In 2013, police came across a man in the US state of Maine stealing food from a local summer camp at night. It appeared to be a simple case of theft at first. But what was going on was far more unusual. According to reports, Christopher Knight, then 47, had walked into the woods at the age of 19 and never came out. He built himself a makeshift shelter and survived by taking food from nearby homes and camps, just as he was doing on the night he was caught. Knight had hardly spoken to anyone during his entire time in solitude.

It’s not clear why Knight dropped out of society, but it happened a year after he graduated from Lawrence high school in Fairfield about 1986. The only big interview he did was with Michael Finkel, an American journalist. The article appeared as a series of conversations for GQ magazine. Knight, who has been given a possible diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, said he couldn’t explain why he left society. He told Finkel: “I found a place where I was content.”

The tradition of the hermit has endured in some cultures for millennia. Those who do so for religious reasons tend to live in contemplative silence. The first known Christian hermit was Paul of Thebes and his disciple, Anthony the Great, followed Jesus’s lead by going into the wilderness in about AD270. Many have since emulated him. There are also Buddhist and Hindu hermits. It’s thought there are still 200 religious hermits in Britain today.

Then there are those, perhaps more common in modern times, who are cut off because of mental or physical ill-health. In Japan, there is a a phenomenon called hikikomori where young men and women withdraw from society.

We asked our readers for their experiences of living as a recluse. We approached five people to find out more. Here are their stories:



‘I worked as a science teacher before committing myself to a life of celibacy and contemplative silence’

Rachel Denton has lived as a religious hermit for the last decade.

It was in 2006, after five years of preparation, that I formally took my vows at a special mass to become a diocesan hermit. You have to get permission from the church before you can do this.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Solitude has always been important to me.’

It took some time to get to this point. When I first asked the bishop he said that the Catholic church “did not do hermits”. It was only after I showed him a reference in canon law that he changed his mind. It was a great feeling to stand in front of the bishop, my family and all my friends and say: “I entrust myself to the life of the hermitage.”

I now live deep in the Lincolnshire countryside and try to live in a simple manner. I don’t have a TV and I allow myself only an hour of radio each day. I have a phone and internet, but mainly use this for work. I run a calligraphy business, do a bit of tutoring and occasionally write pieces for religious publications. I have an income of about £8,000 a year. It’s enough as I don’t have much expenses. I try to be self-sufficient, growing my own vegetables and fruit and enjoying the companionship and eggs from two bluebell chickens.

Prayer is an important part of the day. I get up at 5.30am and pray for an hour, then again at 8.30am pondering the eucharistic liturgy of the day. Work begins at 9am and I usually have an hour for lunch. At dinner, I listen to the radio for an hour, followed by more prayer and a quiet evening before bed. If I do anything else it will be sewing, reading or going for a wander around my garden. And I love DIY. On a feast day I might enjoy watching a DVD.

Solitude has always been important to me and I wanted to be a nun from a young age. I was part of the Carmelite order, living in a convent as a young women but I found the community life too difficult. I felt I couldn’t spend enough time on my own. I left to become a science teacher, but never felt content until I came here. I’d always had this romantic idea of living in a remote cottage. The ex-council house I eventually found certainly did not live up to those romantic ideals, but over the years I have transformed it into a very suitable hermitage.



Of course, there are days when it’s hard. I miss my friends and family sometimes, but I chose this. My parents visit me once a year and I try to stay in touch with regular phone calls. I meet friends annually and they accept my way of life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rachel Denton runs a calligraphy business.

I spend alternate Christmases with my family. This year will be a hermit-Christmas. It begins around now – the beginning of advent. My wreath is set up in my prayer room and I will light the candles on it each day as we get closer to Christmas. The week before Christmas is very special as I begin to set up my crib. Christmas Day is very relaxed – all the usual goodies for dinner, and a walk around the local countryside.



After 15 years I sometimes think I should get more lonely, but I enjoy my own company. Of course I love to see family and close friends, but while occasional visitors are very welcome and enjoyable, I usually breathe a sigh of relief when they go away again. I feel very fortunate to be here, to have been given this opportunity. It still feels like an adventure.

