- September 12, 2018
- Psychological terms
- Raisa Bogacheva
What do you call a person who doesn't like talking to people? These are introverts. They are withdrawn and closed, therefore, not inclined to communicate with other people, and it is very difficult for them to establish contacts with others. Such people almost always have thoughts that others negatively discuss their every action. In fact, it is very difficult to start a conversation based on this if the only thing in your head is how the interlocutor can criticize and evaluate you. More details about what people who don’t like to communicate are called later in the article.
Like really
Everything is, in fact, far from simple. Perhaps the introvert himself often evaluates and criticizes. The whole world is hostile to him and, based on this thought, nothing good can be expected from those around him. And when a person is engaged only in discussing, criticizing and evaluating other people, then over time he begins to think that all people do the same. This is the so-called projection illusion. It helps a person not to feel lonely, and thanks to it, introverts do not crave communication so much. These individuals seem to read minds; they firmly believe that they know what is in the heads of the people around them.
Avoidant personality disorder and other personality disorders
What distinguishes avoidant disorder from borderline personality disorder is the persistence of a pattern of avoidance in relationships. The borderline pattern of behavior is characterized by alternating approach and distance. The classic “come here - go away - I love you.”
Unlike schizoid personality disorder, in which the ability to maintain relationships is very limited, people suffering from avoidant disorder can maintain relationships but leave them because the need for self-protection exceeds the need for communication.
Avoidant personality disorder differs from social phobia in its broader coverage of life situations, which are affected by the behavioral features of this personality disorder.
How to understand this
For example, a person who does not like to communicate with people walks down the street and, stumbling, falls. As he stands up, he catches the glances of passers-by, and the first thought that is present in the introvert’s head, as a rule, is this: “Anyway, they now think that I’m an idiot.”
These individuals seem to take responsibility for the contents of other people’s heads, being confident and convinced that those who have negative thoughts that specifically affect the introvert. And the most important benefit of this illusion is that a person suffering from this illness thinks that if everyone criticizes and evaluates, this means that they are the same as the introvert himself. Thus, without realizing it, a closed person does not feel lonely.
Why I don’t want to communicate with people: how to find out the real reason?
To answer the question why you don’t want to communicate with people, you need to analyze your situation and understand what exactly is preventing you from creating social connections, what you are afraid of and what results you expect. Until you do this, you will not be able to achieve the desired results and understand why there is no desire to contact others.
In the process of interacting with the unconscious and searching for true answers, you may experience discomfort. This is a completely natural phenomenon, because any improvement requires some effort. Answer questions honestly and don’t lie to yourself, otherwise your reluctance to communicate with people will not go away, and you will think for the rest of your life that there is something wrong with you.
Take two sheets of paper and a pen. Divide one sheet of paper into four equal-width columns.
- In the first column, write the following question: “Why don’t I want to communicate with people?” ,
- in the second - “What feelings do I experience when communicating with a stranger?” ,
- in the third - “What feelings do I experience when I communicate with someone I know?” ,
- in the fourth - “What results do I expect from communicating with people?” .
Think carefully, but don’t delay in answering. Write the answers that come to your mind first. If some answer gives you mixed feelings, don’t ignore it, but try to figure out why these feelings arise.
If, in the process of analyzing the situation, some flashbacks (repeated experiences from the past) arise in your head, then immediately write them down on a second sheet of paper. Be sure to note exactly what response this or that flashback evoked in you, and what feelings you experienced.
Below we will analyze the most typical and widespread reasons that cause reluctance to communicate with people, and we will tell you what to do to remove this destructive tendency from life once and for all.
✔ Reason #1. Childhood psychological trauma
Psychological trauma received in childhood has a negative impact on a person not only in adolescence, but also in adulthood. But more often than not, we do not understand that childhood psychotrauma is behind the reluctance to communicate with people. We are looking for some superficial reasons and delving into the current period of time, because childhood is left behind, so how can it influence an adult? Maybe, and how it can!
It all starts with childhood, and if you don’t remember what happened to you then, this does not mean that this stage of life, like a turned over book page, has sunk into oblivion and now has no influence on you.
Problems with building social connections and communicating with others often have those people who, as children, were subjected to parental neglect, physical or mental violence, were brought up in a strict and authoritarian family, in a family of emotionally immature parents, in a family of alcoholics or drug addicts, heard of parents having sex, in the yard or school they were the object of ridicule and bullying. Reluctance to communicate can also arise in those individuals who, in childhood, witnessed some kind of traumatic situation to the psyche (the death of a loved one, an accident, physical or mental violence against a significant adult (dad beat mom, dad beat a brother or sister, mom’s friend whom she brought her home, bullied her, etc.), a cruel scene seen on TV, etc.).
