Isolated Family Member Quotes

I was alone. I had no one. No mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, no grandmas, no grandpas, no uncles, no aunties, no cousins, and no tribe. I’d seen the children at the orphanage laugh or cry when they received news about a family member. I would never receive such news and no family would laugh or cry for me. That day I understood with sharp clarity that I didn’t have a mother who wanted me.

I decided to devote my life to telling my story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the world, and anyone who has endured the pain, the isolation and the betrayal of family members. I want survivors to know that they're not alone. I want children to have the opportunity to be happy and free from abuse.

We Are Lovable Even if the most important person in your world rejects you, you are still real, and you are still okay. —Codependent No More Do you ever find yourself thinking: How could anyone possibly love me? For many of us, this is a deeply ingrained belief that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thinking we are unlovable can sabotage our relationships with co-workers, friends, family members, and other loved ones. This belief can cause us to choose, or stay in, relationships that are less than we deserve because we don’t believe we deserve better. We may become desperate and cling as if a particular person was our last chance at love. We may become defensive and push people away. We may withdraw or constantly overreact. While growing up, many of us did not receive the unconditional love we deserved. Many of us were abandoned or neglected by important people in our life. We may have concluded that the reason we weren’t loved was because we were unlovable. Blaming ourselves is an understandable reaction, but an inappropriate one. If others couldn’t love us, or love us in ways that worked, that’s not our fault. In recovery, we’re learning to separate ourselves from the behavior of others. And we’re learning to take responsibility for our healing, regardless of the people around us. Just as we may have believed that we’re unlovable, we can become skilled at practicing the belief that we are lovable. This new belief will improve the quality of our relationships. It will improve our most important relationship: our relationship with our self. We will be able to let others love us and become open to the love and friendship we deserve. Today, help me be aware of and release any self-defeating beliefs I have about being unlovable. Help me begin, today, to tell myself that I am lovable. Help me practice this belief until it gets into my core and manifests itself in my relationships.

significant concentrations of Hutu Power military and militia members among the IDPs [International Displaced Persons] made the camps themselves a major threat ... As in the border camps, interahamwe agents didn't hesitate to threaten and attack those who wished to leave Kibeho, fearing that a mass desertion of the civilian population would leave them isolated and exposed.

Cult (totalistic type): a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressure, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgement, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.

I decided to devote my life to telling my story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the world and anyone who has endured the pain, the isolation and the betrayal of family members.Though I no longer live in silence, I continued to carry the pain and the memories. This is something that will always be part of me but I choose not to be defined by this crime. I choose to give hope and I want survivors to know that they're not alone. I want children to have the opportunity to be happy, safe and protected from sexual abuse.

Sometimes, when I had to be alone, was when I was the loneliest. There are times people or events put others in a place where they have no one. Not a single friend or family member who is there for them. They want to reach out for help, they long for it, but there is no one there. Just an empty void, a constant reminder of how isolated you are.

Red Flag: Narcissists pit family members against each other to earn the narcissists love. Triangulation keeps them isolated and alone.

Cults tend to follow similar patterns. First, there's financial exploitation where members hand over money and assets to increase the cult's power over them and make them dependent on it. Then the sexual exploitation begins. Finally, there's physical exploitation involving confinement, punishment, and isolation from family members. If the cult's leader has become delusional enough to think they have the God-like power of life and death over their followers, they may demand the ultimate sacrifice - mass suicide.

This, to be sure, is not the entire truth. For there were individuals in Germany who from the very beginning of the regime and without ever wavering were opposed to Hitler; no one knows how many there were of them—perhaps a hundred thousand, perhaps many more, perhaps many fewer—for their voices were never heard. They could be found everywhere, in all strata of society, among the simple people as well as among the educated, in all parties, perhaps even in the ranks of the N.S.D.A.P. Very few of them were known publicly, as were the aforementioned Reck-Malleczewen or the philosopher Karl Jaspers. Some of them were truly and deeply pious, like an artisan of whom I know, who preferred having his independent existence destroyed and becoming a simple worker in a factory to taking upon himself the “little formality” of entering the Nazi Party. A few still took an oath seriously and preferred, for example, to renounce an academic career rather than swear by Hitler’s name. A more numerous group were the workers, especially in Berlin, and Socialist intellectuals who tried to aid the Jews they knew. There were finally, the two peasant boys whose story is related in Günther Weisenborn’s Der lautlose Aufstand (1953), who were drafted into the S.S. at the end of the war and refused to sign; they were sentenced to death, and on the day of their execution they wrote in their last letter to their families: “We two would rather die than burden our conscience with such terrible things. We know what the S.S. must carry out.” The position of these people, who, practically speaking, did nothing, was altogether different from that of the conspirators. Their ability to tell right from wrong had remained intact, and they never suffered a “crisis of conscience.” There may also have been such persons among the members of the resistance, but they were hardly more numerous in the ranks of the conspirators than among the people at large. They were neither heroes nor saints, and they remained completely silent. Only on one occasion, in a single desperate gesture, did this wholly isolated and mute element manifest itself publicly: this was when the Scholls, two students at Munich University, brother and sister, under the influence of their teacher Kurt Huber distributed the famous leaflets in which Hitler was finally called what he was—a “mass murderer.

