I am contemplating the wisdom of becoming a total recluse.

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I am finding that too many of my interactions with others are painful rather than worth treasuring. And i don't know how common this is, because if it was more common i cant imagine how i wouldnt hear more bitching about it, but because of my memory i vividly re-experiance an event when i remember it. It happens in a flash of time, but i can see what happened, i remember what i heard, i remember what i felt. It is effectively a re-experiancing. Although it (depending on the intensity of the event) is a shadow of the experiance to some degree. There are some experiances which if they were not obscured by that "shadowing" in my memory i would have killed myself long long ago.

Now like normal memory it works through association, but when i remember 1 painful event it triggers rememory of another painful event, and it kind of loops around that theme.

So every 1 small insigifigant painful experiance gets added to a library of its brothers and sisters. And it stays there forever.

Another aspect of the problem is that i am a sensative mother f****r. That is the only way i can explain how the tiniest thing can register to me to be insulting, or depressing. I think the route of the problem might be that i am far too sensative. I've had some success with anti-sensativity drugs (robitussin and alcohol), but obviously they are not good things to put in your diet.

So pretty much every experiance i have with people are bad ones. I keep setting myself up, trying to be open and outgoing, and i get stabbed and shot at verbally. I keep wishing i'd just be satisfied never talking to people again. I keep wishing that the pain might be great enough to make it worth it in my mind to never talk to people again. I keep talking because i hope one day i will find people who dont hurt me when they respond to me.

So i either wish i was less sensative, i'd finally be pushed to never talk to anyone ever again, or i'd find people who i could talk to without being hurt or frustrated.

"monastic" - my name says it all. I understand what you are going through, Nomaken as I do much the same as what you have explained.

The re-experience of the past is what keeps me distant. Too many things....too much pain forever stamped into memory. I also continue to reach out to others, I cannot help but do this & will continue to do so, but the contact is becoming fewer and far between now. I do what I can. I am not bitter or do I regret the lessons I have learned. It is a part of who I am.

Some think I am unforgiving, but forgiveness is the easy part. I can forgive, I just cannot forget. I have come to terms though and embrace the knowledge that I will forever be "monastic."

Me too - I find that being social has far more negative aspects than positive - that isn't to say that I am mean to people - I work in an enviornment where I interact with other people and they say that I'm fairly friendly - but the vast majority of them know NOTHING about me at all - and that is just the way I want it . . . if I were social it would cut into my gardening and home improvement time - and I just wouldn't want that . . .

What I am so sick of is that this one person who is supposedly my 'friend' (I do not use that word) quizzes me on my social sitauation every time she sees me and it makes me so mad - I accept that she is excessively social so why can't she accept that I am not?

Anyway, to me this is the best way to be - so I agree with you . . .

"I am contemplating the wisdom of becoming a total recluse."

I'll join you.

err, let me re-phrase that.


It's the necessity of earning a living that pushes through most of my contacts. Without that need the world would be touched lightly and selectively, but knowing one didn't have to would be a freedom which might just promote more experimentation. I'm a good few years or a lottery win away from that, though.

I'd love to join the Recluse Club.

i have been one who is kind of shy and reserved and not very outgoing, but i would never be a recluse. I think you should find a psychologist/psychyatrist and if you already have one consider finding another. also i would recomend you don't put down your full adress in the "location" part of your profile

I agree with monastic,preferring to be a recluse is not a dreadful disease that should be cured,if people feel less overloaded,and better in a reclusive environment,what is wrong with choosing that over something that continues to make problems worse?
I've wanted to be away from humans for a while,living in a crowded town and house,it's impossible.

Pain creates memory, that's why corporal punishment is so effective and painful memories last as stronger memories.

I'm a semi-recluse, but I gave it (people and work, adult life) about 20 years before I decided i could only minimise my problems by minimising people contact. It's different for people who have to work or still want/need to. I don't know how they cope...self employed I guess.

Go for it.

Become a total recluse. September 2004, that's exactly what I decided to do. I realized that I was just never going to fit in with them and decided that there was no point in trying anyway and that I'd be happier as a recluse.

Oh, the irony. December 31 2004, I was looking over the past few months of my life and reflecting on how my year had gone. It was then that I realized that I had several times the amount of friends than I had ever had before. Somehow, when I stopped trying and stopped pretending, I attracted more people, people who were interested in me as the unique individual I am. To this day, I'm not exactly sure how this worked, but my social experiences have been much more positive since.

Anyone ever read any stories about a sizeable subset of young people in Japan who become depressed recluses staying in their rooms for months and years at a time? Look up the term "hikikomori" - that's what they call it. That's pretty much how I was from ages 16 to 19, going out only a few times a month just for church and to see a psychologist. It's not something that was actively chosen, just kind of the path of least resistance after being estranged from mainstream schooling.

I don't think it's a good idea to be a total recluse when you are so young, unless you are able to find a way to learn some useful skills of some sort, including learning to live independently, during your period of seclusion. Unfortunately in my case, most of my days were spent not doing that. So I probably did not develop and grow properly in those years, even taking into account I'll probably never attain society's standard of "normal".

But if you are a bit older, more independent and have some skills or hobbies you are confident you can enjoy and grow in, I think being a recluse is a positive acceptable lifestyle choice. By all means, go for it if you can afford to.

Recluses of the world, untie!

(yes.)

Being "social" isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nooo.