This post is going to get rambly, so strap in.

I just wanted to signal boost a wonderful article by Dr. Bella DePaulo at Psychology Today (“The Badass Personalities of People Who Like Being Alone”).  Reading it was like having multiple lightbulbs switched on in my brain.

Here are some quotes I found particularly apt.

All the other personality characteristics were measured only in the studies of people who are unafraid of being single — and the results were resoundingly affirming. People who are unafraid of being alone are not overly sensitive to rejection and they don’t get their feelings hurt too easily. When they are in romantic relationships, their own self-esteem does not depend on how those relationships are faring. They do not have a particularly strong need to belong. And they are less likely to be lonely or to be depressed. …

… Despite all that is good and affirming about people who are unafraid of being single, they cannot expect to be celebrated or even respected by other people. People who like being single, or choose to be single, are threatening cherished worldviews about what people should want and how they should feel. Other people evaluate them more harshly than single people who wish they were coupled – even expressing more anger toward them.

This … so … much.

My introversion and desire to be alone are routinely read by others as hostility, grumpiness, irritability, and all other sorts of mischaracterizations rather than what they actually are … hard-won and much-appreciated adult independence.

There was a time in my life when I thought I would not be able to achieve the adult life I deserved because of familial oversights and straight-up abuse (i.e., that I would have to continue appeasing the abusers in my life with no end in sight).

My adult struggle apart from my abusive family of origin was bumpy, rocky, and full of necessary mistakes.  Somewhere along the way I became the adult I always wanted to be (someone that could live by his own ethics and desires, neither craving nor starving for the approval/companionship of others).  The majority of my problems stemmed from appeasing abusers and never confronting them, not my introversion.

I used to comment and moderate on other blogs.  While I found it satisfying, the demands from others quickly exhausted my limited reserve of comfortable social engagement.  No one else’s fault really.  I just didn’t practice the self-care I should have to protect my peace of mind, integrity, and self-respect.  It’s one of the reasons why I no longer allow comments on this blog.  I’m not knocking people that do allow comments on their blogs.  Engagement with others in that fashion is not really my thing.  My blog mostly exists to confirm the truth of my life in a concrete and undeniable fashion that liars and abusers can’t rationalize or pretend away.  If others benefit from my revelations and truth, that’s okay but it isn’t essential.