I think that the individual cannot exist in a vacuum. Cannot exist in isolation. He is the member of a tribe, a church, a family, a political party or a social club. He is influenced by these things and does himself influence them. We don't live for ourselves. We live for others. Perhaps in the African scale of values, freedom ranks quite high. I would say that perhaps the best role any group ought to play is that of freedom.

I do believe that we (autistic individuals such as myself) are very susceptible to suicidal thinking for multiple reasons that include: chronic high levels of anxiety, tendency to fixate on or get stuck on negative disturbing thoughts, low self-worth, inability to have significant or intimate relationships with others, replaying over and over again negative statements that others have said to us, feeling unable to be understood, lack [of] a solid self-identity, difficulty with expressing self to others, feelings of great isolation, feeling that you are or may be a burden to others, feeling unable to contribute to society or the greater good, etc […] I do believe that the most important thing that someone else can do for a struggling autistic individual is to affirm their self-worth, recognise and validate their struggles and affirm the things that they do that are greatly valued by others. The worst thing to do for an autistic individual, or any struggling individual for that matter, is to not believe them or to deny the validity of their struggles. My greatest and deepest hurt is that doctors, family members and important others did not believe me in my struggles, particularly when I was younger, before my diagnosis at the age of 35 years. This has been the strongest impetus for my feelings of unworthiness and suicidal thoughts. (Woman with autism)

Cancer is another forbidden or “whisper” topic. I read about a writer named Emily McDowell who said the worst part of being diagnosed with lymphoma wasn’t feeling sick from chemo or losing her hair. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.” In response, Emily created “empathy cards.” I love them all but these two are my favorites, making me want to laugh and cry simultaneously.

Since the 1300s, this job had been performed by members of a small group of families, all living in the hills near the mine. Over the centuries humans grew larger, but the miners stayed the same size, until they eventually seemed dwarfed by the demands of the mine and their time underground (diet and inbreeding were more likely causes). Even in the early twentieth century, this small isolated community spoke a dialect last popular in the Middle Ages. They explored their tunnels with acetylene torches, and wore the white linen suits and peaked caps of medieval miners.

We ask new members to avoid some hindrances to recovery that include: isolating and not asking for help, intellectualizing the program, focusing only on counseling, “falling in love” with another member and avoiding program work, erratic meeting attendance, and taking drugs or drinking alcohol. We suggest that newcomers to ACA stay out of romantic relationships since we need time to focus on ourselves. We are highly susceptible to unhealthy attachments which can divert us from focusing on ourselves. The ACA solution is in the meetings and the Twelve Steps, instead of in someone else.

Pay attention to everything the dying person says. You might want to keep pens and a spiral notebook beside the bed so that anyone can jot down notes about gestures, conversations, or anything out of the ordinary said by the dying person. Talk with one another about these comments and gestures. • Remember that there may be important messages in any communication, however vague or garbled. Not every statement made by a dying person has significance, but heed them all so as not to miss the ones that do. • Watch for key signs: a glassy-eyed look; the appearance of staring through you; distractedness or secretiveness; seemingly inappropriate smiles or gestures, such as pointing, reaching toward someone or something unseen, or waving when no one is there; efforts to pick at the covers or get out of bed for no apparent reason; agitation or distress at your inability to comprehend something the dying person has tried to say. • Respond to anything you don’t understand with gentle inquiries. “Can you tell me what’s happening?” is sometimes a helpful way to initiate this kind of conversation. You might also try saying, “You seem different today. Can you tell me why?” • Pose questions in open-ended, encouraging terms. For example, if a dying person whose mother is long dead says, “My mother’s waiting for me,” turn that comment into a question: “Mother’s waiting for you?” or “I’m so glad she’s close to you. Can you tell me about it?” • Accept and validate what the dying person tells you. If he says, “I see a beautiful place!” say, “That’s wonderful! Can you tell me more about it?” or “I’m so pleased. I can see that it makes you happy,” or “I’m so glad you’re telling me this. I really want to understand what’s happening to you. Can you tell me more?” • Don’t argue or challenge. By saying something like “You couldn’t possibly have seen Mother, she’s been dead for ten years,” you could increase the dying person’s frustration and isolation, and run the risk of putting an end to further attempts at communicating. • Remember that a dying person may employ images from life experiences like work or hobbies. A pilot may talk about getting ready to go for a flight; carry the metaphor forward: “Do you know when it leaves?” or “Is there anyone on the plane you know?” or “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready for takeoff?” • Be honest about having trouble understanding. One way is to say, “I think you’re trying to tell me something important and I’m trying very hard, but I’m just not getting it. I’ll keep on trying. Please don’t give up on me.” • Don’t push. Let the dying control the breadth and depth of the conversation—they may not be able to put their experiences into words; insisting on more talk may frustrate or overwhelm them. • Avoid instilling a sense of failure in the dying person. If the information is garbled or the delivery impossibly vague, show that you appreciate the effort by saying, “I can see that this is hard for you; I appreciate your trying to share it with me,” or “I can see you’re getting tired/angry/frustrated. Would it be easier if we talked about this later?” or “Don’t worry. We’ll keep trying and maybe it will come.” • If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. Sometimes the best response is simply to touch the dying person’s hand, or smile and stroke his or her forehead. Touching gives the very important message “I’m with you.” Or you could say, “That’s interesting, let me think about it.” • Remember that sometimes the one dying picks an unlikely confidant. Dying people often try to communicate important information to someone who makes them feel safe—who won’t get upset or be taken aback by such confidences. If you’re an outsider chosen for this role, share the information as gently and completely as possible with the appropriate family members or friends. They may be more familiar with innuendos in a message because they know the person well.

