{"id":3925,"date":"2023-02-08T15:18:04","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T15:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/?p=3925"},"modified":"2023-02-08T15:18:04","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T15:18:04","slug":"unforced-isolation-or-socially-disengaged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/?p=3925","title":{"rendered":"Unforced Isolation or Socially Disengaged?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Glorious isolation!<\/a> by Kate Jewell<\/a> is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

How do?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a while, eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to say, from the off, that study is taking up most of my time and inner thoughts right now. In some ways it makes me feel as though I have reverted back to being a teen. As a teen I felt very lonely. I didn\u2019t really have any friends, school was horrible, then I left early but still just tried to teach myself things and keep my brain active. I listened to music a lot. Other than that, I was pretty directionless. I became used to my own company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was nervous around people but tried not to be nervous. Talking was difficult, though I would make myself try. I didn\u2019t have a group of friends to hang out with. I didn\u2019t go out with people. No mates. No boyfriend. No days out. No gigs. None of the \u201cregular\u201d teen stuff. Most days I was at home alone in my room and listening to music pretty much all day long. Daydreaming. Watching the clouds gently roll along across the sky thinking how amazing it would be to be a meteorologist and know that it would NEVER happen to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, today is different. I am studying and I am not alone\u2026outwardly. What feels comparative to my teenage years is my insular nature. As a teen, as much as I wanted friends, I didn\u2019t really seek them out. I was too affected by the bullying I experienced to want to seek out friendships. Relationships? Boyfriends? Slightly different, though not much. It was attached to the safety of a neighbour’s brother, or the relative of my brother-in-law\u2019s friend or some such as a love interest. Never a complete stranger! Not until my first serious boyfriend did I experience starting a relationship with someone absolutely unknown to me. Then it was his friends that I orbited around with him for company. Not exactly friendships in their own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through my twenties I had three friends – my mum, my neighbour, and Steven – the person I have sustained the most enduring friendship with (minus my mum, of course). Even within these, I had a lot of alone time. I was content to be alone a lot – buried within my own thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mid 90s I had a job within a company that had a small workforce. Two of the workers were my brothers, and I knew the rest (around 25 others) in a strictly workplace environment. Never really made any friends while working there, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I met my OH and then moved to the UK, I continued to be in that place of \u201cBilly Nomates\u201d – I knew NOBODY other than my OH when I moved to the UK. And it stayed like that until I became a Simple Minds fan. I tried making friends through pen pal ads placed in magazines or online in newsgroups (the precursors of today\u2019s social media) but not much came of those. I would always lose contact with people in the end. I got VERY used to my own company for the 15 years between moving to the UK and becoming the SM fan I am now. I was very comfortably insular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t good for my mental or (especially) my physical health. It is why I will always be thankful for exploring the Minds back catalogue. Where I spent many years fearing being gregarious, becoming an SM diehard made me bold. I began to feel a little less inhibited and started to branch out. I found it all very scary. Making myself known to the fans by starting to communicate with them, eventually being brave enough to meet some face-to-face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I remember my very first SM gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in April, 2015. I had agreed to meet a fan face-to-face, but I was ssoo scared to expose myself, I just chickened out and didn\u2019t look for them and seek them out. I kept myself hidden so they couldn\u2019t find me either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were other things happening in parallel to my SM fandom that meant I grew in confidence and started to really step out from my own shell and get to know people, meet fans and form friendships. I have some wonderful, amazing friends. Beautiful people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can feel myself retreating back into myself as my study progresses. The combinations of things that had me step out of my shell or now kind of reserving and I am withdrawing back into it. I feel less and less affiliated with things that are happening within the fanbase. I feel maligned and ostracised. That feeling keeps me away from wanting to interact too much. I have no idea when I last posted on SMOG (Simple Minds Official Group page on Facebook). I still respond to Jim\u2019s posts on the band page on Facebook, by and large, but he doesn\u2019t post that often. I used to interact a lot with fans via the comments on his posts as well and I rarely do that now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worst of all is I am withdrawing from my friends. I want to keep my focus on uni and after I\u2019ve spent the day studying, I just want to stay in my own headspace or just watch some things on YouTube and just retreat and withdraw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been slowly happening since we moved to Glasgow, but the past 12 months in particular I have felt it – coinciding with my university study. Since the move to Glasgow, I have made two further friends that I feel very close to. One who lives in the city and the other online (and they live in another part of the world).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mental health has suffered over the past few years as well due to the loss of my mum and the pandemic and my physical health is sliding back to how it was pre-Simple Minds fandom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m worried that my uni study is just making it easier for me to retreat and withdraw and become that insular mole again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just wanted to talk about how I am feeling and what is happening to me in regards to this. It started as a cycle of \u201conce I get past this assignment, then I can have social time for a bit until I need to start on the next one.\u201d Now\u2026there doesn\u2019t feel like there is any gap. Or more that I am not allowing there to be any gap. That I just want to stay focused on the uni, maybe write a blog post when I can and\u2026that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure what to do to pull myself out of it. I\u2019m not sure I WANT to pull myself out of it because being within myself feels safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uni study since Christmas has been intense though. I was very focus-driven with my study of Twelfth Night and Jane Eyre. I only just finished my assignment yesterday and apart from the day away I took to see Kula Shaker in Edinburgh, I have only had one other day off since the beginning of January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did study today, but it was light studying and I will be diving in deeper tomorrow. I am not allowing myself any time off for handing the assignment in because I will have to take a day off next week to see the Hamish Hawk gig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep projecting forward to the spring. By May, when this module will come to an end, I feel like I\u2019ll be able to truly unwind and have time for friends and social stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is that just an excuse I\u2019m using to justify not socialising right now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do?! It\u2019s been a while, eh? I have to say, from the off, that study is taking up most of my time and inner thoughts right now. In some ways it makes me feel as though I have reverted back to being a teen. As a teen I felt very lonely. I didn\u2019t really … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Unforced Isolation or Socially Disengaged?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5,7,8,9,11,12],"tags":[46,59,128,130,160,163,183,249,280,351],"class_list":["post-3925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday","category-life-stuff","category-mental-health","category-personal","category-photos","category-study","category-university","category-writing","tag-bad-friend","tag-blogging","tag-free-time","tag-friendships","tag-insular","tag-isolation","tag-loneliness","tag-preferring-your-own-company","tag-separation","tag-withdrawn"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larelleread.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}