My therapist says I am “isolating.” I tell her I am not. I just like to be alone. “No,” she says. “You are isolating.” “No,” I say. “I just like to be alone.”

We go back and forth like this for awhile. Then she tell me that I have been isolating my whole life and reels off a few examples. Once again, she is right. When I was 7-years-old we moved from northern Wisconsin to Southwest Michigan. I went from being a pig-tailed tomboy in a small rural town to the new kid in a town with country clubs and summer cottages and family vacations to Vail. We belonged to the Elks Club, our summer vacations were to our relatives’ farms and a veil was something girls had to wear on their head during Mass. 

So, I took up competitive swimming. The perfect sport for a kid who doesn’t fit in. You get to be with other kids but you don’t have to talk – in fact, you can’t talk. The fashion-playing field is leveled. Speedo made only a few bathing suits back in those days: A bathing suit was a bathing suit. I kicked butt, swimming butterfly for the blue ribbons as much as to pummel the country-club kids who made fun of our vending machines and “rustic” locker rooms.

In seventh-grade I transferred from a middle-class Catholic school where we all wore the same uniforms, to a public junior high-school where kids wore button-down collared shirts, corduroy Levis and sweaters tied around their necks. I took up solitary pastimes, like reading, writing, listening to my albums and playing the guitar. I tried to fit in but always felt left out – until I discovered alcohol, which made me the life of the party.

The first two years of college I fenagled my own dorm-room. I lived alone, but among a floor of other co-eds. I felt most comfortable in either a bar or the library – where I was not expected or encouraged to carry on a conversation.  Even today, a library is my favorite public venue. It took decades to find a hair salon that didn’t make me cringe. I am gifted at the art of small talk – just keep asking people questions about themselves. I can’t stand personal phone calls. I like texting.

I like working in the yard, hanging clothes on the clothesline, riding my bike, walking my dog and the ultimate in solitary sports – scuba diving. I still love reading and writing. The IPod is one of the greatest inventions ever. Put those ear buds in and you can be in a crowed without hearing others or speaking. 

I love being alone. What’s wrong with that? 

“You love it because it is familiar,” my therapist told me. “But that does not mean it is good. It is an unhealthy behavior that you have practiced for so long that it feels natural and comfortable. It fuels your depression.”

I am really trying to change. I have lots of friends who would love to be closer to me. For some reason, I won’t let them. I don’t call them, unless I need something. I don’t have parties. I don’t join neighbors for their monthly Happy Hour. I don’t want to.

I see that I must change. I am trying. These are the behaviors that my alcoholism, bipolar and depression thrive on. Sometimes it is like they talk to me. “Hey, you could sit here and drink a bottle of wine and no one would know.” “Brooding is so much better when you do it alone.” “With all this energy why not paint the bathroom. What else have you got to do?” 

I see it now as clearly as my therapist. I have got to change. I will.

Comments

This post currently has 18 comments/trackbacks.
You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts.

Trackbacks

From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (May 11, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 11 May 2009