Have you always been isolated

In my head, I have been isolated since I was a child. I'm married with 4 kids so I can't physically isolate. I've definitely been getting worse but historically, whether it's one friend or zero friends, the difference isn't much.

sakura1 wrote:But how do i do that. As introverted i do enjoy being with myself more than with others,i wish i had someone like myself lol
But it doesn't give me the high i have when i want someone else. Why.how can i feel that only with myself. I don't know. Plus is more fun as idea to touch someone else too xD
I can't make life interesting with the thought that i have noone to be in love with.how can i do it xD

-- Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:29 pm --

I can do it ,i think if i find a passion for something. Not a person but something. But i don't seem to be able to find that either.to be obsessed with a passion of something

I think you just figured it out. You can find a passion for something instead of a person. Maybe it's music or something artistic. Maybe it's something completely different. It never hurts to have an outlet to channel passionate energy to (when you can't expend that passion on a person). We all need some kind of outlet to channel our passion to (yes...even if we don't have a lot of it).

Not really because i can't find a passion i wish i could

sakura1 wrote:Not really because i can't find a passion i wish i could

Seems to me like your passion is loving someone...plain and simple. Whether it's fantasy or reality...I guess that's your passion.

I've heard that I was a pretty quiet baby, that I wouldn't cry out for other people when I woke from a nap, and that they'd just find me chilling on my own in my crib.

As a kid, I did some normal kid things. I played team sports and had extra-curricular lessons and whatnot, but the funny thing is, I don't remember having friends from those things. I might be able to recall faces, and maybe a few details aobut those people, but I don't know if I actually had a non-essential conversation with any of them.

I know I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, partly because I was the first grandkid and I think partly because my mom might have had some bonding issues with me after she gave birth. I don't know. We've never been very close, and I have maybe one picture of her holding me ever. Something is a bit up there, but I'll never ask about it. I was very close with my grandparents, but I was also a kid that you could place at a table with some crayons and a piece of paper pr a book and I would distract myself for hours.

I also wouldn't really ever think to invite anyone over from school. I had friends at school. Sometimes we would talk on the phone or hang out, but I don't remember initiating it very much. In high school I had a normal group of friends. I still was very hesitant to invite anyone to my house. A lot of that had to do with my fairly distant relationships with my family and feeling alienated by them and insecure that anyone might witness that.

For the most part, I think that the isolation has been fairly mutual. I don't miss anyone and I don't think that anyone misses me, truly misses me, more than a sense of obligation. Everyone is distant and no one is too sad about it.

I had forgotten about that, but I actually never played team sports. Even back in kindergarten, during playground time, almost all the other boys would immediately go play soccer, while I preferred to play in the actual playground instead. Whether I was alone or not didn't really matter to me, I just went straight for whatever toy or activity seemed the most fun at any given moment, and then switched to the next one once I got bored. Soccer just didn't seem any fun at all, so I never even tried it. Boys yelling at each other for god knows what. It was one of those "I don't get it" kinds of things.

So sometimes I played together with girls if they weren't playing anything girl-specific, but most of the time I just played by myself. I never gave it much thought back then. It felt perfectly normal and natural to me. "Other boys play soccer, I don't". Just a fact of nature. And as for playing by myself a lot of the time, I think that back then I didn't even realize that other kids didn't.

I remember once, I saw a slide and almost got seriously injured because I didn't realize that 1) it led to a swimming pool, and 2) the pool was empty. So... yeah. ADHD. Back when I was little, it's not really that I wanted to be alone, but I didn't mind it either, and it often seemed a lot more fun (or at least a lot less boring/aggravating). I was always a bad loser and always hated being told what to do (or, worse, being told what not to do), or being bound by "stupid rules that make no sense", and I had a really short fuse. So I usually didn't last very long in any group activity where I had the option to quit.

...And none of that has really changed. I just have better self-control as an adult. Even just playing an online team-based video game feels like kind of a big challenge. It's something that I had to kinda learn from scratch. Most of the time I actually play free-for-all deathmatch mode instead, and only switch to team mode when I get bored of it.

Soccer was fun. You got to run around a kick a ball. But eventually they wanted you run around and kick the ball with purpose, and it stopped being fun.

My therapist keeps coming back to how isolated I am and how few activities I enjoy doing. It’s true I have really become very isolated, although I’ve always enjoyed having some time to myself I always had friends and did things.

As I’ve gotten older either I don’t care anymore about being a hermit or something. I’ve got a feeling she is going to diagnose me schizoid because she always checks on what I did since I’ve last seen her if I’ve been social etc. I don’t remember being this extreme when I was younger, now I just don’t care anymore,

I don’t want to do anything especially if there will be a lot of people around because I don’t like them and they irritate me intensely. I’ll talk to people and act however I feel I need to at the time but if I become rich and didn’t have to work I would probably build a house on a small island on a lake you need a boat to get to, it would be heavily defended by explosive mines in the water and possibly a fire breathing dragon.

How did I get to this extreme? I don’t know. Was i pretending to be more social most of my life because I felt like it was “normal “. I don’t know anymore.

ZombieZ wrote:My therapist keeps coming back to how isolated I am and how few activities I enjoy doing. It’s true I have really become very isolated, although I’ve always enjoyed having some time to myself I always had friends and did things.

During DBT therapy, I was supposed to come up with 20 things I enjoy. I think for the first round, I came back with 5. He eventually talked my list up to 8 but that's the most it ever got to. He never understood why I couldn't come up with 20. 20 seems like an awful lot.

i can't find things i enjoy either if i think of it.i would probably find 5 too.

i feel if i was rich i would be more social and do whatever hobbies and try stuff.but not having money makes things worse generally.this is why i wonder because i assume a schizoid would be schizoid even if he was rich. but i feel i wouldn't be as much avoidant as i am now.but anyway this is impossible.

i am sure i am introverted because i like being with myself.i feel like i loose energy if i stay with others too long.even if i am social i always wanted time alone desperately.
i don't remember it right though.there is confusion in my memories.
i remember thinking "what is the point in getting out ,i don't see it" as a kid and then older finding the point and then now loosing it again.
but i also remember me as a kid in vacations being social playing with other kids and as teenager wanting to avoid them and older being social and now wanting to avoid them.
maybe it was in coleration with the environment always.i wonder if i had more emotionally healthy environment growing up ,if i would end up more social than what i feel now,i wouldn't want to avoid people this much.

I Dream 5 wrote:

sakura1 wrote:Not really because i can't find a passion i wish i could

Seems to me like your passion is loving someone...plain and simple. Whether it's fantasy or reality...I guess that's your passion.

sorry i think i sound stupid if i continue this conversation but what do you mean .i don't love anyone and i don't feel enough passion for anything, not a person nor a thing.like i am unable to feel it but i want to feel it badly.i am able to have random crushes with people i can't have but it feels bad in the big picture.
(And generally(not about what you wrote,this is not going to you but generally) when people say to explore hobbies.well you need money to do this and free time ,also to enjoy talking to people and i don't like talking to them.like saying to an avoidant you need to go out and talk to people. like saying to a depressed person you need to be happy.. snap out of it,you don't try hard enough.yeah thanks how i didn't think of this...)