i think it's a natural cycle for a recluse. apparently i did it a lot easier when i was younger. i remember in high school, after too much time with my boyfriend, i'd call him up and tell him i was taking a week vacation for time to myself. i thought nothing of it back then, and didn't spend time beating myself up over it. i didn't start feeling guilt until college.

i'm going through a huge retraction right now. it's because i've combined households with my parents so we can all save money, and i don't really have any time to myself - at all. i'm around family nonstop, and it's stressful. my outside socialness is the one thing left i can control, and i know i can't handle a single second more of people interaction. none of my friends have seen me in over a year. i had made a lot of acquaintances from my previous tech support job, and now most of them are dwindling off with my continued reclusiveness. most of the more important people i can get to understand (or at least not be offended and leave me be) by saying i'm being a hermit or even hermit jokes. just invitations to hang out from friends or suggestions by my parents to go out bring anxiety and leave me feeling trapped. one friend refused to understand at all and kept spamming my phone and profile with invitations, and i finally had to tell him to go to hell. three times.

i'm ok with irc. if i don't feel like talking i keep it minimized or lurk. but instant messaging is too much now. in general i ignore calls to my phone and i leave a big delay between txt messages and email responses to keep people aware that i'm not really available.

in a little over a month i'll be going to a new state to live and attend school and i'll have my own apartment again. hopefully then my soul will start to heal, because with 0% alone time, it's really broken right now.

I'm in the midst of my reclusive 'phase'... You guys are my community, heh.

I avoid talking to people I care about when I feel bad because the only thing I could obtain is to make them sad if they really care about me. I don't talk at all with people that don't care about me, well, not about my personal life

Likewise, mate.

I attract and retract all the time. Lately, I've just been neutral. I'm just going with the currents.

I'm also working six times a week so I'm forced to go out. No more of my time being spent indoors for days and days. It was definitely the much comfier choice.

When I'm with people, I'll socialize. But lately, I can't seem to do it for long. Especially with larger groups and people I'm not exactly close to. I get exhausted and socially anxious quicker and feel the urge to retreat.

I've done this. I feel trapped when I become too attached to people and after a long bout of interaction I feel drained and I have to retreat and be by myself for a while. This is my main problem when it comes to maintaining friendships. I've always been my own person and I hate feeling as though I have an obligation towards someone.

I've had to do this a lot lately, as I had a couple friends who I trusted too much, so I ended up getting a bit hurt by them even when they weren't trying to hurt me,
I've got to be a lot more careful now because of those times, and I've kinda ended up barely talking to one of those friends from being best friends,
and I constantly ignore the other one, and get a bit anxious when i see him, but he deliberately annoyed me, later with his friends which I hated, so I had to stop being friends with him as it just led in me getting hurt all the time

I don't retract naturally--if it was up to me, I'd talk to my bros every day about all sorts of things, ranging from banal to incredibly personal. If I go for a long time without having any real emotional interaction with someone else I just start to feel dead inside and shut down physically and mentally.

However, if I get the vibe that someone is retracting from me for some reason--either because they don't want to know about my life or will only talk about banal shit and get pissy every time I bring up something serious--I will cut them off immediately and not contact them at all until they genuinely reach out to me. I guess I'm very, very sensitive to any sort of rejection, even if it's unintentional. I value others so much that it really hurts me when it sinks in that the people I need don't need me.

I haven't talked to a good friend of mine in like a year.. It's kind of troubling. I always feel like i have a lot on my plate, or i will do it when i'm ready. Sometimes i leave e-mails because it feels to tiring to make all the decisions to respond. So i just leave it for later... And then it keeps nagging in the back of my mind. Sometimes i just never respond, and i regretted a few of the things i never responded to a long time ago, when the letter or whatever resurfaces. I don't answer the phone anymore. I just don't do it. This post is actually really making me rethink what i do and what's really important to me. And yeah, "I think a big reason is that it seems like they've gone so far, while I'm more the less in the same place as I was when I left high school." hit a cord with me too, another reason why hikikomori traveling the world would be a good idea.

Wow, all of this is the same for me. I only really have 2 or 3 friends which I trust not to be mean sometimes,
so with the rest of them I either don't contact them, or stay on-guard when talking to them
But the worst people I just ignore the hell out of, I did this recently with one of my best friends,
as he was too much of a jerk, too much of the time, and I hate the shit of out him now...
I also stopped texting another best friend who was a tiny bit annoying who I used to text several times daily...

I'm very careful about trusting people/ making friends now, and I'm also pretty paranoid now

But lately I've been learning about how much I still need to contact friends to feel happy,
as I coped with some bad and stressful events by completely isolating myself for most of the summer holiday

When you get a chance, just send them an email explaining this, because if they're a good friend, they won't care
They probably won't mind and they'd just be happy to hear from you, and it lets them know you still want to be friends
But just send an email, it can't really have any bad consequences, and you could even apologise for not speaking to them for so long,
If they're a good friend, they might even be worried about you so it's worth emailing them just to let them what's happening

It would only take 5 minutes, and you'll definitely feel better after renewing your friendship with them

It's quite ironic, because I posted on this thread when I joined a year ago and then promptly disappeared .



Same here. I went through a period of convincing myself that I didn't need any friends to be happy. It was during a people withdrawal phase. However, it made me feel like I was going crazy and I lost my social skills. Well, at least now I know for sure that it doesn't work for me



Yes, I relate to this a lot. I agree with Pop that you should send an email when you get the chance and not worry too much about it. I've had to do that a number of times and afterwards, I felt so much better and it turned out to not be such a big deal.

I also lost social skills after my period of isolation, and became much more nervous than I used to be

I find I go through a different kind of reclusive stage where I will stop contacting them. Especially if I am the only one doing the contacting I have to feel like the other person wants to be a part of my life.

This happens to me more than I would like. It mainly happens with my sisters, well recently anyway. They will show a sudden interest in my life.and the we will start to bond and then Nothing.