The Alien: Feeling Alone in a Foreign World

Everything looms before you now. You step off of your ship; the ground is firm and the air is warm. Raising your hand to block the bright sunlight blinding your sensitive eyes, you feel overwhelmed and lost. That ship behind you that’s just crashed has always been your home. Small and safe. It was all you knew. Now, it’s ruined. Unlivable. It was suffocating you anyway. But there is this grand landscape before you full of vibrancy and life and anything you desire. You stare at it, your eyes have adjusted somewhat, and the buzz of life around you is suddenly terrifying, and too much. Falling to your knees you begin to sob out of loneliness and, more strangely, relief. How will you navigate this foreign world? Who do you trust? Who could love a naïve little alien such as yourself? There’s no going back to the ship. You know it was a prison but it was all you knew. Now you have no choice but to step forward and try to live.

Leaving the bubble of my Jehovah’s Witness faith was like entering a terrifying new reality on an alien planet. While the cage door had opened, I discovered I wasn’t confident to fly out completely; that around my ankle was a chain tethering me to still my believing spouse and the life we had built, small, safe, suffocating. Yet I wanted so badly to fly! I wanted to be with everyone else experiencing life and all it had to offer. But I was crippled with fear of the unknown. I say was, but I still am terrified. Last week, my dear friend took me out on the town for my first birthday celebration. I had roamed downtown cities before. I have been to lounges and spas and restaurants. But always within the safety of my religious world view; a world small and understandable. The sun began to set on a smoky sky, painting it a gentle pink. Street lights shone a soft white while music wafted from nearby bars and people milled about at the farmers market a block away. Familiar things that suddenly seemed so strange to me. I felt out of place; an alien crash landed pretending to be a normal human woman in a world too big. The air was warm on my skin. Skin that didn’t feel right. I felt so conspicuous. As if everyone around me could smell my strangeness.

I knew for a long time I wasn’t happy in my marriage. My husband is a decent, loving man, but we have little in common and no true connection. I married him for the wrong reasons; to feel secure and because I was aging out of the JW dating pool. When I inevitably broke down and told him how unhappy I’ve been, it was a shock to both of us. Oftentimes we keep our true feelings hidden from ourselves. I had done it with my faith; pretending in my own mind I still believed because admitting I didn’t would start a terrible chain of events. I did it again with my marriage. Admitting we needed to part ways meant being alone; something I’m not emotionally or financially prepared for. It meant hurting someone very real and dear to me. It meant not knowing what the future would hold for me. When you’re raised to believe you have all the answers, it’s a terrible prospect to look in front of you and just not know what will happen next. I want to swim hard and fast to the finish line, but I could just as easily sink under the pressure. Leaving the JW bubble meant no outside support. Scrounging for connections in an unfamiliar city. Again, feeling like an alien and the only one of her kind.

Walking around downtown on my birthday, watching couples arm in arm, friends joking in groups, families enjoying the hot, muggy weather, I was aware of my own aloneness. A woman with no tribe. Who would I invite over for dinner parties and card games? I thought of all the people in my life whom I love, scattered across the globe. Internet friends who can offer no hugs or home cooked meals. I desperately began to wish I could bring them all together under one roof and just exist with them. I found a particular sadness as a girl when I started homeschooling and spent my days isolated away from the outside world. Even in the middle of the city, where I heard the sounds of traffic and people, I was alone. Combined with anxiety over the imminence of Armageddon and impending menstruation worries, eleven year old me began to have panic attacks about dying with no one around to hold my hand. After that, action was taken to ensure I was with family most days and my parents called me from work to check in. The emptiness and anxiety I had been feeling dissipated. Fast forward through life a few times, and there have always been moments where, when isolated, I fall apart. Rural Idaho life as a young adult nearly broke me. I was surrounded by trees, and the people I knew often didn’t understand me. Now, a housewife and shunned individual in the time of covid, the fears of being solo have dredged up unwanted memories and feelings. My quaint little house sometimes feels like another prison where no one can hear me cry out. I play television shows just to hear conversations. I can’t help but wonder if loneliness is written in my bones, if it can ever be shaken off. I begin a new job soon, and a tour of the quiet, beige office set my anxiety off. It felt like the sort of place where winter lasts indefinitely and I began to question all of my decisions.

I’ve always felt out of place. Growing up half in the religion and half out of, I never belonged anywhere. Moving from California to Idaho in my late teens, I didn’t mesh with my environment well but I watched as my old life moved on and grew without me. I felt like a tree uprooted and planted in strange soil. Struggling to thrive. Now I’m in a city where most of the people I know are JW’s. Rootless, strange, and isolated. I wonder if I belong anywhere anymore.

Always the optimist, I constantly seek friendship with others. Hearing someone’s voice on the phone can often be the difference between a good day and a bad day. Texting friends to distract myself from the empty space around me is vital. But it’s so much work. I worry about being too needy and then I wonder why that’s even a bad thing? Haven’t we evolved to want to be around others. We may joke about hating people and wanting to stay away from the general public, but as they say, no man is an island. We crave connection and laughter. We want to be seen and heard and loved. Yet so many of us, cult past or not, keep failing to find our people. I don’t want to fail. I’m terrified to fail. I want my own makeshift family. I want to fall in love. I want joy.

So here I am now. Stepping off of my crashed ship, wide eyed in wonder, hope, and terror. This bustling world surrounds me and the people in it are full of love and misery. I don’t know which will be which. Who will love me and who will hurt me? Every step I take is shaky and full of trepidation. But I can’t go back. I can’t stay still. There is only forward.