In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, two issues that stood out to me were introversion and loneliness.
Peck
tells a story about a young woman named Billie. Her Dad was a bank
clerk who was really introverted and distant. Her Mom had several
affairs and was dead-set on preventing Billie from attaining her
independence out of fear of being alone. Billie herself was
promiscuous, and she was inhibited from having a committed relationship
because she alienated men by being clingy. Billie was also afraid of
spiders, and, in therapy, she arrived at the insight that this was
because her mother, and even she, were like spiders: they trapped their
prey.
The reason that Billie's father stood out to me was that,
although he was introverted and distant, he unexpectedly supported his
daughter when she moved out of the house into an apartment of her own.
He helped her out and gave her gifts. This disrupted Billie's
relationship with her mother, for Billie and her mother had bonded over
running the man down, and now they couldn't bond over that because
Billie liked her father. I appreciated this story because it showed
that even an introvert can show love to somebody else.
I could
identify with Billie and her mother's fear of being alone. I lived
alone for years. It had its strengths, but it was, well, lonely. I
like being around people who love and care about me----people with whom
it's not an uphill battle to become accepted----and that's what I have
now.