# Am I the only introvert who used to be way more extroverted as a child?



## Irene90 (Jun 30, 2016)

No, that's not just you. According to my parents I would go and pet other people's animals and lay on women's laps when they got me in the waiting rooms of doctors. And of course whenever we went (new cities, supermarkets, friends houses), we would always go to the playground (with my brother), sometimes with known adults' children, where we typically met even more children. Not to mention that the kids from our neighbourhood had a habit to come to our apartment block's garden, which was rather spacious, to play various games. Growing up, I learnt about personal space, I started disliking all sorts of people, I developed a complex over my body image and stopped going to the beach. A visiting uncle when I was about fifteen said about me "that girl has become frigid". It's a phase many adolescents go through. I would say I'm much more balanced now, while I have switched to a preference of an introverted nature.


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## Most Awesome Flyer (Sep 28, 2015)

Nope


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## Laze (Feb 19, 2015)

I learnt that when people loose thier innocence most of them turn into cunts, and due to high school's typical cruelty it made me more introverted after experiencing how fickle, egotistical, disingenuous and more self-centeted everyone tends to become. Socializing was easy when everyone just wanted to climb trees and shit.


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## SilverFalcon (Dec 18, 2014)

I used to be introvert my whole life. 

But as a child I was more open. And of course everyone had more energy, which means more energy for socializing as well.

But I was still introvert interested in how things work so parents could just leave me alone and I would analyse or build things etc.

I started to close myself more as I started to recognize that openness can have unintended consequences:
- hurting someone with naive honesty
- amusing someone with feelings that seem naive to them (which seems like it might undermine their faith in mu judgment as others do not divide feelings and thinking that strictly)
- without first giving people foundations to understand more abstract concepts from my POV I can easily be misunderstood

Specifically for INTP this deepening of introversion might come with restraining the raw inf Fe.

Basically as a child we are more or less equal in our primitive understanding of world. As we grow we develop more in different directions and I thing the POV gap widens and it might be harder to be really understood because the different experiences give so different connotations to words.

This is usually why we INTPs are so meticulous about semantic clarity and proper use of terms. I tend to open up with people who get me so I do not have to backtrack so much every time to make sure they understand what I am saying.


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## Alpha_Orionis (Jan 18, 2015)

Like most of us, according to replies, i was more extroverted as a kid then i am not. I was never the ringleader, that was my brother.


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## voron (Jan 19, 2015)

I was _way_ more popular and had _way_ more friends in elementary school. Though as the time went by I had fewer and fewer friends up until I had almost none, basically.
I remember hanging out with my friends almost every day when I was a child. Though there weren't usually many of us. (3 to 5, including me) I may have been more outgoing then, but I always found out that being alone and drawing or even playing solitaire on win XP by myself at home was very enjoyable. So, I must be an introvert, deep down.


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## Shinsei (May 9, 2016)

When i was in middle school i was indeed pretty extroverted but not the social butterfly level. But now am in high school i hardly talk, my mother noticed this.


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## eglxeno (Jul 13, 2016)

I don't really remember my childhood; I was dissociating most of the time. But I'm almost certain that I had wayy more energy as a child, and I'd have to say I probably was an ENFP for the majority of my childhood.


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## Clayfighter (Jun 21, 2016)

fieryelf said:


> Same thing here. What turned me Introvert was the bullying in high school though, I started distancing myself from the people I knew before high school because they were hanging around the people bullying me, my grades started to suffer, I skipped a few grades, stopped bothering meeting new people, never got invited to parties, therefore never developed a taste for alcohol or social skills.


I developed a big taste for alcohol for actually the same reasons, I would tag along with my cousin to parties, because I was never invited to any on my own, then afterwards the alcohol became an introverted habit. 

my grades also slightly suffered, I started to never do homework, I only aced tests. I would seriously have 0's across the board on homework, but then get 100 on the test.

Thankfully, I shaked the drinking for the most part, but still I figured id reply because I thought it was ironic I turned out the exact opposite for the same reasons.


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## WorldzMine (Sep 9, 2014)

As an actual child, I was highly introverted. From about 15ish to 23ish I was very outgoing. Since then, I've returned to my childhood levels of introversion. My teenage/early 20's extroversion I think was a combo of hormones and/or Prozac.


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## Blessing (Jul 17, 2016)

I remember before I entered secondary school, I had loads of friends and enjoyed inviting people over or going over to friend's houses. Yet I was always shy around strangers and hid when guests, whom I didn't know, came over. I was fine once I got to know them though.

Then I went onto secondary school where I was always the odd one out and had a strange way of thinking compared to other people so I didn't make many friends. A friend once told me that they thought I was unapproachable as I had a cool exterior. She soon found out that I was crazy though, lol.


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## Spiren (May 12, 2016)

More open? Yes.

Extroverted? Nope.

In general, I was always quite assertive and this could confuse people into thinking I was extroverted at some periods in my life until they observed me outside of that role.


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## AusarLacrimosa (Jul 18, 2016)

Nyle said:


> More open? Yes.
> 
> Extroverted? Nope.


This ^

For me, I became more of my introverted self once I understood that not many other people shared my thoughts and opinions, so I stopped broadcasting them openly.


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## Marshy (Apr 10, 2016)

AusarLacrimosa said:


> This ^
> 
> For me, I became more of my introverted self once I understood that not many other people shared my thoughts and opinions, so I stopped broadcasting them openly.


Kind of the same. I didn't really have a filter with my views so I wasn't very liked. When I matured a bit more I tended to be a lot more reserved and I still dont share my views with my closest friends as it is futile.


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## SymphonyInBlue (Mar 20, 2016)

Me too, but I think it's quite normal, our personality is not well developed yet when we are kids.

My younger version was probably an ENTP.


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## kimpossible119 (May 15, 2014)

Yep. I was a lot more outgoing as a kid than I am now. I don't know if I would categorize myself as an extroverted" child. But I was definitely not shy. I think I had a lot more self esteem. I was highly self-confident. It was only when I started high school that anxiety kicked in and I became quiet and shy, and it still hasn't gone away. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## skycloud86 (Jul 15, 2009)

I used to be too although not greatly outgoing even then, but in my mid-teens became more withdrawn and introspective.


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## SouDesuNyan (Sep 8, 2015)

I was probably an ENTP as a kid. It's not until high school when I learned to shut my mouth after figuring out that people actually take words seriously.


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## ae1905 (Jun 7, 2014)

yes, I was more extroverted as a child...I always had friends and spent my summers outside running around playing games...then around 15 I discovered science and became a serious student...being a self-conscious teen probably also contributed, as well as being too old to run around playing games...whatever the reason, I became more studious and spent more time alone...I still had many friends, but spent time with them one-on-one in the way typical of introverts

both my interest in science and budding intoversion at that time can be explained by my developing Ti


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## Octavarium (Nov 27, 2012)

I recall being more extraverted than I am now; certainly more energetic, and I think directing people appealed to me more then than it does now. I'd never have been described as a shy child. At the same time, though, I remember happily spending hours alone in my room. I recall observing, when I was about 9 or 10, that some people said I talked a lot but others described me as quiet. I don't think anything in particular made me more introverted; as far as I can tell, it was just a product of how my interests evolved.


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