‘I have social anxiety. Before I go out I feel a sense of existential dread’

Our anonymous writer has not chosen to live in a reclusive manner, but experiences extreme social anxiety.

I am not reclusive for religious reasons or for any other philosophical cause, and unlike others I haven’t chosen to live this way. At 27 I am bound by social anxiety, so crippling that it has left me afraid to leave the house. I’ve been like this for three years, going out maybe only a dozen times.

I’ve had anxiety my whole life – sporadic panic attacks coupled with a sense of impending doom. It got worse as I got older but it never affected my ability to go about my daily life until I graduated. I never left home for university because my anxiety didn’t allow it. Instead I stayed at home with my mum and studied nearby. But it was good for me to have structure and push myself to make friends.

Social anxiety ruined my life – until I found the one place I felt at home | Simon Wilson-Cortijo Read more

When I left university everything changed. I no longer had the routines that kept me busy and I drifted further and further into myself. I was still working at this stage, but wasn’t as good at going out and meeting people. I distanced myself from colleagues, missed friends’ birthdays and other events. I mainly just spent time with my partner who I live with now. I met her at a friend’s party at university. My best mates thought I was just letting them down. I never told them the truth and many stopped talking to me as a result.

I put on weight (in excess of 100lb), which led to me not wanting go out even more. It might sound arrogant to think anyone gives a toss, but in my head I felt people judged me as fat and ugly. I dreaded simple activities such as going to the supermarket because I worried about people watching me. Looking at what I bought and ate. Food is an easy comfort when I’m feeling anxious. It is a wanted distraction, and something to look forward to.

Then three years ago I lost my job, and decided to work from home. I am a freelance writer, so this was an easy transition. Now I never go out unless I absolutely have to. It’s easy to survive indoors. I have everything delivered. In the past year I’m not sure how much I’ve been out, maybe less than 10 times. Even then I find the prospect draining, horrible and depressing. I only really go out if there’s a family emergency. I accompanied my partner, for example, when her sister was in hospital. It was difficult but I felt I had to be there to support her.

Before I go out I have a sense of existential dread mixed with complete and utter exhaustion. I don’t know how I’m even going to be able to keep myself upright to walk five steps, let alone further. It’s not just because of my weight gain that I have this fear, although that makes it worse. It’s a control thing. I just think of the world beyond my house as this big “other” that is scary. The world is frightening. Don’t you think so? No one seems to be in control of anything, terrible things happen all the time.

My partner is supportive and cares for me when I have my panic attacks. But she is also worried. She encourages me to get help and has tried in the past. But it’s too much of an emotional burden for her I think. I need to be able to sort this out by myself. I went to one counselling session and then I never went again. I found it too difficult and felt it didn’t help.

The alternative isn’t much better though. I feel unhappy, lonely and scared. Like I am unable to change my circumstances due to a paralysing fear. I am stuck. That’s why I’m trying to turn things around. I am losing weight, although that is difficult. I’m determined to go back to a counsellor after Christmas. The first step is talking about it, and saying I have a problem. I’ve done that here.

‘I went from a busy job in London to living off-grid and I couldn’t be happier’

Jade Angeles Fitton fell into a hermitic existence, working from home in a remote Devon village, after years working in London.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Sometimes I feel like I am living out one long day over and over again’ Photograph: Alex Waespi

I live in Devon, in village by the sea. It’s remote from October to May as most of the houses in the village are second homes now, but gets busier in the summer. I have lived here on my own for the past six months; for four months before that I lived alone in the middle of nowhere on the moors. I work from home as a writer and spend days on end without seeing anyone. Sometimes I feel like I am living out one long day over and over again: I work all day and take a stroll to the headland that looks over the sea before dinner.

My life used to be very different. I worked as a producer in advertising and fashion in London, so, my life was more stressful and filled with a lot of people and deadlines. It was a constant blur of trying to achieve people’s unrealistic expectations, and trying not to cry when I looked at spreadsheets. I went out a lot, but I still worked hard: on the nights I wasn’t returning home from a party at 5am, I was leaving home for early call-times.

