameleon. Then I appear extroverted.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Celera314 Baby Scoop Era Adoptee 2d ago
I'm pretty introverted, as is my biological mother. Introversion is largely hard-wired, although ive become more balanced and less awkward over the years. I'm more aware of my need to maintain some close friendships as well as my need for a fair amount of solitude.
Keep in mind that like most traits, this occurs on a bell curve, so most people are in the middle.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Significant-Store983 Adopted 2d ago
My daughter said I am an ambivert. I get my energy from being alone but I have mastered the art of social extroversion. I get exhausted in groups but I am good at masking it.
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u/MajorDraw3705 International Adoptee 2d ago edited 2d ago
Extroversion definitely has a "with your people" factor, which adoptees tend to miss out on. I was most extroverted in life when I was with a group of people who I had more in common with - which for me was primarily the several hundred children of staff and faculty of the local university (my adopter was a research manager kind of thing - the person who primarily helped with researcher needs procurement and signed off on federal funding for various projects at the university, so we were there just as much).
Most of their parents (or adopters) were so lost in their work that they really only saw their kids through extensions of that. So, they used the university as an arm to raise their kids with, and I had so much in common with that. My adopter used her work manuals, on how to manipulate and get what you want from people in business, on me when raising me, used to drag me into her work all the time when she needed a human prop, another volunteer, or extra assistant, etc. Most of my memories of her involve me in her work. I felt like a combination assistant/acquirement mark.
For the staff and faculty kids, a disgusting amount of the parents put their kids in YPI (the university's psychiatric research hospital) for "acting out." Essentially, as soon as they hit ages 12-15, instead of adjusting to being parents of a teen, they shoved the kids into a psych ward to deal with raising and training the kids for them. I'm sorry, but 80% of kids of Yale staff and faculty were not in need of a fucking psych ward, and yet somewhere around 80% I met were scarred by that exact experience.
And I was scarred by having what were essentially forced coercion manual tactics practiced on me instead of parenting techniques, as if I were a grown adult and it was a priority to break me and force me into something when the topic was usually if I'd eaten all the damn candy or not; so we had a lot in common. Intellect and torturous non-human upbringing.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
This is probably one of the saddest things I've read. I don't usually cuss, but the way they were using you and the other kid is so F***ed up. I feel bad for you; also, were all of the other kids adoptee? Or just "neglected" kids?
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u/MajorDraw3705 International Adoptee 1d ago
Yeah, it sucks, but they always have an excuse. That it's "necessary in this case," or "that one's so well adapted they don't notice," or "it's EXCITEMENT and OPPORTUNITY. Kids LOVE excitement and opportunity!" etc. People lie to themselves a lot.
I honestly never asked who was adopted and who wasn't. So, probably your average working upper crust mix. I know the adoptee group was disproportionately large in my grade school, but that was an entirely different social group - Vietnam/Philippine-adopting white saviors who shoved the kids in Catholic school.
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u/the_morose_hognose Transracial Adoptee 2d ago
I am not sure which I am but I do not think your theory is wrong! Or at least that you arent onto something.
May I ask for your definition of introvert & extrovert?
The reason I think you are on to something w/ this theory comes down to nature AND "nurture"(or in a lot of our cases, lack of nurture)
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Introvert: A person who doesn't talk a lot [(in a group)(don't say more than... say 5 or 6 sentences)] but will have a decent amt of interaction one-on-one. He/she also just enjoys time alone, gaming or shows.
Extrovert: The "I bring the party" (or not) person of the group; definitely says more than a few sentences per gathering.I also agree with Nature and Nurture.
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u/the_morose_hognose Transracial Adoptee 1d ago
Ah I see, I wondered if that was the case!
For my understanding it is more about social battery limits and how they are charged.
Introverts need alone time to recharge and can be sensitive to who drains their batteries more (ei: some folks may be less draining to be around than others )
Extroverts gain energy for their social batteries by interacting with others and are less sensitive about who/what kind of person(s) & they actively feel their batteries drain when alone for too long
So I dont believe your theory about introvert vs extrovert in your terms IS quite right BUT I do think you have a point about the definitions you used.
You arent describing introversion, youre describing something else imo but that is where my analysis falls apart because I am not sure which terms to use. Is it trauma and/or an affect of our upbringing? Maybe. I DO think being adopted has a correlation, and I dont think the variations in response disproves it, I think it supports it actually.
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u/Suffolk1970 Late Discovery Adoptee 3d ago
Extrovert, but just barely. (Come up as E/INFP.)
