Loners

I am now 60, last couple of years the good doctors at the VA Mental Health Center at American Lake have helped me to understand that I am manic/depressive but I don't see how that made me into the loner I am and always have been. It is likely a contributing factor.

I am very phobic about being around groups of people where I am expected to interact for longer than a few minutes. For about a decade I enjoyed my time as a local band photographer, got to hear some incredibly talented artists but always ALWAYS I found excuses to not interact with them for longer than I felt comfortable with. Hanging out with them was always awkward for me, I'd generally pass the time just prior to gigs cleaning my gear or finding a place to be alone.

I even get the heebie-jeebies when I am with a friend for any length of time. Note my use of the word friend here, although there are a very few people I would call 'friend' and I would miss them dearly should they be gone from my life, I find it very difficult to be around them for longer than about an hour before I start looking for an exit.

This phobia extends to my own family members, some of who have tried hard to keep a relationship with me. I live within a half hours drive of a sister, love her dearly but wouldn't think to visit her, the very thought scares the hell out of me. I don't think I have seen this sister in over a decade.

You have asked for folks to describe if being sensitive contributes to their being a loner. In my case, perhaps. I find myself going over and over in my mind my most recent conversations with people. I am constantly fretting over being perceived as 'strange'. I worry that I may not have 'come off' in a conversation in a way that 'normal' folks would have. No, I do not think of myself as normal, not sure why that is but I haven't for as long as I can remember. Perhaps that might be an answer to you about my being sensitive.

Another type of sensitive that I am blessed/cursed with is that my emotions seem to run very strong. I get EXTREMELY passionate about some of the music I like, EXTREMELY sorrowful about the passing of my pets throughout my life, (suicidal over the passing of my last pet, I worry daily about the one I have now), and I feel a deep sorrow for the future generations of this planet. No, I don't think that I am schizophrenic, just keenly aware that things are going downhill fast and I am sad for the children and animals and...well things just didn't have to be this way!

I actually came to DU a decade ago because of my concern for the effects of our use of depleted uranium weaponry. Off topic but I to this day don't understand why my fellow DUers don't share in what I feel is a shame we should feel for what we did over in the Middle East. That shame ranks right up there with what our forefathers did to the Native Americans and what we do and worse did to black Americans. So yeah, I'm fairly sensitive.

Well, that's me. If this is useful to anyone, cool. I am me, I like being me. I get it that I am not normal, it makes me sad sometimes but I am not sad about being a loner. I am not at all lonely because I've known no other way to be.