People who isolate themselves
 

Just a brief note. Isolation is punishment in prison because it cause all sorts of mental deterioration. So if you are suffering with mental disorder and feel the need to isolate yourself. Don't feel bad because you self-medicate. Isolation is awful and it is not your fault the system/ government is so ignorant. Just think it is used as severe punishment in jails for a reason. Yet no one acknowledges that when it comes to people struggling mentally.

I kow full well the pain of solitude and I'm not unsympathtic to the lack of response from The System, but for me it was a self imposed prison - and one where I see now you have other choices than to drink.

Its easy to construct a narrative where we can rationalise our drinking or using but IMO that doesn't make it true or permanent.

D

As I was reading your post I thought you were going to go on to say, if you feel like isolating, don't!

If you know you have mental health issues and you feel the need to isolate (when you are not a threat to anyone else), please don't. Please see your GP, please ask them for help. If you are not receiving the help you need there, find another GP or call your local or national mental health department for a referral to services.

It is easy for me to say, I know, much harder to do, but isolation when you need help is never helpful, in my opinion.

If you are feeling isolated and feel the need to drink, perhaps a fellowship like AA would be helpful?

I have to agree, sympathetically, with Dee and trailmix. I have diagnosed anxiety and have also suffered from depression, and one of my biggest weaknesses is a penchant for isolation. Extremely so while drinking, and still a reflex that can pop up as I have some sobriety - and tools- under my belt.

I believe that mental illness, like alcoholism, is a disease. The "system" can be frustrating and I would definitely not want to experience "treatment" in prison, but those cannot be things I focus on - finding what I can do, starting with not drinking, is the only successful way I can manage my conditions best.

One of the strangest ideas that I used to entertain my thoughts of continued drinking while I was doing so in isolation and while struggling with severe depression was the desire for pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer has an extremely high mortality rate, so why would I want to receive such news? Was this my "normal" suicidal ideation? No, it was very specifically chosen by me.

If I received this essential death sentence, I felt that I would then be free to refuse treatment, to ask only for the comfort of pain relievers and to, I thought, strip away the idea that I needed to get better. I could self-medicate at my whim, and who could say otherwise to a dying man that I shouldn't do what I wanted. Then I would die, problems solved.

It's pretty aberrant thinking, isn't it?

I agree that it's easy to say "don't" but my instinct was always to shut myself in, feel sorrowful, and plan my demise. I didn't feel that anyone cared about me, knew my wife despised me, and my children were scared of me.

Today, I'm taking a weekend road trip with my kids, and we may even stop at a bar along the way (they're young adults now) where they can have a beer while I drink soda or coffee. Isolation tends to be the furthest thing from my mind nowadays, I know how healing it is to surround myself with others, especially people in recovery.

Here is where I struggle with mental illness. Besides agoraphobia, which is the issue of being scared to leave one's environment, other mental illness have to be handled just like other disease. That does too, just in a different manner. Still being up to the person with the disease to manage it.

If one is with it enough to recognize the mental illness, come here and type about it, then they are in a much better shape than many. I say that because you have to be an advocate for yourself and be proactive in your own care, just like any other disease.

I know someone who attends AA, NA, OA, Celebrate Recovery...all sorts of other meetings. She also goes to many things at the local library. She does this for one reason. She does this so she does not isolate. She recognizes that it's HER responsibility, not the responsibility of everyone else in her life, to get her to socialize and not isolate herself. There is a lot of blame being put on families and friends of addicts and mentally ill, while very little emphasis is put on self responsibility. She also recognizes that not only is it not her families responsibility, but that she has alienated them to the point that she does not expect them to be able to be her support system. They need a support system of their own to deal with all that has happened. What she can do for them is form trust over time, and to make sure her actions match what she is saying. That is all.

I know mental illness can feel helpless and alone. I know this because I have been there, dealing with major depression and anxiety.

However, one does not have to choose that route. It takes one first step, so that you can change your mind set.

I say this all kindly as I know it's a painful topic.

I don't just mean about addiction either. I suffer from PTSD. It's under control now, but it was not always. However, since I recognized it, I worked tirelessly to get it under control. I went to therapy, read books, posted here, used guided meditation, exercise, you name it. No one could have done these things for me, and no one else was responsible for pushing me into it. I had to do the work.

I realize there are some who are so mentally ill they are beyond helping themselves and do not have touch with reality. Those are not the folks I am speaking of as in my opinion those folks need long term in patient help.

Life sure ain't easy- being there

Very sound advice. Even with 27 years of sobriety I still have to fight isolating...it's my normal state. Nothing makes me more crazy than staying alone with my thoughts.