Accepting Help as an Introvert - TOO COSTLY PT I

Introversion often comes across as bitchiness. Being "aloof", a "stuck up snob". When usually it is that we are fucking tired and can't afford the eye contact. This is extra true for femmes with big tits on their chests. Especially if they also have some ASD or other non-neurotypical ways of processing information (like I didn't hear you or know your words were meant for me to put together / was looking at something bright and shiny / am trying to just move my body through a doorway without shoulder-tackling the jam).

It sucks when you are, say, painfully sleep-deprived while, say, trying to help your loved one through a health crisis exacerbated by them being even MORE sleep-deprived than you are, and extroverts offer to help or advise you to seek help from "a friend", but the help would cost more energy (leaving you even more exhausted and fatigued) than it is worth.

Let's say you have a sleep deficit of 35. I don't actually know what numbers you use to represent a sleep deficit but let's just say 20 is bad 50 is terrible 90 is you're going to die from sleep deprivation). A helping professional asks if you have a friend or someone you trust nearby that could give you a place to sleep if it is impossible to sleep in your one-room apartment with your loved one who *definitely* cannot sleep & will keep you awake all night with her. But you are introverts so you while you know people and they would probably do their best to help if you asked, you haven't cultivated friendships with other introverts that are that close and familiar where you'd be comfortable and natural and truly wanted in that situation. Because introverts tend to have just one or three close friends. You and your loved one are married to each other, so that's what you've got: comfort and love and closeness of that kind just with each other. So while you could try one of your other friendly contacts, the oddness of asking for the place to sleep and explaining the stressful private reasons why you need it and the necessity to interact and also demonstrate gratitude and submission to their (usually extroverted) home & ways and figure out the logistics with that person of getting to and fro (plus the energy and expense of to and fro-ing) actually requires so much energy (that you don't even have) that it would add between an 8 and a 12 to your sleep deficit in exchange for at best a reduction of 6. It's not fucking worth it. It would be more helpful to try to get a nap on a bus or in a public library or on a bench at the train station or in a piss-dripping doorway outside. Nothing against your friends; they are great which is part of why inflicting yourself on them would be extra stressful. You'd just have a better chance of reducing your sleep deficit on a park bench or down on the waterfront while one of the piers is breaking off and sinking and construction goes on all around you than if you have to do phone calls and smiles and all of the stuff.

If I had any room left on my credit cards I would just get a room. Which is why I do not have any room left on my credit cards. Because regardless of mafia-level interest rates, as an introvert it is still far far cheaper to get help from the plastic than negotiate and pay for getting help from friends and loved ones. So that is what I have been doing when I have needed help since I was eighteen. You don't have to tell anyone why or what for, you just slide it or give the security numbers. Much. More. Efficient. Leaves more room for resting and sleep.