Reply to Why does my mother find it impossible to stop talking?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel like this is me.  I think I am just extroverted, and it is anxiety too.  When I was growing up, my mother's silence meant she was distant, angry, and some bad stuff was about to go down.  I feel much safer constantly checking the barometer of the room by being in conversation [/quote]

I'm sorry, PP. My SIL is like this and I suspect it's for the same reason. "Checking the barometer of the room" describes her really well. It makes me sad that she can't relax when we're together.[/quote]

In this situation it seems like letting the anxious person know why you are being silent might help. "Jane, I'm a bit of an introvert. All this talking is exhausting and making me feel (bad, anxious,etc). I need a little silence. It's not because I'm mad or angry. In fact silence makes me happy. If your goal is to make the people around you happy, please give me 30mins of silence so I can read and decompress. "[/quote]

This would probably help.  It's taken me YEARS to realize when people are silent they aren't being angry at me, they just are in their own heads.  Particularly around family, this is ramped up way more.  Now I can tolerate it and even relax into it but I think many extroverted types or anxious types assume something is wrong.  If you are an extrovert, human interaction makes you feel better. The same way that them constantly talking makes you feel stressed, your silence makes them feel stressed.  So it's about compromise, I think- I make an effort to be quieter/not try to chat all the time, and I tell them that I need some reassurance- I need to ask them questions and not get one words answers back, that kind of a thing.  But communicating about it so both sides can understand the other person is I think the key, and helps to meet in the middle so both parties can relax a bit. [/quote]

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