The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. And Yahweh tortures and massacres people by the hundreds of thousands for trivial disobedience or for no reason at all. These atrocities are neither isolated nor obscure. They implicate all the major characters of the Old Testament, the ones that Sunday-school children draw with crayons. And they fall into a continuous plotline that stretches for millennia, from Adam and Eve through Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond.

Groupies and hangers-on somehow fancy themselves entitled to the narcissist’s favour and largesse, his time, attention, and other resources. They convince themselves that they are exempt from the narcissist’s rage and wrath and immune to his vagaries andabuse . This self-imputed and self-conferred status irritates the narcissist no end as it challenges and encroaches on his standing as the only source of preferential treatment and the sole decision-maker when it comes to the allocation of his precious and cosmically significant wherewithal. The narcissist is the guru at the centre of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock: his spouse, his offspring, other family  members, friends, and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline, adherence to his teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished he is in reality – the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing. Cult leaders are narcissists who failed in their mission to "be someone", to become famous, and to impress the world with their uniqueness, talents, traits, and skills. Such disgruntled narcissists withdraw into a "zone of comfort" (known as the "Pathological Narcissistic Space") that assumes the hallmarks of a cult. The – often involuntary – members of the narcissist's mini-cult inhabit a twilight zone of his own construction. He imposes on them an exclusionary or inclusionary shared psychosis, replete with persecutory delusions, "enemies", mythical-grandiose narratives, and apocalyptic scenarios if he is flouted. Exclusionary shared psychosis involves the physical and emotional isolation of the narcissist and his “flock” (spouse, children, fans, friends) from the outside world in order to better shield them from imminent threats and hostile intentions. Inclusionary shared psychosis revolves around attempts to spread the narcissist’s message in a missionary fashion among friends, colleagues, co-workers, fans, churchgoers, and anyone else who comes across the mini-cult. The narcissist's control is based on ambiguity, unpredictability, fuzziness, and ambientabuse . His ever-shifting whims exclusively define right versus wrong, desirable and unwanted, what is to be pursued and what to be avoided. He alone determines the rights and obligations of his disciples and alters them at will.

Like many dogs, young Sirius found human music quite excruciating. An isolated vocal or instrumental theme was torture enough to him; but when several voices or instruments combined, he seemed to lose control of himself completely. His fine auditory discrimination made even well-executed solos seem to him badly out of tune. Harmony and the combination of several themes resulted for him in hideous cacophony. Elizabeth and the children would sometimes sing rounds, for instance when they were coming downt he moor after a picnic. Sirius invariably had to give up his usual far-ranging course and draw into the party to howl. The indignant children would chase him away, but as soon as the singing began again he would return and once more give tongue. On one occasion Tamsy, who was the most seriously musical member of the family, cried imploringly, 'Sirius, do either keep quiet or keep away! Why cant't you let us enjoy ourselves?' He replied, 'But how can you like such a horrible jarring muddle of sweet noises? I have to come to you because they're so sweet, and I have to howl because it's a mess, and because-oh because it might be so lovely.' Once he said, 'If I were to paint a picture could you just keep away? Wouldn't you go crazy because of the all-wrongness of the colour? Well, sounds are far more exciting to me than your queer colour is to you.

Men cooperate with one another. The totality of interhuman relations engendered by such cooperation is called society. Society is not an entity in itself. It is an aspect of human action. It does not exist or live outside of the conduct of people. It is an orientation of human action. Society neither thinks nor acts. Individuais in thinking and acting constitute a complex of relations and facts that are called social relations and facts. The issue has been confused by an arithmetical metaphor. Is society, people asked, merely a sum of individuals or is it more than this and thereby an entity endowed with independent reality? The question is nonsensical. Society is neither the sum of individuais nor more nor less. Arithmetical concepts cannot be applied to the matter. Another confusion arises from the no less empty question whether society is—in logic and in time—anterior to individuais or not. The evolution of society and that of civilization were not two distinct processes but one and the same process. The biological passing of a species of primates beyond the levei of a mere animal existence and their transformation into primitive men implied already the development of the first rudiments of social cooperation. Homo sapiens appeared on the stage of earthly events neither as a solitary foodseeker nor as a member of a gregarious flock, but as a being consciously cooperating with other beings of his own kind. Only in cooperation with his fellows could he develop language, the indispensable tool of thinking. We cannot even imagine a reasonable being living in perfect isolation and not cooperating at least with members of his family, clan, or tribe. Man as man is necessarily a social animal. Some sort of cooperation is an essential characteristic of his nature. But awareness of this fact does not justify dealing with social relations as if they were something else than relations or with society as if it were an independent entity outside or above the actions of individual men. Finally there are the misconstructions caused by the organismic metaphor. We may compare society to a biological organism. The tertium comparationis is the fact that division of labor and cooperation exist among the various parts of a biological body as among the various members of society. But the biological evolution that resulted in the emergence of the structurefunction systems of plant and animal bodies was a purely physiological process in which no trace of a conscious activity on the part of the cells can be discovered. On the other hand, human society is an intellectual and spiritual phenomenon. In cooperating with their fellows, individuais do not divest themselves of their individuality. They retain the power to act antisocially, and often make use of it. Its place in the structure of the body is invariably assigned to each cell. But individuais spontaneously choose the way in which they integrate themselves into social cooperation. Men have ideas and seek chosen ends, while the cells and organs of the body lack such autonomy.

