Resisting the urge to isolate

[Autodidact]

Hi everyone,

There's this nonverbal discomfort in me that keeps trying to manifest as the urge to isolate from everyone and just go back to my old ways of isolating and looking for superficial comfort in unsafe relationships I know won't work. It keeps getting more uncomfortable the closer to my intimate relationships that I get (when I think about spending time with my loved ones who know what I'm going through), but then when I spend time with them I feel..better? More present? It's like it's lying to me about how I feel about things to keep me away from them, scared of them.

Have any of you experienced this and how did you help yourself not self sabotage by isolating?

<3
Auto

[OwnSide]

Hi Autodidact,

I'm struggling with something similar. My instinct is to isolate until I "feel better" emotionally, which is kind of self-defeating when the thing I'm trying to feel better from requires support! I've heard that it comes from not being able to reach out properly as a kid. You learn that it really is safer to be alone than to be with others when vulnerable, and that programming follows you. Your brain's just trying to help, and maybe it's not ready to trust in a few good experiences just yet.

I would say don't take from my example because I isolate a lot. I convince myself that I know myself best and hence, am in the best position to figure out how to help me. I can take care of myself! Do I sound parentified?  Ah... I'll get there eventually. I'm still working on finding the right people, and putting faith in them, and convincing myself it's necessary.

It sounds like these people are a good force in your life. Do you journal about it? Document somewhere how you feel with them, to remind your isolation-prone parts that it really is ok? Maybe socializing could be like forming a new habit. Tough going at first, feels like it's not worth it. Then, somewhere along the line, it becomes the new default.

I'm rooting for you and would be happy to hear how things how go for you. I too wonder how others have coped with similar feelings.

-OwnSide

[Papa Coco]

Auto and Ownside,

Isolation is a problem for me too. At birth, I was given a sense that I don't belong. My family taught me that they loved me ONLY if I complied to their twisted wishes. They ignored me if I dared to express my own personality, or act on my own creativity.

I learned that if I be who I am, that I'm not welcome on the earth.

That irresponsible, sick, sick training set the trajectory that I've been living ever since.  You throw a football in a direction, that is the direction it goes until it stops. So it is with us. Our families sent us on a direction, and we live that direction until it stops. Loneliness. Isolation.

If I isolate, no one is judging or ignoring or rejecting me. Isolation makes me feel comfortably uncomfortable in my own loneliness. It's the devil I know.

I guess the only way to really stop isolating is to stop isolating. I venture out on my bicycle. Of course I'm alone when I do, so even though I'm out of the house, I'm still alone and isolated. BUT being out sets me up for chance meetings with kind strangers. Store clerks. Maybe I might even run into someone I know.

Grocery shopping pulls me out.

When my isolation starts to frighten me, like it's been a week since I've even left the house to get the mail, I will sometimes challenge myself to make someone smile or laugh. So I take myself to the grocery store or somewhere like that, to buy anything from a stick of gum to a week's worth of food, and I challenge myself to strike up some friendly banter with the store clerk. If they don't ask how my day is going, i ask how there's is. When they do finally ask how my day is going, I say something silly like, "How could I not be happy. I'm here, in the second happiest place on earth." That has a nearly 100% chance of getting a giggle out of the store clerk. Then I feel like my isolation bubble has been popped for a while.  My childhood hero was pianist and comedian Victor Borga. He used to say "The shortest distance between two people is a smile." I live by that rule. I feel it. When someone smiles with me, face to face, my world becomes good for a few hours.

If I can get some momentum with one store clerk, maybe I'll hit another store and do it again. Ride the wave while I'm on it. On a really good day, I might even call a friend I haven't seen in a while and go out to lunch.

I know the truth: That I am just as welcome on the earth as anyone else is. I also know that it's trauma that tricks me into thinking I'm still unwelcome here. It's training from bad parents and bad siblings and bad religion from my childhood. Knowing that and feeling it are two different things, but back when I believed it was true, the loneliness was worse. Now that I know it's training and not the truth, it isn't quite as painful. NOW I know I have some control over it, and that with some personal courage, I can take it on.

Sadly, the only real way to stop isolating is to stop isolating. Rely on this:  Courage is not the absence of fear (or discomfort), it's the decision to push forward even though we don't want to. So sometimes, when the isolation is just too dark and tiring, I call up the courage to do something I really don't want to do...go outside and talk with someone.

[dollyvee]

Hi Auto,

I also tend to isolate a lot and in my mind, I've convinced myself that it's better and part of me knows that that's old programming, but I also think that at times it is better to be alone. As I've gotten older, I've been let down by a lot of friends (family obviously) who I thought would be there for me and never showed up. So, I still find that I would prefer aloneness than dealing with insincere/fake people. Maybe it's my programming that has led me into relationships with these kinds of people as I've grown up a people pleaser and attract people who find it's convenient, but then aren't there when I need them. Unfortunately, that's on me but it's something I'm working on. It's hard to accept that I can be inconvenient for people and that's ok.

The other thing is trust. I don't think I have a lot of it in other people that they won't hurt me like I've experienced at other times in my life. I'm trying to be more open minded about that too, and realize that I need to trust and listen to myself first, and learn to express my boundaries with other people when I don't feel comfortable. I think I've put myself out there quite rawly in the past, been hurt by someone, and then retreated into my shell. Now, when I'm experiencing rejection or difficulty in relationships, I'm able to see a little bit that I can make it through, there's enough in me to deal with things. Although, for me, part of helping with this has been putting myself out there and feeling all the feelings that come up, which isn't easy. However, I can see that they belong to past stuff and is usually not the present. Maybe as you become more stable on the inside, it might help you too to venture out of your isolation.

I'm by no means cured, just some things that have been coming up for me lately.

Hope this resonates in some way,
dolly