characters from myth who seem to have relatable introvert burnout

Welcome back to Myth Takes! It’s been a while. It figures that, right after my anniversary post celebrating my 52-week publishing streak, I ended up needing to take nearly a month off to recharge and regroup over the holidays. Nothing could have been more predictable in retrospect.

During the holidays, I spent a full two weeks with my parents, my siblings, and their kids. It was wonderful, and incredibly heartwarming to see my kids playing with their cousins. But one of my favorite parts was that, by the end, it felt like there was zero pressure to actively spend quality time with each other. We’d been together long enough that we could simply exist together in the same space while one person read a book, one person played on their Switch, and one person scrolled through instagram.

I know that we can do that from our own homes, without having to take a long plane flight to a tropical destination, so maybe I’m missing the point of family vacations. But I’ve found that if I try too hard to carpe every diem during the holidays, I end up exhausted, drained, and miserable, in a state of social exhaustion that is sometimes called “introvert burnout.”

What is introvert burnout? It’s when you don’t give yourself enough downtime to recharge between socializing. If it goes on long enough, you get irritable, spacey, distracted, exhausted, and depressed. A great way to be when you’re trying to have quality time with people you love and don’t often get to see! So these days I give myself plenty of downtime to dissociate while playing Balatro on my phone in between activities.

If the holidays left you feeling a little burned out on socializing, you’re not alone (except in as much as you want to be left alone in peace, please god). But you’re not unique or weird or bad. There are plenty of others who have experienced the same thing. And, if you squint hard enough, I think you can tell that there are some kindred spirit characters from literature and myth who experienced something similar.

Penelope

Imagine: you’re trying to grieve for your husband in peace, and instead you have to host a decade-long party with extremely unpleasant houseguests who refuse to leave?! What a living nightmare. No wonder she’s always escaping to go work on her loom.

Hestia

The goddess of the hearth and the Olympian most likely to be forgotten about. There isn’t really any mythology around her, because she isn’t part of any good stories, because doesn’t take part in any of the gods’ nonsense. She’s extremely comfortable being a homebody and is happiest interacting with nobody. Honestly, respect.

Pylades

Orestes’ faithful sidekick seems uncomfortable whenever he’s not alone with Orestes. He’s onstage for all of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and speaks only one line, which Orestes has to almost force out of him. He follows along on Orestes’ adventures, but he seems like he’d be much more at home on a couch with a PS5 controller in his hands.

Orpheus

Singing is a terrific way to drown out the voices of all the annoying loved ones you don’t want to interact with.

red-figure pelike of Orpheus completely ignoring his companions so he doesn’t start to scream

There are more, of course, but let’s respect their privacy while they dissociate in peace. Just kidding, I actually just wanted to keep this short and sweet because I don’t know what YOUR inbox looks like after the holidays, but mine is a living nightmare. I feel like nobody needs a meaty 2K word essay about all of my feelings and insecurities about life and writing and motherhood right now. That can wait until next week.