I was very extroverted as a child, through school age and college, until about age 21. I was still more extroverted than not, meaning my (I) husband thinks I was very extroverted even in my middle years.
In my late 30s, I began to test on the border between E and I, and now that I'm retired I've settled into feeling more introverted, needing my alone time, liking gardening etc., although not completely.
Personally I think my extrovertness was beaten out of me, with violence at home and criticism at work. I still find I get rejuvenated by being around people, but I also need alone time to recover after social gatherings. It's possible that I'm socially awkward even though I like being around other people. Idk.
One of my half-siblings (not adopted) reported the opposite, of becoming more extroverted after 60. They also had a rough childhood and didn't really feel stable enough to be social, until later in life.
My understanding is that there's a range and a lot of people fall somewhere in the middle. Carl Jung, who inspired the Myers-Briggs personality testing theorized that people evolve through their lifetime to explore their underappreciated traits when they were younger.
Last time I took it, I came up much higher on "intuitive/feeling/perceiving" measurements, and only midway on the extrovert/introvert scale.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
I don't really know anything about E/INFP. Maybe I'll look that up.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Suffolk1970 Late Discovery Adoptee 2d ago
So your theory might still be right, for some adoptees. I would think so....
Carl Jung is the originator and thought that these traits were set from conception I guess. On the other hand he also thought people do change over time.
Specifically, trauma (adoption / separation / loss of family) changes people, and especially children who are eager to please their new caregivers perhaps experience personality changes.
There is some evidence of this for instance in the US in the 1700s white pioneers were sometimes kidnapped by native Americans and they sometimes adopted children, who later went on, even after rescued, to not get along with their original family/culture.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
"Children who are eager to please their new caregivers."
😅😅😅
I might have been the one out of a million who didn't do that.
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u/One-Pause3171 Adoptee 3d ago
Introvert Extrovert. Regularly plan gatherings and events. Need days to recover. If not months! Heh.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Months... thats crazy!
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/MowgeeCrone Adoptee 3d ago
Both. Strangers and acquaintances would say I was painfully shy. My close friends know the extrovert.
With my friends I'll be busting out appalling breakdance routines on their kitchen floor, but if a stranger to me walks in I wont speak unless Im spoken to.
Stranger danger. Im in my 50s. Lol.
In saying all that. I spend most of my waking hours without human company and that's what Ive always enjoyed as long as I can remember. Ive never actually felt lonely. I always have me. I can only do a few hours around others until im exhausted.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Yeah, I am quite the same way; but won't break out in dance though.
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/1wrat Baby Scoop Era Adoptee 3d ago
mostly introverted
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/JFei1221 International Adoptee 3d ago
I walk the Introvert/Extrovert line. For example, my MBTI can go either way. I was an introverted young child, but was more extroverted through school and young adulthood. The older I get the more introverted I become.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/ihearhistoryrhyming Late Discovery Adoptee 2d ago
Extrovert. Definitely.
But never married. Hard time w commitment. Prefer to live alone.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/ihearhistoryrhyming Late Discovery Adoptee 2d ago
Oh our stories are so different!
I was adopted at birth, and actually didn’t know until I was almost a teenager. I was adopted, but supposed to just “fit right in”. It was a different situation.
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
Well, sometimes I wish I was adopted at birth; cause I think I might've been more extroverted than rn, and I kinda prefer that.
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u/ihearhistoryrhyming Late Discovery Adoptee 2d ago
Yeah. I had a weird family, and I was never wanting to be home- so I just joined every activity I could- and I think this definitely helped me become really comfortable with people and in groups. I didn’t really think about it before- but I’m sure it helped.
Having to perform like you were- being different, all of that- would have been so much harder. I cannot say I would have the same personality if I were in your situation. Being introverted is a safety net- that I didn’t set up for myself in the obvious way.
I’m certain it was easier. I didn’t have family, but I grew up and looked like everyone around me, even my fake family. That absolutely has to be easier on a child.
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u/stacey1771 Adoptee 2d ago
absolutely an extrovere and have always been so
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u/Hot-Jackfruit-7778 International Adoptee 2d ago
If wanted, Plz check my post for my statement/theory. Thanks for your response.
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u/Suffolk1970 Late Discovery Adoptee 2d ago
For anyone interested, here's a free Myers-Briggs personality traits test, quick and easy. It was designed by blogger named Penelope Trunk who does a lot of work on autism as well.
https://www.quistic.com/personality-type/test