I'm pretty sure I've always been an introvert. I really enjoy my own company. Today at work, I was the only one working in property management (cleaning, yardwork, etc) so I spent the entire day by myself with the occasional hello to people walking by. It didn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, I find that my day goes by faster if I'm working by myself than if I am teamed up with another person. It's weird, but working with other people, I generally get bored and find that time drags by. I'm just not a people person.

That being said, I've started wondering how much of my longing for "alone time" is the result of my introversion, and how much of it is me isolating myself because of my depression? At school I love having my own room where I can lock myself in and be alone for hours on end, without being disturbed. At home, that rarely happens just because my family is everywhere and don't really understand the concept of personal space. This morning while I was getting ready for work -- and not particularly happy about going to work because I was tired and wanted to sit at home and read -- my brother and sister started bickering. I'm used to this. There are four kids in my family so it's rare when there ISN'T any bickering going on. But this morning all I could think was that I needed to get out, needed to get away to someplace quiet and serene before I completely blew my top, and I rushed out to the car for some peace way earlier than I'd planned, just because being around other people this morning was too overwhelming for me.

My favourite thing at school is to walk to a coffee shop in town and spend at least an hour by myself, reading or writing or doing homework, being around people but not having to interact with them. When I'm at home, I like my half-hour drive to work, because it's all mine -- I can crank up the radio and lose myself in my thoughts. When I'm working by myself -- and I am a lot of the time -- I'm weirdly happy, and the days generally go by a lot faster than when I used to work at a busy store, dealing with other people all day.

I don't mind being an introvert. I enjoy my own company and probably always will. I'm shy, yes, but I have also genuinely not liked people -- their talking, their noise, their interruptions, their small-talk that drives me insane. I'm not a person with a whole load of friends; instead, I have a handful of very, very good friends, and I like it that way. But at what point does my introversion come into contact with my depression? Lately it feels like if I can't be by myself, I can't be calm. I can hardly struggle through a conversation any more, and I find that I become very impatient and snap a lot at other people just for being in the same room as me. Should I be concerned?