Quotes About Isolation

She remembered that they were never sober. Shane drank to seek oblivion; she stayed high to outrun pain. They did it together—but she cut herself in private.

they assume another person will not want to meet their needs. So they attempt to meet their needs privately, within themselves and by themselves. Eventually they may feel uncomfortable even having needs, and so they try to hide them, even from themselves; they shut down that feeling within them. Their own inner worlds can feel hazy and confusing to them while the worlds of others seem clear and distinct.

The lack of sharing genuine feeling in the addicted home can also lead to isolation, a common feature of depression.

People who have experienced trauma may have a tendency to isolate or to withdraw for safety into a lonely world of their own in order to avoid pain. Reaching out may make them feel too vulnerable or rejection sensitive, or they may be out of touch with their need for connection and support or not know how to bring it into their experience.

Few pleasures are greater than knowing you can close your door, ignore the world and create your own.

The concept of time, as it's commonly understood by normal people with normal jobs and normal goddamn lives, doesn't exist on the road. The nights spread out like the dark, godforsaken highways that distinguish them, and the days run together like Thanksgiving dinner smothered in gravy. You never really know where you are or what time it is, and the outside world starts to fade away. It's cool.

I was having an epiphany. A moment of supreme clarity, leading to what I dubbed a "realization of solitude" that goes like this: I'm lonely. But when I left that girl in the window I was sure I'd never felt more godforsaken in my life. There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

I was just sick, beaten, in a city of millions, of suffering by myself. I was twenty-seven going on sixty-five. I should have received Social Security for my misery.

As usual, no one's ever around when you need them.

I went home feeling so unbearably alone I actually thought there was a possibility I could drop dead before the night was over.

I always felt like that myself, that I didn't marry into the landscape of the human world like others did

I was alone. In ways people aren't supposed to be alone.

My soul is withering.

I was alone. In ways people aren't supposed to be alone. And sure, I could've stayed where I was, continued working my nowhere job, living in my nowhere apartment, eventually marry some nowhere man, have a few kids and anesthetize myself with provincial monotony like most of my peers had done, and before I knew it I'd be six feet under. I wanted more. And I had hope.

But everyone falls in love with Holden Caulfield when they're sixteen. They read The Catcher in the Rye and don't feel so alone. The problem is, they get over it. They forget that grief. Or they bury it. I never could.

Why are the ones who need the most shelter always the ones left out in the rain?

She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.

Gifted children often struggle to make attachments

Being wealthy when no one else is is like being the only one at the party with a drink.

I feel apart from everything and a part of everything.

But she knows she has a curse on her, a curse she cannot win. For if someone gets too close to her, the pins stick further in.

When you don't have many friends and you don't have a social life you're kind of left looking at things, not doing things. There's a weird freedom in not having people treat you like you're part of society or where you have to fulfill social relationships.

I was never interested in what everybody else was interested in. I was very interiorized. I always felt kind of sad.

If you've ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you.