Such phenomena are difficult for the adult psyche to cope with, let alone the child’s psyche. To relieve excessive stress from the nervous system, the child’s psyche places memories of the traumatic situation in a “capsule” and hides it in the subconscious. The more such situations happen in a child’s life, the more “capsules” are formed and accumulate in the subconscious.
➥ What to do? Work with your childhood traumas and develop a conscious lifestyle. Reluctance to communicate with people is one of the consequences of psychological trauma received in childhood. The sooner you begin to work through the negative emotions received in childhood and buried in the subconscious, the easier it will be for you to find yourself and establish relationships with the outside world.
This process takes a lot of time and requires some effort, but the result is definitely worth it. Start by analyzing those flashbacks that arose while searching for the true reasons and motives for your reluctance to communicate with people.
Take a piece of paper and describe the situation in detail. What happened? Who took part? How did the participants of the event behave? What was your role? Did you actively participate or were you a silent observer? What emotions did you experience? How did it all end?
When working with childhood trauma, take the position of an outside observer, an adult, objective and impartial. Your task is to sort out past experiences, draw certain conclusions and archive negative emotions.
✔ Reason No. 2. Introversion
There are two types of people: extroverts and introverts. The former love to communicate, draw vitality from the outside, are ready to spend 24 hours a day in the company of other people and cannot live a day without interacting with others. The latter themselves produce vitality, so they get tired of communicating with people very quickly, lose interest in conversation and prefer sparsely populated or completely deserted places. When choosing between a noisy party and a quiet evening with a book, the extrovert will immediately run to choose the right outfit, and the introvert will think about which book to choose in order to get maximum pleasure.
Both extroverts and introverts are completely normal and adequate people, but they have different priorities. An extrovert can be in the company of other people for a very long time and not experience any discomfort, while an introvert will almost immediately want to end the dialogue and say goodbye to the interlocutor.
Introversion is an innate characteristic, so it must be accepted as an integral part of oneself, as a unique feature that is worth reckoning with. There is no need to blame yourself for the fact that you, unlike an extrovert, are not ready to join the conversation at any second and become the life of the party.
➥ What to do? Each of us has our own set of unique characteristics and qualities. Accept that you were born an introvert, so interacting with other people and building social connections is not a priority for you. Don’t blame yourself for not wanting to contact other people, but don’t completely isolate yourself either.
Avoid extremes and look for a middle ground. An introvert who finds himself in the right company of like-minded people becomes a sociable extrovert, so look for those people with whom you will enjoy spending time. But as soon as you feel that your mental strength is running out, immediately say goodbye and stop communicating. It’s better to communicate in doses and enjoy it than to sit in a company until you lose your pulse, and then take three days off from such a burdensome pastime.
✔ Reason No. 3. Problems with personal boundaries
If you are surrounded by toxic and cynical people who continually violate your personal boundaries, poke their nose into things that aren’t their own, and give advice that no one needs, then it’s not surprising that you don’t want to communicate with them. Finding a common language with social predators who seek only their own benefit and do not care about the rights, interests and desires of other people is quite difficult, especially for those individuals who have problems setting personal boundaries.
No one respects or takes a person without personal boundaries seriously. His opinion is not taken into account, his ideas immediately fall into the category of ridiculous and senseless, his appearance is criticized, and his inner world is devalued and ostracized. It is very difficult for an individual with blurred personal boundaries to build social connections with other representatives of the human race, especially with manipulators and sociopaths, because the latter immediately understand what is what and begin to use it to the fullest.
After such an interaction, you are left with a very unpleasant aftertaste, you feel like a squeezed lemon and want only one thing: to hide from others and not see them for as long as possible. In your mind, you constantly replay dialogues with toxic people and think about how you should have responded in order to be respected, and how you will answer next time so that your interlocutors understand that you can stand up for yourself. But the next time, nothing works out for you, those around you are even more convinced that you can wipe their feet on you, and you want to sink into the ground and never communicate with either these or other people again.
➥ What to do? Set personal boundaries and protect them. How to do it? You need to start by working out your inner world. Each person has a set of his own principles, concepts and ideas that guide his life. These are the values for which a person is ready to go through fire and water. And if you are ready to give up these values at any second, just to please another person and not provoke a conflict of interest, then you are very easy to manage and manipulate.
Think about what principles, ideas, concepts and concepts fill your inner world, and then begin to affirm and strengthen them. Internal philosophy is a protective barrier between your internal values and unfriendly people who want to first grab these values with dirty hands, and then, using them for their own benefit, throw them in the trash. In order not to lose vital energy and not limit communication with normal people, protect your values and do not give in when it comes to things that are important to you.
