Hello Blogosphere.

Hello all,

...All  four of you probably reading this so far (hopefully not the case, but I deride myself). This is the inaugural first entry of my blog "Intrexoverted." I want to tell you why I named it that and why I've chosen to create it, but before I do, I'd like to say a few things up front.


We spend far too large a portion of our waking hours, myself greatly included, not being true to ourselves. Or perhaps just not being our "true selves." Whichever way you look at it, it's discouraging how many of us are guilty of it so often. However true that might be, I want this to be a place where it's not the case. I want what I write to be honest and sincere, and most of all, real. And I want that to be evident to whoever reads any of this. Because I  spend far too much time not being true to myself. And quite honestly, I want to start changing that.


What I hope to achieve with this blog, in part, is to make the reader feel and know that there's someone out there (me) that's as weird as them, and that like them, understands what it means to not be sure of who you are. As I talk to more and more of my friends about this - having never previously shared any bit of it with them, or anything having to do with my anxiety problems for that matter - I have discovered, that much to my surprise, they, and presumably many others, are not unlike me. That they struggle with similar things as I do. That they too, find it hard not to stray from being themselves. And so I've concluded: maybe we're all secretly weird and hyper-aware, and veritably insecure, and not ourselves around many people, and we just never talk about it with anyone or let anyone see it. We don't embrace it. Heck, most of us don't even understand it.


I want to avoid sounding pretentious, so I won't make any claims that my blog will be abundantly helpful or inspiring or whatever (even though that would be awesome if it were). I just want it to be impactful, in some way. Any way. I want it to provoke something latent in the reader. A change in heart. Or maybe a change in perception; of yourself, of others, of anything. A discovery maybe. Something you didn't see before...whatever it is, I just want for it to be meaningful.



So enough prefacing. Earlier, I told you I would explain where the name comes from.

The name. The name "Intrexoverted" as one might intuit, is the clever integration of the words "introverted" and "extroverted" (tah-dahh). The idea came from my ongoing, painstakingly onerous struggle to determine which of the two I am more so. When people meet me, I imagine many of them consider me an extrovert. In fact, I know that most of them do. Some even give mention to it. I am loud, eccentric, and talkative. All the tell-tales. But, if they were to know my thoughts (which are many) and emotions (which are strong) at that very time, and the fact that maybe my heart was beating vigorously through my shirt, and that maybe I didn't even really want to meet them, they might very well consider me an introvert. But the good-intentioned extrovert in me wouldn't, and probably couldn't ever just up leave, in great part for fear of what they might think. God forbid anyone on this semi-sizable planet would, should, or could ever dislike me! (Spoiler Alert: hyper-awareness and the anxiety of not being well-liked both consistent themes throughout)

This conflict, or struggle to find out what my more dominant social tendencies are and how I'm wired is admittedly exhausting. And it's hard to just stop thinking about it sometimes. Inevitably, the constant thinking makes me wonder a number of different other things, unendingly really. Because one curiosity, once solved, always leads to a new one. And that new one is always more compelling, more frustratingly abstruse than the last.  This blog will be comprised of those curiosities; of the constant thinking and wondering I do, of my stupid social anxiety, and why I can't seem to just ignore it better, and how I'd like to find out if anyone else thinks or wonders the same things that I do.

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I've done plenty of research the last couple of years on anxiety disorders and their many variations. It hasn't helped a ton in the whole realm of dispelling it and everything. But discovering how common hyper-anxiety is within people (to an extent) gave me the solace necessary to admit to myself that I had it, after sort of denying the whole bit for so many years. Part of it was just not knowing what it was or what to call it though.

But whether diagnosed or not, those with high levels of anxiety tend to also have high propensities to think about and process things. But those with a strong propensity to think and process, normally don't feel toooo inclined to fraternize with their fellow man (or woman). I on the other hand, along with thinking and processing quite incessantly, also feel urged to verbalize these things and talk about them thoroughly with others. But deep down I know no one wants to listen to me think out loud (or I assume so, if I'm being fair to them), and so I frantically begin trying to filter the seemingly unimportant things out. Incidentally, this normally results in me conversationally sorting through a slew of disorganized, incomplete thoughts, that often render the person or people I'm talking to noticeably confused, made obvious by the expressions on their faces.

Anyway, this little "internal spat" thing continues on most of my waking life and it's hard for me to shut it off, let alone fully understand it. But if it's still ambiguous to you, give me some time to explain it. It's not entirely sensical to me either. I hope that in writing about it, and attempting to better understand it myself - or rather, attempting to understand myself better - you will also come to know and understand yourself better as well. And if you don't, I hope that you at least feel less alone than you might have felt before reading this.

My thoughts are random and whimsical and very quasi-A.D.D. at best, so please, bare with me. What I hope to show, and what I want my readers to see, whatever readers I do end up having, is the real "me." The me I disguise all too often. The me not many ever get the opportunity to see or know because I don't allow them to. The me I tuck away. Because I fear that if people were to know the authentic, true me - not some fine-tuned, disingenuous rendition of me - and not like what they saw, I wouldn't quite know what to do with myself.

I should also add that my entries will probably have no particular structure or cadence to them whatsoever. At least not intentionally. The things swirling around perpetually in my mind, and the worries or concerns I have, whether rational or not, are often times unrelated. So as a precursor, let me encourage you not to expect a beautifully coherent and fluid autobiography. I'm not that good. Plus that's not even what I'm shooting for here.

However, I do hope that some of the things I write about cause you to recognize a new beauty in its own right, or maybe one you hadn't noticed or thought about before. Because I think there's a lot of beauty in life that we all don't appreciate or talk about enough, and it's sad. And I don't care if that sounds cheesy. It's true.

And isn't it funny that in grade school they told us to "never start a sentence with "and," and how, ironically enough, it's used literarily by many authors quite often, and is also undeniably fun to use?? But I digress...

I will do my utter best to post entries with some consistency, but again, I stress the whole "no promises" caveat. I can be a bit poor with the whole consistency thing sometimes...
If I'm being honest.


Yours Truly,
Brandon