I'm hermity as fuck whenever I can be now. It's sort of past the point of being unhealthy or even a preference. Although I see technical reasons to think otherwise, in some way I feel like actually, this just works for me, and certainly I feel like it's what I need, just to stay at baseline. I know it's a bit of a perverse thing to say and I ought to encourage you to get back out there and go to school, but fuck, solitude is such a relief for me, and so much more effective than any pill or peptalk. That's just the truth. There's a few different things here I can package into one rhetorical question: what's healthy for who according to who and for what reasons? Basically, I think preferring or even needing a state of solitude is valid. I've accepted that's how things are for me and I do not know if I can, will or want to change. The key difficulty with this preference or coping method is that, well, solitude can be kind of like crack! Am I right? I mean it's an escape. If it works, it works. You pass the time, but then after a while time passes you, if you follow me. At four weeks in, you are an apprentice hermit. The problem essentially comes down to things like ageing, money, food, and having a place you can be hermity in. See the thing is we can tell depression is at work because you go from "I felt truly happy" to "I [will] break", and this is a distinction that suggests it's not that you would enjoy a cabin in.the woods, rather it's that you're avoiding humans and you have reasonable doubts as to how sustainable such avoidance is. It may be that the school environment isn't for you, which isn't to say that you should give up on education. But I do think sometimes certain environments prove so stressful for people that a cost benefit ratio shows that even though withdrawal reduces ones options, sometimes it's a reasonable thing to do.

What may not work so well is having no sense of how to go forwards. If you wanted to fuck yourself up and force yourself to do something or another, I am pretty sure that if you cut off the internet, you would get restless after a week. Sometimes I try adventures in solitude. Music and sunglasses, a bicycle; out of the house but you can see buildings and animals, you can people watch without having to engage. If you've a bike you can get away from people real quickly :) So it's a good excuse not to talk to people you know (while you can say hi.as you pass.if you feel social. Or even - shock horror - stop and talk!). I'm seeing it all now. You become the mysterious bike loner dude that Katy from the cofffeeshop has a crush on. Katy who is cute I'd walking that way (say to the park) and suddenly you've got company and she also likes to spend all her time alone and