How long have you been a recluse for?

Only answer this if you're a recluse. If you're a hikikomori, use this thread instead.

This question applies to you if you prefer to go out only when you have to, but still go out at least a few times a week.

I put down 15+ years. I don't go out socially, ever. I work, I come home. On the way
home, I might pick up some essentials at designated areas. Places that are the least
likely to give me anxiety.

There are times when someone from my past will contact me, or someone from work
might ask me what I'm up to later. I'm pretty sure that I appear remarkably normal,
though I'm reeling on the inside.

I tell them I'm busy, I always am. I'm always in a rush too; a rush to get back to my work,
a rush to get away from you. No offense! It's not you, it's me. It always is.
If you stop returning calls or e-mails, they leave you alone, so I've learned... I feel pretty
guilty about this, though the older I get, the less I care.

One area where my guilt hasn't lessened though is the damage my reclusiveness has done
to my relationship with my sister and her children. I adore them all, but even when they
lived close by, I still couldn't bring myself to visit them on a regular basis.

Now, traveling to visit them is out of the question. Were they not worth the extra anxiety?
In my mind, they should've been.

I picked 13.5 years. I've always been afraid to be around people but I didn't start becoming reclusive until I was about 14 or so, which was about 13.5 years ago. I was debating as to whether I should put 15, though since it sort-of started around 13 or even before & I even thought about picking 10 or 11 because I was 17 when it got really bad, but I settled on 13.5.

8 years. Once I stopped going to school about a few months before my 13th birthday, that was pretty much it for me, it just snowballed from there.

1 year. I got out of a bad relationship, said fuck the world. went home. really never came back out (except when my work relocated me to Texas. and still, even here, I am in an unknown area, in my house. I know te way to work, to the grocery store, and back. that's it.


People at work invite me to do things, but I always reject they're offers, it's not just them, it's just people in general I hate.

6.5 terrible years.

My whole life Ive preferred to be alone, but I put 4 years as thats when I gave up on society as a whole

15+ years. Although I'm only 17, I've always been reclusive and find it incredibly difficult in socializing especially with the opp. sex IRL. I hate being alone.

As in only going outside when I must? I'd say the past 4-5 years, when I realized the best way to be happy is to be alone.

I've always been good on my own, but I hadn't really started hiding away until about 4-5 years ago, around my freshman year of high school. I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that I'm very much an introvert anyway.

I feel like I've been reclusive my whole life...even though I would go outside when I was a kid, I was pretty much always alone. When I got older I had a brief party-lifestyle stage, and then I stopped going out unless it was absolutely necessary.

6.5 years for me. Hasn't been the worst, but it could have been better.

I don't know exactly. I remember in my middle school years, I did most activities by myself and preferred it that way. I had few friends and only one of them would actually come over to my house and play some video games. Other than that, I had little to no reason or interest to leave the house. I've changed slightly since then but I still live like the way I used to. Was never really the social type.

14yrs... i dont remember why but i stopped going out to play with my cousins one summer.

Well, I would consider myself a recluse really for the past 3 years since I realized how wonderful it really is to be alone. Until that time I had always shared a room with my younger brother so I had no privacy and being "alone" wasn't really alone. Once I turned 18 my parents moved into a bigger house that was sectioned off for a boarding house. I claimed my section of the house that has doors and locks to it just like an apartment would and I only go out of the house for school (that I'm being required to do), work (to pay my bills), and when absolutely needed to the grocery store. Occasionally I literally get dragged out of my house by my few close friends to "hang out" or go "party". I do not enjoy the parties, but I do enjoy my friends' presence so even though I do feel horribly out of place and quite nervous I do almost feel it's worth it because my friends are there with me. More often than not, I have my friends come here if they require my presence. So basically, I only go out when I am required or when I want to look up at the night sky or go for a night stroll, usually alone or with a single person. Even when I'm alone on a walk though I feel paranoid and anxious that there's someone around.


I do enjoy some social contact, because humans in general are social creatures, but I do not feel the need to leave my home to attain such contact when I can have it on the internet or have someone come to me.

Uh oh, I answered here and should have read the directions first. Sorry.

EDIT: Now I'm confused. I went over to the other poll and it's for people who go out once or less a month. Here it's 2 times a week. There's no middle? I might go out 3 times a month. So, I'm leaving my post here, deal with it!

I've been a recluse for a good six or seven years. Eventually I managed to lose count somewhere haha

I’m having problems calculating it out I’ve not got a feeling for time but upwards of eleven years I take it.

Appologies I’m actually only recluded for about 8 or so years.
Sorry I was of by 3 years.
Sorry this was the wrong thread. .

There have been times I have been a recluse for stretches of time. The truth is, I generally do not like people. I love animals, but feel contempt for humans. I only associate with people because I know it's beneficial for my mental health. If I had the money, i would move to the rocky mountains, get married, and live somewhere in a forest away from contact with people.

I'd say for about a year and a half. It started about 8 months before i moved out of my parents house and started uni. Freshers week at uni was absolute hell, 5 days and nights of being forced out to placed with hundreds and hundreds of people I have to meet. But as soon as freshers week was over I kind of just went back into my shell. It doesn't bother me though, I enjoy the life I lead and I have really started to give up caring about what people think

6.5 years. I actually dropped out of high school because of it.

Around 15 years. Haven't socialized since high school and not much then. I go to work, a store occasionally. Once in a while I go to a movie or restaurant with family.

same here but its nearly 6 years now that i gave up ppl and i will be 24 in september.

I think that it truly started about 4 years ago for me, when I finally got a place of my own to live in.