Isolation from people is something that many of us with chronic mental problems/personality disorders experience to one degree or another. I suppose that it's one consequence of very common fear and frustration of others with our mental illnesses.
I suppose distancing we create from sources of irritation, etc. needn't be seen as other than basic social behavior. The comments in this thread sort of support that. I must agree that I am certainly not alone in having feelings of being separated and apart from family. I think we adapt and get beyond the loneliness more or less as a matter of preserving ourselves. Usually this isn't something that crosses my consciousness.
My problem was, and to some extent is, self-doubt. My awareness of absence of feeling reminded me of the pejorative names my last therapist labeled me with as that therapeutic window was slammed shut.
It's uncomfortable to have self-reflections that define me as uninterested and uncaring. The last time such judgments were sent my way it came from the mouth of a PhD mental health provider who declared me to be uncaring, self-invested, unreachable, deeply and pervasively scared from infancy and damaged beyond the psychiatric profession's ability to aid... a sort of personality he saw as so pervasively flawed that my limited life achievements were best viewed as pathological efforts to overcome a character that was flawed and despicable thru and thru.
I'm still a bit unsettled by -that- feeling. Metaphorically, it's like stepping into a demon's boots and having them fit...
I'm left somewhat unsure of whether that ill-feeling is a consequence of having been traumatized by the hurtful words of a frustrated therapist or whether I've glimpsed my former therapist's insight into my real and horrid self.
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