For many, an explosion of mental problems occurred during the first months of the pandemic and will continue to progress in the post-pandemic era. In March 2020 (at the onset of the pandemic), a group of researchers published a study in The Lancet that found that confinement measures produced a range of severe mental health outcomes, such as trauma, confusion and anger.[153] Although avoiding the most severe mental health issues, a large portion of the world population is bound to have suffered stress to various degrees. First and foremost, it is among those already prone to mental health issues that the challenges inherent in the response to the coronavirus (lockdowns, isolation, anguish) will be exacerbated. Some will weather the storm, but for certain individuals, a diagnostic of depression or anxiety could escalate into an acute clinical episode. There are also significant numbers of people who for the first time presented symptoms of serious mood disorder like mania, signs of depression and various psychotic experiences. These were all triggered by events directly or indirectly associated with the pandemic and the lockdowns, such as isolation and loneliness, fear of catching the disease, losing a job, bereavement and concerns about family members and friends. In May 2020, the National Health Service England’s clinical director for mental health told a Parliamentary committee that the “demand for mental healthcare would increase ‘significantly’ once the lockdown ended and would see people needing treatment for trauma for years to come”.[154] There is no reason to believe that the situation will be very different elsewhere.

However, Rothschild was easily the most scientific collector of his age, though also the most regrettably lethal, for in the 1890s he became interested in Hawaii, perhaps the most temptingly vulnerable environment Earth has yet produced. Millions of years of isolation had allowed Hawaii to evolve 8,800 unique species of animals and plants. Of particular interest to Rothschild were the islands’ colorful and distinctive birds, often consisting of very small populations inhabiting extremely specific ranges. The tragedy for many Hawaiian birds was that they were not only distinctive, desirable, and rare—a dangerous combination in the best of circumstances—but also often heartbreakingly easy to take. The greater koa finch, an innocuous member of the honeycreeper family, lurked shyly in the canopies of koa trees, but if someone imitated its song it would abandon its cover at once and fly down in a show of welcome. The last of the species vanished in 1896, killed by Rothschild’s ace collector Harry Palmer, five years after the disappearance of its cousin the lesser koa finch, a bird so sublimely rare that only one has ever been seen: the one shot for Rothschild’s collection. Altogether during the decade or so of Rothschild’s most intensive collecting, at least nine species of Hawaiian birds vanished, but it may have been more. Rothschild was by no means alone in his zeal to capture birds at more or less any cost. Others in fact were more ruthless. In 1907 when a well-known collector named Alanson Bryan realized that he had shot the last three specimens of black mamos, a species of forest bird that had only been discovered the previous decade, he noted that the news filled him with “joy.

Type II trauma also often occurs within a closed context - such as a family, a religious group, a workplace, a chain of command, or a battle group - usually perpetrated by someone related or known to the victim. As such, it often involves fundamental betrayal of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator and within the community (Freyd, 1994). It may also involve the betrayal of a particular role and the responsibility associated with the relationship (i.e., parent-child, family member-child, therapist-client, teacher-student, clergy-child/adult congregant, supervisor-employee, military officer-enlisted man or woman). Relational dynamics of this sort have the effect of further complicating the victim's survival adaptations, especially when a superficially caring, loving or seductive relationship is cultivated with the victim (e.g., by an adult mentor such as a priest, coach, or teacher; by an adult who offers a child special favors for compliance; by a superior who acts as a protector or who can offer special favors and career advancement). In a process labelled "selection and grooming", potential abusers seek out as potential victims those who appear insecure, are needy and without resources, and are isolated from others or are obviously neglected by caregivers or those who are in crisis or distress for which they are seeking assistance. This status is then used against the victim to seduce, coerce, and exploit. Such a scenario can lead to trauma bonding between victim and perpetrator (i.e., the development of an attachment bond based on the traumatic relationship and the physical and social contact), creating additional distress and confusion for the victim who takes on the responsibility and guilt for what transpired, often with the encouragement or insinuation of the perpetrator(s) to do so.