✔ Reason No. 4. Toxic relationship
Very often, a reluctance to communicate with others occurs in those people who are in toxic relationships. These relationships are so exhausting, they deprive you of the ability to enjoy life, they make you feel like an insignificant and good-for-nothing being, that communication with other people fades not into the second or third, but into one hundred and fifty-seventh plan.
The person who spends all his time, energy, nerves and money on a toxic partner simply does not have enough energy to communicate with people. What kind of pleasant and constructive communication with a friend can we talk about if the girl is always thinking about why her beloved didn’t call again and notify him that he was delayed?
We recommend: 18 signs of a toxic relationship with a man
A relationship with a manipulator, abuser, psychopath, misogynist or any other toxic person becomes the alpha and omega for a codependent partner. The victim forgets that another life exists somewhere, all her attention is focused on the object of desire. Some people, stuck in toxic relationships, think that their reluctance to communicate with people arose on their own, but this could not have happened without the active influence of the abuser. He inspires his victim that she is surrounded only by envious people, haters and whiners who wish her everything bad and are just waiting for her to make a mistake in order to gloat. Gradually, the victim of gaslighting becomes convinced that the abuser is right and loses the desire to communicate not only with colleagues, acquaintances and friends, but also with close relatives.
➥ What to do? Get out of toxic relationships. You need to realize that being in a relationship with a toxic partner will not lead to anything good. Reluctance to communicate with people is one of the signs that some problems have arisen in your personal life. And the sooner you deal with these problems, the easier it will be for you to recover, regain yourself and improve your quality of life.
Create the right information field around yourself: watch thematic videos, read relevant literature, cultivate in yourself the awareness that your relationship has no future. If you do not break the connection with the abuser, then the lack of desire to communicate with people will not be the main problem in your life.
Fear of evaluation
There are many types of fear: evaluations, consequences, loss of comfort, fear of not being recognized, fear of loss of significance and others. An introvert has everything, but most of all, of course, fear of evaluation. Each time, acting as fear wants, a person stews in it more and more, and each time in a similar situation, fear intensifies and a process begins that leads to isolation, closedness and hatred of the whole world.
Fear simply permeates the entire essence of such people, but they can fiercely deny it and throw anger at it. This illusion is a direct negation. For example, a mother asks her son: “Why did you stop communicating with people?”, and he told her: “They are all idiots, they are not interesting to me!” And it's not even cheating! If you combine anger with fear, then you end up with something similar to what was said.
Fearing the activities of the surrounding world, the introvert’s brain does not allow him to admit that he is afraid of any rustle, but putting a ton of anger on top of this fear is much more comfortable, and the tension will not be as hellish as when realizing that a person is simply afraid to talk to a stranger .
Causes
There is no single cause of anxiety disorder. Undoubtedly, a lot depends on the upbringing of the child in the family. A similar syndrome can be caused by excessive parental care of the child and excessive criticism of his actions. These factors can give rise to an inferiority complex in the child - one of the fundamental factors influencing the development of the condition.
However, one should not discount the characteristics of the nervous system, which may be genetically determined. Avoidant individuals have excessively increased reactivity of the psyche and nervous system, which recognize relatively safe situations, such as communication, as threatening. This is also confirmed by the fact that anxious individuals often suffer from various phobias.
Fear of Rejection
Approach a girl and try, maybe, to get to know her? An introvert will not have such thoughts and subsequent actions. He clearly says to himself: “She will say no, no matter what.” And, it seems, what’s so difficult about taking it and approaching it. And even if there is a refusal, what bad will happen? The world will not collapse! But an introvert doesn't think so.
And he will explain everything to himself in any case, forcing him to make sure that it was the right action - it’s simply easier to move away than to risk approaching a girl, hearing “no,” aggravating his emotional state and adding a dose of tension. But it could have happened completely differently: a person would have approached, started getting to know each other, started a conversation, and everything would have been just fine. But fear prevents such actions from being performed.
Physical and mental exhaustion
Excessive workloads and lack of pleasure from work often lead to loss of vitality and deep fatigue. Working hard, every person unconsciously wants to receive in return something that will bring him moral satisfaction. If a business in which you had to invest a lot of energy and labor ultimately does not live up to expectations, after physical exhaustion comes moral exhaustion.
“I don’t want to communicate with friends, go to work and think about the future” - this is a typical behavior pattern for patients with apathy. The duration of treatment depends on the person. Therapy will be long and exhausting if he cannot find a suitable stimulus.
Fatigue is the main enemy of a good mood, positive thoughts and self-confidence. If it becomes chronic, burnout is inevitable. Apathy does not occur where there are no compelling reasons for it, so it is extremely important for people prone to psychotic disorders to avoid stressful situations, not allow themselves to get involved in conflicts and emotional distress.
