It is commonly accepted that there are a disproportionate number of introverts among writers. Writing is, fundamentally, a solitary pursuit. Even when books are co-written the authors often correspond mostly online.
There is also a belief among some mental health ‘experts’, based on faulty science, that introverts comprise a small minority of the general population. A touted personality test, called The Big Five system, suggests that introversion is an aberration, that we are, (depending on the ‘degree of introversion’), essentially abnormal. It places everyone on a sliding scale, with extroversion as ‘positive’ and introversion as ‘lack of extroversion, as somehow ‘less’ and therefore negative. They posit that introversion is maladaptive and needs to be moderated or treated if we want to be ‘normal’ and happy. Depending on the “degree” measured by this test, this has even led to introversion being labeled as a mental illness. Continue reading “Mentally ill? I think not!”