Although a youth culture was in evidence by the 1950s, the first obvious and dramatic manifestation of a culture generated by peer-orientation was the hippie counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan called it “the new tribalism of the Electric Age.” Hair and dress and music played a significant part in shaping this culture, but what defined it more than anything was its glorification of the peer attachment that gave rise to it. Friends took precedence over family. Physical contact and connection with peers were pursued; the brotherhood of the pop tribe was declared, as in the generation-based “Woodstock nation.” The peer group was the true home. “Don't trust anyone over thirty” became the byword of youth who went far beyond a healthy critique of their elders to a militant rejection of tradition. The degeneration of that culture into alienation and drug use, on the one hand, and its co-optation for commercial purposes by the very mainstream institutions it was rebelling against were almost predictable. The wisdom of well-seasoned cultures has accumulated over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. Healthy cultures also contain rituals and customs and ways of doing things that protect us from ourselves and safeguard values important to human life, even when we are not conscious of what such values are. An evolved culture needs to have some art and music that one can grow into, symbols that convey deeper meanings to existence and models that inspire greatness. Most important of all, a culture must protect its essence and its ability to reproduce itself — the attachment of children to their parents. The culture generated by peer orientation contains no wisdom, does not protect its members from themselves, creates only fleeting fads, and worships idols hollow of value or meaning. It symbolizes only the undeveloped ego of callow youth and destroys child-parent attachments. We may observe the cheapening of cultural values with each new peer-oriented generation. For all its self-delusion and smug isolation from the adult world, the Woodstock “tribe” still embraced universal values of peace, freedom, and brotherhood. Today's mass musical gatherings are about little more than style, ego, tribal exuberance, and dollars.

The urban isolated individual An individual can be influenced by forces such as propaganda only when he is cut off from membership in local groups because such groups are organic and have a well-structured material, spirltual and emotional life; they are not easily penetrated by propaganda. For example, it is much more difficult today for outside propaganda to influence a soldier integrated into a military group, or a militant member of a monolithic party, than to influence the same man when he is a mere citizen. Nor is the organic group sensitive to psychological contagion, which is so important to the success of Nazi propaganda. One can say generally, that 19th century individualist society came about through the disintegration of such small groups as the family or the church. Once these groups lost their importance, the individual was substantially isolated. He was plunged into a new environment generally urban and thereby "uprooted." He no longer had a traditional place in which to live. He was no longer geographically attached to a fixed place, or historically to his ancestry. An individual thus uprooted can only be part of a mass- He is on his own, and individualist thinking asks of him something he has never been required to do before: that he, the individual, become the measure of all things. Thus he begins to judge everything for himself. In fact he must make his own judgments. He is thrown entirely on his own resources; he can find criteria only in himself. He is clearly responsible for his own decisions, both personal and social. He becomes the beginning and the end of everything. Before him there was nothing; after him there will be nothing. His own life becomes the only criterion of justice and injustice, of Good and Evil. The individual is placed in a minority position and burdened at the same time with a total crushing responsibility. Such conditions make an individualist society fertile ground for modern propaganda. The permanent uncertainty, the social mobility, the absence of sociological protection and of traditional frames of reference — all these inevitably provide propaganda with a malleable environment that can be fed information from the outside and conditioned at will. The individual left to himself is defenseless the more so because he may be caught up in a social current thus becoming easy prey for propaganda. As a member of a small group he was fairly well protected from collective influences, customs, and suggestions. He was relatively unaffected by changes in the society at large.

In the early 1680s, at just about the time that Edmond Halley and his friends Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke were settling down in a London coffee house and embarking on the casual wager that would result eventually in Isaac Newton’s Principia, Hemy Cavendish’s weighing of the Earth, and many of the other inspired and commendable undertakings that have occupied us for much of the past four hundred pages, a rather less desirable milestone was being passed on the island of Mauritius, far out in the Indian Ocean some eight hundred miles off the east coast of Madagascar. There, some forgotten sailor or sailor’s pet was harrying to death the last of the dodos, the famously flightless bird whose dim but trusting nature and lack of leggy zip made it a rather irresistible target for bored young tars on shore leave. Millions of years of peaceful isolation had not prepared it for the erratic and deeply unnerving behavior of human beings. We don’t know precisely the circumstances, or even year, attending the last moments of the last dodo, so we don’t know which arrived first a world that contained a Principia or one that had no dodos, but we do know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I would submit to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being-a species of organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did us any harm and wasn’t even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as we did it. Indeed, dodos were so spectacularly short on insight it is reported, that if you wished to find all the dodos in a vicinity you had only to catch one and set it to squawking, and all the others would waddle along to see what was up. The indignities to the poor dodo didn’t end quite there. In 1755, some seventy years after the last dodo’s death, the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford decided that the institution’s stuffed dodo was becoming unpleasantly musty and ordered it tossed on a bonfire. This was a surprising decision as it was by this time the only dodo in existence, stuffed or otherwise. A passing employee, aghast tried to rescue the bird but could save only its head and part of one limb. As a result of this and other departures from common sense, we are not now entirely sure what a living dodo was like. We possess much less information than most people suppose-a handful of crude descriptions by "unscientific voyagers, three or four oil paintings, and a few scattered osseous fragments," in the somewhat aggrieved words of the nineteenth century naturalist H. E. Strickland. As Strickland wistfully observed, we have more physical evidence of some ancient sea monsters and lumbering saurapods than we do of a bird that lived into modern times and required nothing of us to survive except our absence. So what is known of the dodo is this: it lived on Mauritius, was plump but not tasty, and was the biggest-ever member of the pigeon family, though by quite what margin is unknown as its weight was never accurately recorded. Extrapolations from Strickland’s "osseous fragments" and the Ashmolean’s modest remains show that it was a little over two and a half feet tall and about the same distance from beak tip to backside. Being flightless, it nested on the ground, leaving its eggs and chicks tragically easy prey for pigs, dogs, and monkeys brought to the island by outsiders. It was probably extinct by 1683 and was most certainly gone by 1693. Beyond that we know almost nothing except of course that we will not see its like again. We know nothing of its reproductive habits and diet, where it ranged, what sounds it made in tranquility or alarm. We don’t possess a single dodo egg. From beginning to end our acquaintance with animate dodos lasted just seventy years.

