You keep asking these kinds of questions, seemingly looking for proof that your life is ruined. No one event or period of time defines a whole person. Some of the most accomplished and exemplary people have experienced years of severe hardship and isolation at some point.

Maybe look towards making a clean break and creating a new future rather than finding reasons to convince yourself that the past will haunt you for eternity. It doesn’t have to.

Look i know exactly nothing about your circumstances, where you live or what options you have.

It is important that you turn your hate or sadness into something productive. This way, you can sharpen your skills with a practical task, while also improving the world. You might also get to know other nice people who are like you.

In your example, I would recommend advocating against parental rights. “Parental rights” means that parents can control their children, and if the parents fuck up, the child can do nothing to escape the situation or seek relief. It is important that children have the option to run away from home, if they’re being mistreated, and seek somebody else who they want to live with. That would help children choose their own future.

In today’s society, such a thing is forbidden. The one taking in the child would be charged with “child abductance” and the child would be shamed for running away from their parents. Parental rights effectively mean that parents can force their children into inconvenient situations and the child can’t do anything about it and must comply. That is why I am against parental rights. I hope you can join me in that endeavour to bring about that change :-)

Physical growth? Not likely. Other kinds of growth, I would believe so.

Yes it can! Depending on how isolated one gets, it can severely harm mental health, social and intellectual development and, overall wellbeing.

Just being isolated, or rejected from a group activates the same brain networks as physical pain. You might as well be punched in the face.

Isolate someone enough, and you may just drive them insane. Bonus points if they start to hallucinate. We are social animals. Without social contact, our health goes down rather quickly.

Yes

My dad isolated me from having friends when I was a kid. He did a lot of shit where him having control over the situation was the goal.

Now I’m 41, and I haven’t dated in years. The biggest reason is that I cannot imagine being around another person all day, who I actually enjoy living with. I did it in the past, and I know it’s unfair to say that all other women will turn out like the woman I dated. She in herself had a LOT of issues. But the thing I notice watching from afar is that people are selfish. Every woman wants to ask “what are you bringing to the table?”. As if dating as a core concept is just a trophy hunt for finding the most useful, or hottest, or most impressive partner.

And I look at it totally differently. I want to find a woman whose personality NATURALLY matches mine. Because I’ve dated some women where we didn’t have much in common. And I figured we’d grow together. What ended up happening is we tried to force ourselves to like each others interests. And I gotta say…that just made me HATE watching dr phil with her. And she hated my interests. One day we just sort of realized we were only with each other to avoid being alone.

But I want to find someone that I just enjoy being around. Just naturally their personality matches mine. I don’t give a shit what car they have, or even no car. I don’t care what job she has, or even unemployed. I don’t care how tall she is, or what size boobs she has. I mean, I kinda do care that she does the cooking, but that’s only because right now I literally have a freezer full of about 300 individually ziplocked fully cooked chicken breasts. It’s the only thing I cook. So yeah, she should cook just so we’re not trying to rely on ME cooking.

The problem with me finding someone I enjoy interacting with is that I generally dislike most people. And as time goes on, I feel like I’m getting crankier. In general I don’t like this world, and some of my only solice is sitting in my recliner, and just existing. In silence. Taking a breath. Calming down. And I don’t think anyone else would understand the concept of doing nothing for your own personal sanity.

So there’s lots of reasons I don’t feel like I’ll ever date again, but among the biggest are the fact that I cannot for the life of me envision how my next relationship would start. I’m 41, and haven’t dated since before the pandemic. I’m just supposed to go up to some random woman and say “Hey, wanna date???”

It’s not like I meet any new people anymore. I don’t go places, or do things. I just work. For 10-16 hours a day, every day. And even if I did get put into a situation where there was a new woman, how would I even know if we’d be right for each other? How would I even know if she WANTS to meet me? And what would I say? I never say the right thing. I could go up to a new person and be like “OH HEY! YOU DOIN’ OK??? THIS PLACE IS GREAT! IT HAS CHIPS!!! CHIPS AND DIP!!! UH-HUH UH-HUH UH-HUH-HUH!!! DON’T DOUBLE DIP! REMEMBER THAT? FROM SEINFIELD? GEORGE DOUBLE DIPS! CAN’T DO THAT! WHAT? NO. I’M NOT SAYING YOU DOUBLE DIP. I’M JUST SAYING SEINFIELD WAS A FUNNY SHOW! YOU EVER HEARD OF SEINFIELD? IT WAS ON IN THE 90S. THEY SAID IT WAS A SHOW ABOUT NOTHING, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING GOING ON! MICHEAL RICHARDS IS ON THAT SHOW! HE TURNED OUT TO BE A RACIST! CALLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE THE N-WORD AT A COMEDY CLUB YEARS LATER. HEY, HAVE YOU TRIED THE CHIPS? CHIPS AND DIP. UH-HUH UH-HUH UH-HUH UH-HUH!”

And it all just comes accross as some psychopath invading your space, because I don’t know what to say. Because when everyone else was 5 and 6 and 12 and 18 and growing up with other kids/teens, I got told to stay in a mostly empty room. No TV, no radio, no books, no music. Just stay in there and figure it out. And so now I don’t have social skills. Now I come onto Lemmy to write walls of text to strangers as one of the only forms of communications I feel comfortable with. I know I come across like a nutjob, because I probably am, but at least nobody here knows me, and thus I can let my crazy out. Kinda like when you get home from work, and you unbuckle your belt, and let out a big fart, and just let your gut out because nobodys there to care.

Humans are naturally social animals, so yes. Not physically though, like the other comment said, unless being isolated also means not getting the right nutrition.

As someone who is married to a person that was homeschooled in the middle of nowhere, yes. Isolation will absolutely stunt your emotional and interpersonal growth.

Othered?

As an othered and isolated kind of person, I’d answer with “possibly”.

However… Would the opposite hold? I mean, we should ask ourselves: can being UNothered and gathered with society imply growth? How many people are so socializable and socialized yet their growth is being ostracized by the same society they’re gathering with?

Also… What’s is “growth” supposed to mean? I’m not asking specifically about the title of the thread, I’m asking about the societal concept of “growth”, what is it? Is it tied to the term “realization”? If so, what’s that also supposed to mean? Money? Professional career? A big family? Lots of friends? A beautiful partner? The fanciest vehicle? Perhaps simply “happiness” (whatever that means)? Self-esteem? What is supposed to drive this “growth”? Is it a personal, individual growth, or is it supposed to be a collective, societal growth? Perhaps both?

Ouch, so many questions from me…

Edit: Okay, I expected downvoting… It’s not news to me when I comment on threads regarding purpose, life and existence, through a nihilistic lens, and I get downvoted by some people. After all, just some numbers on my screen. But I also expected something like… you know… polite debate, exchanging of ideas, et cetera. I didn’t exactly state anything, I just asked questions. Yes, I’m a bit biased, I’m a nihilist, so things and existence seem purposeless to me… but I just addressed questions branched from the initial OP’s question. It’s a question-driven community after all.

What is it, othered or isolated? Can’t really be both, if you are othered, you’re inside society and interacting with it, if you’re isolated, you can’t be othered because you’re isolated and there’s no one there to “other” you.