Several years ago, I quite literally became an urban hermit. I am happy with my life, and that “path” but I am really relieved to find out that I am “normal” for doing so, and for the internal, psychological reasons that drove me to do it. for years I thought I was simply defective as a human being and that it “was me” and that other people must be perfectly normal, and that I am the one who just “didn’t get it.”

The desire for solitude is now a real “choice” for me and not a prison in which I lock myself. Ironically, I feel a freedom to choose hermiticism for its own rewards and not because I am “forced” into it. I am so grateful to you and to Brice, and all those who have reached out to me. Be assured of my constant prayers for you and your work, but also for your personal lives, that they will be blessed, rewarded, and multiplied by grace.

Much love to you,
Suzanne

The thing that’s different for me is that I don’t think I keep people away because i’m afraid of losing them, I think it has more to do with being insecure and afraid that they won’t like me once they get to know me.

I think because I’ve moved so much I feel that I’m different from everyone else, and no one can understand me. I’ve tried to embrace my differences, but I usually just feel a little out of place. Maybe it’s just because a teenager, but the need to keep people away has more to do with being insecure than being afraid the person is going to leave.

Is this pretty common?

Actually, not that much…but it seems somethings are more clear for me now.

I don’t let people get close because I’m afraid of rejection. They will reject me (because I still have the wrong belief that they hate/dislike me) anyway, so why bother trying? Or just plain fear of getting close and then loosing that person…. arrrgg

So I think I can relate to you guys. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I’m afraid. And the fear is what stops me from getting closer to people.

That’s where my autopilot idea fits in again. I get into that scared mode and don’t take actions to become closer to people. The only way I’m thinking about turning it off is by telling myself that I have survived other times. I’ve gone through many losses (including recently the hardest of all: my mom =( ) and I have survived. If I can just tell myself that, talk myself out of fear, I think I can get over it.

I hope this helps other people too.

I feel alone alot.

We attend a small church where my husband is involved with the worship team. I don’t feel like I can relate very well to the people at our church. I think my perspective is too “odd” for them.

I attribute a lot of that to feelings of rejection when I moved back, being bullied at school for being different, these kinds of things.

As a teen I started turning this around, instead of thinking “everybody hates me”, I changed to feeling to “I hate everyone, no one is good enough for me”.

I still feel like that towards many people (specially the ones from my “home” country). My approach is still very defensive “no one is good/nice/trustable until they prove the opposite”.

This is kind of my autopilot mode.
After I learned about TCK and had my feelings validated in http://www.tckid.com, I’ve been learning how to turn the autopilot mode off, but it does require some effort. Somedays it’s easier, and somedays it seems impossible.
I know I just have to keep on practising.