A CHANGING SOCIETY What does today’s high incidence of social anxiety tell us about modern society? As we’ve seen, social anxiety is connected to a person’s drive for self-preservation and a feeling of safety. It is natural to withdraw from situations that we expect will lead to pain. Avoidance—while not necessarily healthy—is logical. Because the negative social experience of a growing number of people has caused them emotional pain and suffering, the number of individuals who choose to avoid socializing is increasing at an alarming rate. The sometimes wide distance among family members these days only adds to isolation. And the anonymity of large cities creates a vacuum in which many lonely people co-exist, often leading solitary lives in which they pursue their interests and activities alone. We live in a society in which social fears are perhaps not unjustified. As cities become denser, isolation seems to be the best way to counter urban decay. Consider the dangers of the outside world: Crime rates are soaring. Caution—and its companion, fear—are in the air. As the twentieth century draws to a close, we find ourselves in a society where meeting people can be difficult. These larger forces can combine to create a further sense of distance among people. Particularly significant is the change that has taken place as the social organization of the smaller-scale community gives way to that of the larger, increasingly fragmented city. In a “hometown” setting, the character of daily life is largely composed of face-to-face relations with friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members. But in the hustle and bustle of today’s cities, whose urban sprawls extend to what author Joel Garreau has called Edge Cities—creating light industrial suburbs even larger than the cities they surround—the individual can get lost. It is common in these areas for people to focus solely on themselves, seldom getting to know their neighbors, and rarely living close to family. We may call these places home, but they are a far cry from the destination of that word as we knew it when we were children. Today’s cities are hotbeds of competition on all levels, from the professional to the social. It often seems as if only the most sophisticated “win.” To be ready for this constant challenge, you have to be able to manage in a stressful environment, relying on a whole repertoire of social skills just to stay afloat. This competitive environment can be terrifying for the socially anxious person. The 1980s were a consumer decade in which picture-perfect images on television and in magazines caused many of us to cast our lots with either the haves or the have-nots. Pressure to succeed grew to an all-time high. For those who felt they could not measure up, the challenge seemed daunting. I think the escalating crime rate in today’s urban centers—drugs, burglary, rape, and murder—ties into this trend and society’s response to the pressure. In looking at the forces that influence the social context of modern life, it is clear that feelings of frustration at not “making it” socially and financially are a component in many people’s choosing a life of crime. Interactive ability determines success in establishing a rewarding career, in experiencing relationships. Without these prospects, crime can appear to be a quick fix for a lifelong problem.

Every family is an isolated incident. Worthy of investigation. No matter how good or bad you have it, there’s darkness and there’s joy. There’s confusion and miscommunication. There’s someone who isn’t speaking their mind and there’s someone who’s speaking theirs too often. There’s someone to blame, there’s no one to blame. Good times, bad times, ugly times, too. It’s a disaster, it’s the greatest thing ever; it’s who you are and who you are not. And meanwhile, the biggest problem of all is that the only people qualified to launch the investigation, the only people who have all the evidence, are the family members themselves.

adoption (or emotional adoption: placement in a foster family or in any other significant, life-altering family connection) is not an isolated event. It is a lifelong process and an intergenerational journey. As such, each member in the family nexus changes, and certain developmental transitions occur that need to be addressed with loving attention.

Family life, which constitutes the smallest and most basic form of association, has deteriorated markedly since the 1960s with a sharp increase in rates of divorce and single-parent families. Beyond the family, too, there has been a steady breakdown of older communities like neighborhoods, churches, and workplaces. At the same time, there has been a vast increase in the general level of distrust, as measured by the wariness that Americans have for their fellow citizens due to the rise of crime, or in the massive increases in litigation as a means of settling disputes. In recent years the state, often in the guise of the court system, has supported a rapidly expanding set of individual rights that have undermined the ability of larger communities to set standards for the behavior of their members. Thus, the United States today presents a contradictory picture of a society living off a great fund of previously accumulated social capital that gives it a rich and dynamic associational life, while at the same time manifesting extremes of distrust and asocial individualism that tend to isolate and atomize its members. This type of individualism always existed in a potential form, yet through most of America’s existence it had been kept in check by strong communal currents.6

The word our signifies that the right to call God “Father” is not mine alone. It is a corporate privilege belonging to the entire body of Christ. When I pray, I do not come before God as an isolated individual, but as a member of a family, a community of saints.