I moved because London was too stressful and expensive. Now I feel calmer and more connected to planet Earth somehow. In cities you can, and I certainly did, forget where you are – as in, on a miracle planet spinning in space – because all (or the majority of what) you see in cities is manmade. It’s like this horrible endless, concrete hall of mirrors where every face reflected back at you is slightly angry.

Since being in Devon I see people maybe once a week or less. I’ve made absolutely no new friends and been on no dates since living here. On weekends I usually just stay in and work. I do get lonely quite a lot, but I’m fine with my own company. Recently, I’ve missed London’s galleries and just being able to leave my house and walk to a friend or an exhibition. But instead I walk to the sea and remember it’s not so bad where I am.

I’ve not spent this much time alone since I was about 12, and it’s let me be selfish without worrying about anyone else. Being on my own has been great for my writing. It’s surprising what can get done if you’re not willing to give yourself a day off and have no one to persuade you to have a laugh. I have such a set routine of work nowadays, going to bed early and getting up early.

I have become a bit more like my childhood self, which I prefer, so I have gone back to being tomboy. I used to dress up and wear lipstick and high heels, but now I rarely brush my hair and have got really into wildlife and birdwatching again. I have more energy when I do see people too because I’ve been alone for so long. I get genuinely excited to see another human being.

‘If you choose to be on your own you cannot be lonely’

Neil Ansell lived in a remote village on his own for five years. He rarely saw anyone except a local farmer.

‘You have to exercise a certain amount of caution because if you are on your own and you break your leg you’re in trouble.’ Neil Ansell photographed as he was when he lived in the cottage in the 1990s. Photograph: Neil-Ansell1

As a child I took great pleasure in being close to nature. I was outdoorsy and passionate about birds. On weekends I would go out after breakfast and not come home until the evening, spending days in the south coast of England’s marshes.

So I suppose it wasn’t completely out of character when I decided to pack up my life in London in search of adventure. In 1990 I moved to a remote cottage in Powys, mid-Wales, high in the Cambrian mountains, which I found out about through a friend. I ended up living in this basic stone cottage in a pretty much as a hermit for the next five years. I had no electricity, no clock, no mirror, just three rooms, and no company.

It faced the hillside and took in the whole of the Brecon Beacons. When I first arrived I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay. I’d gone from living in big chaotic squats in London with 20 to 30 homeless people to solitude. The only person I ever saw from the cottage where I lived was a tenant hill farmer, a single man whose father had farmed the same land before him. He had never travelled from home. Other than him, in the five years I was there, there was not a single passerby. I would go for weeks without seeing anyone even in the distance. I would go to village shop occasionally, but I mainly tried to become self-sufficient, growing my own food and eating a vegetarian diet.

My daily routine involved waking up with the sun and trying to light a fire for cooking. I would then work the land and do a bit of forestry. I didn’t need much money as I had no expenses – I paid a bit of poll tax and rent but had no bills. The money I did have was for occasional travel, but I always stayed there for Christmas and birthdays.

If you choose to be on your own you cannot be lonely if you know what I mean. In winter I would sometimes think, “You won’t see anyone for few weeks” but I knew this wouldn’t be forever and friends did visit.

Everything changed for me when I met a woman at a wedding during one of my rare trips out of the cottage. She started visiting me and we embarked on a long-distance relationship. Eventually, we made plans to start a family together and she wanted me to move and live with her. So it was this that made me leave. What I found most difficult about moving back into society was the constant need for conversation. But I coped in the same way as I had adjusted to solitude. Ever since, though, I have made an effort to try to spend some time alone whenever I can.

Living as a hermit for five years made me more self-sufficient and emotionally strong. I never had any fear. The only thing in life really to be scared of is other people. You’re actually less in danger being on your own. Obviously you have to exercise a certain amount of caution because if you are on your own and you break your leg you’re in trouble.