In this reflection we look at self-sufficiency as armor.
You like your own company. You have learned to meet your own needs. You do not wait around for people to show up because you stopped expecting them to.
This is often called independence. It is sometimes called strength. But it can also be a wall built so slowly you forgot you were building it.
People who were let down early learn to stop reaching. They learn that needing is dangerous. That relying on someone gives them power to hurt you. The safest move is to need nothing, and so they practice needing nothing until it becomes true.
The problem is that humans are not built for total self-sufficiency. Connection is not a luxury. It is a biological requirement. Loneliness is a health risk as significant as smoking. Your nervous system needs co-regulation. It needs other people.
But if closeness has hurt you, your body learns to treat it as threat. The warmth someone offers triggers suspicion instead of comfort. The door they leave open looks like a trap. You stay outside because outside is where you know the rules.
Alone becomes the only place you can exhale. The only place nothing is expected. The only place no one can disappoint you because no one is there.
That is protection. It is also a kind of prison.
The work is not to suddenly trust everyone. That would be reckless. The work is to notice when the wall goes up automatically, even in moments when it might be safe to lower it.
It is learning to tolerate the discomfort of being seen. Of letting someone matter. Of staying in the room when part of you wants to leave.
Alone is not bad. But alone as the only option is not freedom. It is a strategy that has outlived its usefulness.
You survived by not needing. Now you might have to risk needing again to actually live.