FOMO and The Highly Sensitive Person

I miss my friends. But after spending time with them, I need to unwind. I was away for a couple of days, and it felt so good to come home I almost cried. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my friends, and I love spending time with them--I need the laughter and bonding to make me feel whole--but I get too excited, too bound up with joy and energy that socializing wears me out. I don't know many people like this. And I often feel so alone in my need to be alone.

I try to deal with my over-exertion by participating in some serious down time. And it takes about a day for me to feel normal again. And this is normal for me. The weird part is, even though I want all this quiet time, I suffer from FOMO. I want to be everywhere all the time. Surely, someone is having conversation I need to be in on, or experiencing a thing I want to experience. But I cannot do all the things. Literally and physically, nobody can. People like me cannot mentally handle all the things they are physically capable of handling. That is the difference.

I have mellowed out in my old(er) age, which means I am becoming more accepting of my fear of missing out. I'm letting go of the need to do all the things with all the people all the time. And it feels...different.
I never knew I was an introvert until I read Elaine N. Aron's The Highly Sensitive Person. This book changed my life. Or at the very least, it changed how I view my life. It made me see the truth about myself as sensitive, introverted, and "normal" as far as sensitive types go. This book became a coda for me, explaining and justifying my need to please, my instinct to over-analyze, and my dissatisfaction with extroverts' reactions to my decisions to "leave the party," so to speak.
If you are introverted, shy, and/or sensitive to your surroundings and mental stimuli, you may benefit from reading this book.

This is not meant to be a review of the book. It's far too vague of a description for that. It's only meant to be a testament to the book's impact on me. Because maybe if it helped me it can help others who know me.
One of the consequences of being like me--a social introvert--is that everybody thinks I am extroverted. I do love to be around people, to an extent. But I need down time, alone time, to recharge. It's a difficult thing for people to understand something that belies their preconceptions. They see me as social because I am bold, loud, and quick to start up a conversation with almost anyone who has a pulse. And I do, often. And I enjoy it. But it takes the wind out of my sails, the mo out of my jo. So when I want to never do any of that again, my friends are confused. And when I want the fun to stop, they think I am being picky or fussy or entitled or something else other than what I am, which is just plain over it.
I have started owning who I am--that this is me and I have limitations the social extrovert does not. So here's what I do to make my sensitive diagnosis work for me.

1. I don't over-plan. If you have ever had an "I-don't-want-to-go-to-this-thing-I-committed-to-three-months-ago" moment, you may benefit from planning less stuff. You won't regret it. Limit yourself to one big weekend thing a month.
2. I give myself time to recover from overwhelming situations. This means napping, hanging around doing nothing, watching TV, reading, etc. Sometimes I even go the mall by myself to walk and window-shop all the hullabaloo out of my system. I go slowly, tinkering about, trying on perfumes and purses, eating a pretzel, etc.
3. I practice saying no graciously. I'm not sure I have this one down since part of being highly sensitive means I am apt to analyze all the possible ways people might interpret my "no." And I worry they will like me a little less each time. Part of graciously saying "no" means learning to accept myself as I am and not worry so much about everybody else. They will be just fine if you don't go to every single gathering in the world. I don't think anyone has ever died because a girl said she couldn't go to a party.

4. I admit who I am. I just tell people what I need. And if they don't like it, they can kiss my sensitive behind. Kidding. But seriously, I have worked hard to develop thick enough skin to be able to verbalize my needs. And again, I don't think anybody ever died because of it.

Many of you may be thinking, "Yeah, right! Like I have time to take a freakin' nap!" Maybe you have children, a fast-paced career, a litter of newborn kittens to bottle-feed. Everybody has something, including a ton of excuses. If your sensitive situation is not working for you, there are concrete things you can do to improve your life. I'm not saying it's easy, but it may be necessary. Every once in a while when I get an invitation to be social, my tendency is to say yes immediately. But then I remember how saying yes gets me into trouble with myself, so I take a few breaths, and say no. I still feel like I'm missing out, but I'm taking care of my heart by staying in.