God created us as social, relational persons. Yet the current way of life in developed countries is greatly reducing the quantity and quality of our relationships. When you add the high degree of mobility, the strong sense of individualism, and the decreased opportunities for informal public life, isolation and loneliness become increasingly common. According to one recent study, 40% of adults between the ages of 45 and 49 said they were lonely, a rate of loneliness that has doubled since the 1980s. Based on a 2004 study, one in four Americans said they had no one whom they could talk to about personal troubles. If family members were not counted, that number doubled. More than half of those surveyed had no one outside their immediate family with whom they could share important issues. In short, we have fewer people to lean on. In nearly every American setting, people are living relationally impoverished lives marked by a sense of isolation. Far too many people are lonely and alone. This issue of isolation is compounded by a sense of detachment from place. In a highly mobile society, people rarely feel rooted geographically. We live as nomads, both figuratively and literally.

Angela shuddered. “That’s scary.” “Extremely.” Willow’s face clouded over. “Cory had made Katelyn so insecure, so unsure of herself that she couldn’t even buy the girls clothes without his approval. Fortunately for her, there were plenty of family members around that saw her losing herself. Cory tried to keep her isolated from us. That’s what they do oftentimes, but with her working here it wasn’t possible. Thank God.” “Yes,” Angela muttered. Brice had been controlling, dishonest, and had certainly made her feel insecure. She knew she’d lost herself. Bit by tiny precious bit. He had also alienated her from her family. Wow. She hadn’t even realized it. He kept her so busy with his plans, his needs and wants that whenever she mentioned visiting her folks, he’d throw a fit. Was Brice a narcissist? And if so, did she need help like Katelyn received?

July 16 Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will . . . make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky . . . because you have obeyed me. (Genesis 22:16–18) From the time of Abraham, people have been learning that when they obey God’s voice and surrender to Him whatever they hold most precious, He multiplies it thousands of times. Abraham gave up his one and only son at the Lord’s command, and in doing so, all his desires and dreams for Isaac’s life, as well as his own hope for a notable heritage, disappeared. Yet God restored Isaac to his father, and Abraham’s family became “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (v. 17). And through his descendants, “when the time had fully come, God sent his Son” (Gal. 4:4). This is exactly how God deals with every child of His when we truly sacrifice. We surrender everything we own and accept poverty—then He sends wealth. We leave a growing area of ministry at His command—then He provides one better than we had ever dreamed. We surrender all our cherished hopes and die to self—then He sends overflowing joy and His “life . . . that [we] might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10 KJV). The greatest gift of all was Jesus Christ Himself, and we can never fully comprehend the enormity of His sacrifice. Abraham, as the earthly father of the family of Christ, had to begin by surrendering himself and his only son, just as our heavenly Father sacrificed His only Son, Jesus. We could never have come to enjoy the privileges and joys as members of God’s family through any other way. Charles Gallaudet Trumbull We sometimes seem to forget that what God takes from us, He takes with fire, and that the only road to a life of resurrection and ascension power leads us first to Gethsemane, the cross, and the tomb. Dear soul, do you believe that Abraham’s experience was unique and isolated? It is only an example and a pattern of how God deals with those who are prepared to obey Him whatever the cost. “After waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised” (Heb. 6:15), and so will you. The moment of your greatest sacrifice will also be the precise moment of your greatest and most miraculous blessing. God’s river, which never runs dry, will overflow its banks, bringing you a flood of wealth and grace. Indeed, there is nothing God will not do for those who will dare to step out in faith onto what appears to be only a mist. As they take their first step, they will find a rock beneath their feet. F. B. Meyer

Cognitive dissonance is a cult’s go-to method for isolating cult members and potential initiates from their friends and families.

This gives a whole new meaning to ‘family mobbing.’ According to author and survivor, Stephanie A. Sellers, Ph.D, who wrote the book, Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing: Stories and Approaches to Recovery from Shunning, Aggression, and Family Violence, “Family Mobbing is a group act of aggression that targets a family member. It can be typified by a single act of violence or a pattern of abuse over years. Whether isolated or long-term, mobbing enforces the family’s domination and control over another. As family members continue to tyrannize their target, the aggressive group may expand to include friends, neighbors, business associates, and clergy. Family Mobbing encompasses varied acts of aggression that cannot be understood by examining one motivation or cause. The pattern of behavior always isolates one family member and inflicts as much emotional pain as possible. Unlike sibling rivalry, the intention is to establish superiority or to provoke fear and distress. Factors to consider include the motives, the degree of severity, a power of imbalance, victimization element, physical injuries, and trauma.