Does an introvert really not like to communicate?
Wikipedia says that an introvert does not like communication, this is a false statement. Everyone loves to communicate, it’s just that a person who does not like to communicate with people has reached such a stage that he simply cannot admit his desire to make contact with others. He tells himself day after day about how bad everything is around him, and therefore he doesn’t seem to need communication, based on the fact that everyone is an idiot. Self-deception is what introverts do most of the time, denying and not accepting help from anyone. What for? Everything is fine with them, and, accordingly, they do not need assistance. There are many reasons why they reason and do the right thing, but at this stage they lack common sense.
Avoidant personality disorder: cognitive distortions
Avoidant personality disorder involves a fear of initiating relationships and responding to other people's attempts due to fear of rejection. For people with avoidant disorder, such rejection is intolerable, so they engage in social avoidance. They also engage in cognitive and emotional avoidance, not thinking about things that might cause them dysphoria.
These avoidance patterns are based on maladaptive schemas or long-held dysfunctional beliefs about oneself and others. They tend to consider themselves socially, academically and professionally incompetent.
They typically view others as critical of them, derogatory, and uninterested. Schemas about the self include themes of difference, inadequacy, defectiveness, and unattractiveness. Schemas about others include themes of indifference and rejection.
These people are likely to predict and interpret rejection as being caused solely by their own personal shortcomings. The prediction of rejection leads to dysphoria. Finally, individuals with avoidant personality disorder lack external criteria to judge themselves positively. Thus, they must rely on their perception.
They tend to misperceive neutral or positive reactions as negative, which further exacerbates their sensitivity to rejection and social emotional and cognitive avoidance. In other words, they hold negative schemas that cause them to avoid decisions where they might interact with others.
They also avoid tasks that may cause discomfort and avoid thinking about things that cause discomfort. Because of their low tolerance for discomfort, they use distractions and excuses when they start to feel sad or anxious.
Is complete isolation necessary?
Common sense is a useful skill or trait in a person that makes it possible to correctly assess a situation and act correctly. Sitting closed from everyone, a person does not understand that he has a problem. He explained everything to himself in such colors that everything was just perfect, but if he took any actions that would bring him back into society, it would be just hell.
It is difficult to help a person who rejects that very help. Although there are still introverts who find the strength to look at themselves honestly and accept the help of a psychiatrist.
In complete isolation there is only degradation, and any introvert is heading there. Even if he locks himself in his apartment and reads (this can’t be called degradation), he has a high risk of mental changes, because it is impossible to develop without contact with society.
The process of losing common sense occurs slowly, but it is almost impossible to restore it. Over time, strange thoughts can materialize into actions that can cause irreparable damage to the introvert himself or even to those around him.
What qualities does an introvert have?
There is a tree of character defects that is studied in institutes where psychology is taught. In the pillar itself is fear. And under the roots there are 3 significant aspects:
- hypersensitivity;
- idealism;
- perfectionism.
Most likely, in a person who does not like to communicate with people, it is hypersensitivity that predominates most of all. He thinks that everyone around him wants to offend him, hurt him, hurt him, but this has already been written about. And all this comes from life, when the process of becoming an introvert was just beginning.
All the insults they received were very hard for them to bear, and these feelings were simply beyond his control. And being in them for a long time makes a person embittered. Every text heard towards a person who is predisposed to become an introvert is processed by his brain, taken out of context, and fantasy comes into play. A person begins to think that they want to hurt and hurt him. And so every time! They may not even try to do this to him, but he becomes more and more offended and stops communicating. Such constant experiences encourage an introvert to move away from society in order to be alone with himself. There seems to be nothing wrong with just being alone. But this is not controlled. If today an introvert wants to be alone for 1 hour, then in a year he may not be able to stand an hour in society.
Closedness and withdrawal can also manifest themselves not only because of something far-fetched, but also because of negative experiences gained in the past. For example, when wanting to get acquainted, an introvert heard not only a refusal, but also something bad that could, accordingly, hurt him greatly.
What you call a person who doesn’t like to communicate is no longer a secret. And it is very important not to allow real or imagined grievances to guide our actions.
Public lack of demand
Another reason why a person may say: “I don’t want to communicate with anyone!” may be tense relationships among friends, a team, or family. Not wanting to make contact, on a subconscious level he protects himself from non-acceptance of himself by his environment. In psychology, this phenomenon is called “personality dissatisfaction syndrome.” It takes its roots, as a rule, from unsuccessful relationships with management, colleagues, relatives, etc.
If a person often hears critical statements addressed to himself and is forced to be in a state of constant confrontation, sooner or later he ceases to believe in his own rightness, and self-doubt is the first step towards apathy.
