If you have an abnormally high need for solitude, and once felt guilty about it but have come to feel not-guilty, how did you make that change? Answers that are not just "go to therapy", please; that does not work for everyone.
Every year that passes -- I'm now in my mid 40s -- I find myself wanting less and less contact with other people. I have less energy for it, less interest in it, more painful memories from past relationships, more of a sense of the dwindling remainder of my time on the planet, and more desire to control how I spend that time.
I live with a (non-exclusive) partner who I love but I need (and usually get) a lot of time apart from them. I have family but I don't see them, rarely call, and don't really want them to visit. I have friends but I'm increasingly disinterested in talking to them or seeing them also. I have a job that uses most of my waking time -- I work remotely, thank goodness -- and I'm increasingly defensive about wanting all of the remaining time for myself. I enjoy some email and text chat, and I have fleeting periods where I'll want to have one-on-one conversations or sleep together with someone, but these are exceptions. The rule I want, the default, is to be left alone.
I have fond memories of taking solitary vacations in countries where I didn't speak the language, and so spent weeks or months at a time not talking to anyone.
Some of this may be related to sensory or cognitive predispositions that go beyond (anti-)sociability. I'm a night owl who keeps the blinds closed during the day. I like the winter, basements, dark-and-cold places. I moved to a small town to get peace and quiet. I'm overstimulated doing almost anything -- work or play -- beyond the sorts of habits I have when I have solitude: reading, walking, sleeping, listening to music, watching movies, programming computers. I like to focus on one thing at a time, fairly deeply.
I have profound guilt and shame over this aspect of my nature (along with several others -- don't much like myself). Everyone I've been close to, I seem to have eventually under-performed expected parts of the relationship so much that they're left feeling neglected, disappointed and hurt. If I try to make this fact about me clear in advance, they tend to speak words of acceptance but then don't perceive how far overextended I am -- this is my fault, I'm bad at expressing or defending my boundaries -- and so by the time I inevitably push people away to assert the need for more solitude, they feel like I've misrepresented myself, set them up to be invested in a neglectful relationship. This pattern makes me even less likely to want to try again: it's exhausting to everyone, doesn't feel like it produces positive experiences worth the costs.
If any of this sounds familiar to you: have you managed to find peace with it? How do you talk to yourself about these things, in a way that is less full of self-loathing and sadness, more accepting? Is there writing or reflection that helped you come to terms with your nature, not fight or ignore it? I want to be able to live with myself, and treat my needs as legitimate and healthy to pursue, rather than broken, defective or shameful.
I've been to therapy, for this and some other issues, and we just go around in circles verbally, I have "deep" insights I then immediately forget, and feel like I've wasted everyone's time. I've tried multiple therapists. I do not want to keep trying. Are there other, non-therapy things that have helped you? |
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