If You’re Asking, “Why Do I Self Isolate?”, Read This

There’s more to self isolation than the love for solitude

Hi there. If you’re reading this, self isolation is probably no stranger to you.

When someone checks in on you, you lie and say you’re fine. When they offer to help, you turn them down. You distance yourself from your friends, you ache for a warm embrace but won’t reach out to your loving partner. 

Because surely you are a burden, surely you are too much and you have no right to put your sadness and neediness on anyone else. Surely you’re bound to get hurt and hurt this person too if you let yourself love them. 

Self isolation is an old and loyal friend. It provides you with peace, shields you from the storms of conflict and rejection, and offers you a small corner of quiet away from overwhelm and second-guessing. This self-created solitude feels like home.

But alas, people who are content in their solitude do not look up “why do I self isolate“.

Something isn’t quite working for you anymore.

You didn’t start off this way. You may feel like you have, maybe your earliest memory is of hiding your feelings or taking care of someone else. But you didn’t come out of your mother’s womb saying “leave me alone”. You came into this world crying to be held, just like the rest of us. But tears are only worth shedding if there’s someone to see them, right? 

At some point, your cries for connection went unanswered. You learned that this wasn’t okay, that connection was a source of pain. You began to retreat. And now you’re here, reading this post alone at night, and self isolation feels like something that’s etched into your bones.

You have put up so many barriers, built an internal fortress with so many twists and turns, that you feel lost in them and you don’t know if you could ever get out.

You don’t know if anyone could ever reach you. 

But you want to be reached.

You threw down the barricades and put up a big sign that says, “nobody is here!”. And you want someone to come in and find you just the same. Someone who can see past your barriers and see the scared lonely kid on the inside. Someone who understands you and loves you despite your fatal flaws, despite your belief that you are unlovable. Someone that you can finally feel safe with, so you can finally let yourself feel all the hurt that you have saved up over a lifetime, and begin to cry in their arms.

Hi there, lonely human. I see you.

I don’t know who you are and I don’t know your story yet, but I see your solitude. I see your longing for being found, your terror that you would hurt again. It is profoundly human. You are not broken. You are not defective. You are a person who is hurt right now, and you will be found again. 

So, why do you self isolate?

Sometimes we choose to self isolate, sometimes it feels almost like second nature, an instinct. 

Maybe you know it’s not good for you. Self isolation can protect you from pain. It also forecloses the possibility for warmth, connection, and that essential experience of being seen. 

Maybe you don’t know another way, solitude is the only friend you know.

In either case, you fundamentally lack the belief that you are lovable; that love is safe, that someone could want you. Maybe you tried to reach for another person and it didn’t work. Maybe you don’t want you.

You did not choose self isolation because you are incapable of love; you chose it because you feel incapable of decoupling human connection from pain.

But…what can you do?

If you feel lost or hopeless in your solitude right now, consider this: instead of chastising yourself for isolating again, place a gentle hand on your chest, and tell yourself this - 

I feel lonely right now, and I am having a hard time.

That’s it. 

Connection begins with seeing. Now you have begun to see you as well.

About the Author - Ella Zhu, LCSW

Hi, I’m Ella. I’m a licensed therapist in downtown Chicago. I specialize in in-depth, experiential therapy that goes beyond symptoms and coping strategies. I help my clients access and work through their feelings, so they can go from knowing better to feeling better.