How I Survived 48 Hours Out With Friends as a Depressed Introvert

For me, with even the closest of companions, it is critical to carve out moments of solitude to recharge during extended outings

A selfie from a restaurant on night one; Photo courtesy of the author

Maintaining close friendships as a depressed introvert can be challenging.

If introversion is a spectrum, I fall toward the extreme end. I find simply being around people draining. We need not even interact. Around others, I feel stiff, suffocated. I cannot be free, cannot be myself. I prefer solo activities such as reading and writing. I eat alone, game alone, watch movies alone. I live in my own head, surrounded by my own thoughts.

I am also laconic. So little do I speak that once in a bus, an elderly woman, a fellow Bengali — Bengalis being an ethno-linguistic group centered in East India — after engaging me for five minutes on some topic I can no longer recall, asked with a bemused frown: ‘You do understand Bengali, right?’

Another time, in college, the girl I sat beside, whom I considered my best friend, slipped me a note after ages of silence, asking: Are you mad at me?

That is the level of quiet introvert I am.

In 2013 I was diagnosed with clinical depression, severe enough that even after…