Those who live in ostracism do not usually leave their home.
Ostracism consists of not participating, either by one's own decision or by external imposition, in public life. The concept comes from the Greek language, when ostracism was a political punishment that consisted of banishing an individual from their community after an assembly vote.
The person ostracized, thus, had just ten days to leave the city, with a ban on returning that extended for a decade. Historians maintain, in any case, that many times this sentence was finally reduced and the punished could return before the term was up.
Ostracism was justified as a decision that benefited the community in general, keeping away from a locality those people who, for one reason or another, were harmful .
Ostracism today
Currently, the notion of ostracism is used in the field of politics with reference to those who are subjected to a vacuum that manifests itself in their exclusion from participation in events, meetings, etc. For example: “The deputy has suffered ostracism since the president reprimanded him at a public event,” “The Secretary of Commerce came out of his ostracism by participating in a meeting with agricultural producers.”
The idea of ostracism, however, is more common to name the person who decides not to go out on the streets or not attend public events . This decision may be due to excessive shyness , an antisocial character or, in the case of celebrities, to avoid being bothered by people: “After winning the award, I opted for ostracism since I did not feel comfortable with the fame" .
Excessive shyness can lead to ostracism.
A response to rejection
This last meaning of the concept is also used in the field of psychology to refer to the situation of those people who, due to emotional problems, cannot or do not want to face contact with others. Generally these individuals have suffered rejection of some kind and this leads them to seek ostracism.
Rejection by a family member when we are very young, for example, leaves a wound in us that time does not heal. The consequence of this rejection is comparable to what physical pain produces in us; even activating the same region of the brain . This makes it clear that the pain we feel is real, not just metaphysical. Therefore, our brain responds in the same way. When we burn, every time our painful area rubs against something that causes physical pain in us, we immediately move our arm away to prevent it from continuing to hurt; We do the same with the pain that rejection causes in us. If we have felt unappreciated or unloved, we try to protect ourselves from future harm by distancing ourselves from human contact.
It is important to mention that social rejection is directly linked to death ; In primitive communities, those individuals who were rejected knew that outside the group the chances of survival were almost zero. It is believed that when we feel rejection, that feeling of irrevocable loss, of death, is activated in our memory.
Rejection deprives us of something that all humans need: belonging to a group . For this reason, when we can reconcile with people who have rejected us or when we establish new ties, the emotional pain we felt disappears, or is alleviated.
But the most important thing to note is that rejection usually generates antisocial behavior in people (opposite to what nature itself encourages). And this is one of the most negative effects of this pain in the life of an individual because it leads him to seclude himself and take refuge in a solitude that is not satisfactory. The consequences of this ostracism can range from neglect and sadness to the need to turn that pain into addictions or other harmful behaviors, and can even end in suicide .