Though self-abandonment is something most people struggle with in some way or another, motherhood is a breeding ground for this insidiously self-destructive behavior. From the time children are born, their needs are intense, relentless, and literally screamed in our faces. Luckily for them (and the human race) we are biologically wired to respond to their needs, even when it means setting aside our own. While our nurturing, self-sacrificial instincts are beautiful and life preserving, they’re also a fast track to burnout, resentment, exhaustion, and destruction, if we’re not careful. It’s natural to minimize our needs in the interest of the beautiful beings we love, but it’s not natural that we’re raising our children in isolation and that the bulk of their needs are falling on one person instead of a tribe of extended family members and friends. This, and other profoundly affecting gaps within our culture, makes self-awareness and self-nurturing that much more essential. Unfortunately for some of us, it isn’t until we’re so emotionally or physically wrecked by our self-abandonment that we realize how disconnected from crucial parts of ourselves we really are.

Happiness has a surprisingly bad reputation. Some people assume that happy people are stupid, or smug, or superficial. In fact, research shows - and I think you'll really see this borne out by your own experience - happy people are more interested in the people around them and more interested in the problems of the world. They're more altruistic. They give away more money. They volunteer more time. They're more likely to help out if a friend, family member, or colleague needs a hand. They're healthier, and they have healthier habits. They make better team members and better leaders. When we're unhappy, we tend to become isolated, defensive, and preoccupied with our own problems. When we're happy, we have the motional wherewithal to turn outward. So, if it is selfish to want to be happy, we should be selfish - if only for selfless reasons.

Of course, we do not live alone on islands, isolated from other people. We are born into families; we grow up in societies; we become students of schools, members of other organizations. Once into our professions, we find that our jobs require us to interact frequently and effectively with others. If we fail to learn and apply the principles of interpersonal effectiveness, we can expect our progress to slow or stop.

We interact in a world curated mostly by commercial forces. We are pulled into a strange, manic, overcrowded realm of technology that taxes our focus. “What should I be doing right now?” is a question that feels more urgent than ever. Face-to-face, real-time connection to others feels fraught and awkward compared to the safe distance of digital communication. We maintain intimate virtual contact with strangers but seem increasingly isolated from our closest friends and family members.

are psychopaths. They form cults around themselves, isolate cult members from their friends and family, teach that “sexual encounters” with the leader are both an honor and an occasion for spiritual enlightenment.

These studies indicate that the biggest problem the black community may face today is not “shamelessness” but rather the severe isolation, distrust, and alienation created by mass incarceration. During Jim Crow, blacks were severely stigmatized and segregated on the basis of race, but in their own communities they could find support, solidarity, acceptance—love. Today, when those labeled criminals return to their communities, they are often met with scorn and contempt, not just by employers, welfare workers, and housing officials, but also by their own neighbors, teachers, and even members of their own families.

76 When it comes to families of people in prison, however, their underestimation of the extent of incarceration in their communities exacerbates their sense of isolation by making the imprisonment of their family members seem more abnormal than it is.

Face-to-face, real-time connection to others feels fraught and awkward compared to the safe distance of digital communication. We maintain intimate virtual contact with strangers but seem increasingly isolated from our closest friends and family members.

To be cut off from family for years -- to be too far away for regular visits. To watch so many of your closest relationships fray and then dissolve. To see your children grow up through family pictures. To be hungry for days at a time because the food you eat is never enough, and there is nothing you can do about it. To be isolated. To be in a place with thousands of men but to somehow feel alone. This is what it means to be socially dead. To be subected to violence and humiliation. To be shackled, one to another, during daily routines, your ability to work and provide for yourself taken away. To move in a coffle down long hallways like animals for 'feeding time' of 'meds.' To be marched away from your lover and your children every time visitation ends. To be cut off from the human community or to have no community at all -- at least, no community that might be valued by members of a free society. To have few benefits and fewer protections. To become a figure who walks the yard or haunts the neighborhood so many years after your release, unable to find work or secure a home, unable to participate in the politics of the city in the ways most people find meaningful. To have no say over where or how often you connect with people you love. To be made a 'nonperson,' in the words of sociologist Orlando Patterson, who gave us the term 'social death.' To be at once part of the wider world, through labor or punishment or as a social problem of national concern, yet to be kept just outside of it.

The picture of Kehoe as an aloof, unsociable youth, however, seems to be contradicted by the evidence. Into his twenties, Andrew appears to have been an active participant in the communal gatherings known as Farmers’ Clubs. The American Farmers’ Club movement sprang up in the years following the Civil War. In contrast to city dwellers and townspeople, farm families in rural areas had little contact with their neighbors. To combat this social isolation—and promote the exchange of ideas within their community—they formed themselves into clubs that typically consisted of twenty to twenty-five families, each of which hosted a regular gathering at its home. These monthly get-togethers began with a dinner—invariably described as a “delicious repast” in the local newspapers—followed by a set program of musical performances, poetic and comic recitations, humorous sketches, the presentation of informative papers by club members or invited guests, and lively discussions on topics of practical concern to farmers.9

Experts say cult leaders consistently isolate members from people who question their beliefs. They hate others influencing their flock, so they manipulate followers’ lives to maximize contact with fellow members and minimize their contact with people outside the group, especially trusted family or friends who might oppose their involvement.