I think what's "wrong" with isolating is that it is a physical manifestation of our childhood dissociation. We now go away physically as we used to go away mentally when things got bad. if we can look at our lives as dreams, we might be better able to understand the symbolic meaning of our actions over time. for example, for myself, what does hoarding represent? why did I have such weird eating patterns? I would buy cases of evian, but nothing actually edible, and stay obese. wtf? we have to do "big picture" AND detail processing, at the same time. sky, I liked your post. I definitely would have picked up on that too, and been upset by it. and velcro, what a wonderful picture. this is a great thread. for me, the reality comes back in bits and pieces. like my life is a series of puzzles, and every once in a while I find another missing piece, one that I didn't realize had such major significance, and then I see i've been holding it in my hand for quite a while.