Hey Life,
sorry to hear that you have been living mainly on internet and in your room anyway it is great that you quit alcohol!
I hope that we all would learn ho to fight that isolation. It is not healthy living lonely...
I'm very outgoing person and always surrounded with some friends but sometimes I've been feeling isolated and distant no matter on crowd around me.
I know that I have to brake some walls if I'll be able to go further with my life. Those walls haven't real purpose anymore...

I've got a wife and kids and still feel isolated.

Sat in a room full of 12 or 13 other guys last night...

As I sat there and looked around I literally felt like they all had something, some kind of connection that I was missing. As always I realize that I don't fit. I don't belong. They're all a part of something I can never have. Yet I don't even know what it is.

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Isolation has always been a place of safety for me. I embrace it. Maybe it's because I've become accostomed to it, so much so that any different state of living would change my entire boundary system, and make me re-think my whole life. That might be the reason why I prolong my need for therapy.

Nate

I'm from another planet answers most questions. As a kid, I was jealous. As an adult, I missed what it meant to be human. I can't eliminate emotions, but I spent years trying. Actually trying to get rid of most except the Bipolar highs. It was more harness them. Give me a bottle of anti-depressants and let's go to Mars. Then I tried discovering them and found you can be overwhelmed by them. In two years, I could converse on any disorder and read almost anyone. In two years of learning about art, I was literally stoned all in my head all the time. It was a 100% adrenaline rush, baby. Whew! But, when you have those strong emotions, it will make you feel desolate.

Guys, I looked into the SIA (?) and meetings in S. Florida only. Except tons of AA, none of those type groups here. Thanks. I contacted Al-anon. Haven't heard back. They have no phone numbers for the groups. No idea why. Stupid if you ask me. Ridiculous they don't have more for the family of alkies here.

Oh, I'm fine with God and Jesus. I just don't believe like you. He's there, I acknowledged him, we're cool. That's what I believe. That's all that is required IMO. To be honest, heard the caring they claim then they didn't do it really. I was discriminated (whatever you call it being left out of things) against too. Why I won't go to one. If you're happy there, have fun. I wasn't.

Hi Phoenix,

Alanon is the sister program to AA - it is for people who have relatives or friends who are alcoholics (or users of any substance). I've found this program to be helpful because the rooms are full of people who are compassionate, thoughtful, and seeking answers to their own personal issues (codependency).

Alanon focuses on RELATIONSHIPS - how to have healthy boundaries, how to find out what you like, how to "detach with love" from others. How to take care of yourself first and foremost. This program is brilliant, in my opinion, for CSA survivors because it addresses the VERY SAME issues that we CSA survivors must address.

Alanon taught me all the things that I couldn't hear from 17 years of therapy, and AA, and self help books - because I am surrounded by people actively engaged in the program and actively supporting each other in their search for recovery.

Best thing I ever did.

D

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Life, Hahaha!

Thanks, Magellan. I'll go on Tuesday. No more till then. I wonder what they did in Al-anon. Thanks again.

Phoenix
xoxo

Isolation, Wow phoenix. So many great emotions you bring up. The last thing you said about being isolated and the definition of the word intimacy are the two issues we struggle with




Feral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

Thats how I felt most of my life, how most of us likely feel. Its cuz our potential brain connectedness never got to connect. We are all learning a second language, taking up an instrument, all learning a new skill others possessed to a far greater extent than we can even fathom. We will never play Carnegie Hall no matter how much we practice. That stage door is closed.

But we can plunk out some recocnizable tune if we can muster the determination to stay at the piano. So for some its the belonging they feel in a group, for me the gym or yoga - I even joined a gay yoga group in my city. Once a month we go out after for a snack and just chill and talk. The best group I joined was my malesurvivor group - saved my life. The worst was the SAA groups I tried, I went to 2 different ones just to make sure it was not just a bad fit.

What your interests are, your opportunities available in your area - Your passions, that will guide you. I was lucky enough to meet a group of gay guys through a friend from my MS group. Most had been married, 1/2 had kids and a few of us were survivors. The group that had the easiest time coming out was when there was support at home by at least one adult. The next delay was when there had been either cultural, hyper strict or hyper religious partenting/repression. The last group was us survivors. All had come out much later after much personal and sexual confusion and were by far the most "baggaged".

Regardless of the circumstance, we all wanted was a sense of that we / us were OK, something we never got or felt at home. So I think that leads to the second point you made. The definition of Intimacy. It means different things to different people. What the continuum seems to include is a sense of offering up your authentic self and being accepted without reservation. So whether that includes an honest friendship all the way up to sex, it MUST have you being you and the other person being themselves too, a connection on a real level. Sounds easy but its really not, so its just a work in progress. That is the goal. Moreover tho its just starting on and enjoying the journey and the learning curve along the way. Mistakes and misteps will happen, its normal, we have to accept that.

Isolation is part of our default, we felt it so early. If we are ok with it great - but if we yearn for more , we have to make it change. It is a new language we have to master. It takes going to a new country a new place. Less than 1/3 of straight people end up isolated going into old age, more than 2/3 of gay people do so. However we end up , even in isolation we are not alone.

1Life,

Thank you. Authentic self. It's very easy to create one of those. Blank canvas, some paint and a few brushes. I know who I am. Just need to figure out what my passions are. Maybe too scared to find out where that really goes. Down the rabbit hole. It's certainly explains the emptiness. Explains the self-injuring, the self-loathing. I can't lie about since I don't know what it is. Controlling this shit for so long is exhausting. I worry what happens if I let it out. Perhaps insanity is on the other side of the door. By insanity, I mean giving up control. Anarchy.

I know what you mean. Been a student of the human condition the whole time. 40 years is a long time. Why is it so fucking easy to know, and I mean know, what others feel and not fill myself? Just been a pariah the whole time with vicarious feeding of others. I can read this site and know who and what they are. I take on others depression on here. Psychic, no. Just the result of a lifetime of erudition, self-erudition. I'm very good at acting the role. More of a difficult thing to top. Huge defense mechanism. Works hand-in-hand with isolationism.

You're very good. Haven't met an equal in a very long time. None were men by the way. By the way, I'm not an atheist, but definitely agree religion (none of that now) can put you in a prison without walls in your own mind. It always said to me, "You're bad." I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Thank you!

Phoenix
xoxo