Bad, broken or different? I need to be alone

Like many others, I have lived most of my adult life in perpetual pursuit of treasured time alone, getting through whatever is happening by aiming towards my next good chunk of alone time. I'm always on the edge (or ever more frequently over the edge) of coping, feeling that things are going to fall apart any minute. The last couple of years they very often have done. Shutdowns became increasingly common, they started to affect more and more situations until I just couldn't function effectively.

Usually I need to be alone...

I've had quite a groundbreaking realisation after being in hospital for an extended period. The first few weeks I spent in my room whenever that was an option. I was settling, learning a new place, new routines, new people and processing a whole load of crazy stuff. Hours and hours of alone time. About four weeks of it, I'd say. But eventually I started to venture out. Optionally spending at first little moments of time in communal areas, then slightly longer periods. I now actively enjoy and choose to spend time with peers. I would rather be with them than alone when I am dealing with difficult thoughts and emotions, which is a new and unexpected experience for me (feeling inclined to be around others when struggling, not dealing with difficult things!!). Admittedly it is an unusual environment, where all the people have certain similarities in our brains, and I don't think it's unfair to say that the amount of care and understanding and support is unparalleled, at least in my experience.

But it shows me something new about myself that I never expected. I'm not a bad person, and I don't hate people. When the input is reduced down completely to below my threshold (And this was to zero, for an extended period. It's a funny experiment/opportunity that you'd never be able to run in real life, but retrospectively I'm so glad that it's come about!), I actually choose to be with people. I want company; I want to feel connected. It's just that I require so much processing time to stay regulated and avoid becoming overwhelmed by the anxiety and emotions that build up from being alive. My capacity for effective and beneficial social interaction is tiny. I need to stop before I feel like stopping in order to avoid delayed overload.

It makes me feel a little sad and hopeless, because I can never be as big a part of things as I want to be if I am going to live my life in a way that's manageable for me. I won't know people as well as I would like to. I won't be such an integral part of groups or such a support to friends and family as I would like, because I can't survive long term if I do all that I want to. I have to miss out, and people have to miss out on me. I feel like a broken human - one that doesn't work properly. Even being in touch through electronic means has a drastic impact on my coping levels. I don't know what this means for how I manage my life as I rebuild it.

But I'm still glad that I've had this opportunity (despite how it's come about - every cloud has a silver lining and all that) to see what happens when I take normal life away and start from zero. I'm grateful to have discovered truths about myself that I never would have found out by any other means. It allows me to be a little kinder to myself, and to know "me" a little better.

 

For the minute, I'll sit in my tree and try and be alone as much as I need to.