What does it feel like, loneliness?

How do you experience loneliness? What does it mean? Is it sadness caused by being alone, and can thus be removed by adding better relationships and which would make one feel content in this regard? Ie, it's defined not by itself, but what would fix it?
Or is it a special kind of feeling, like feeling impatient or really happy? Maybe it's some kind of longing or desire?
What feeling do you get when you have a desire unmet?

I find it interesting that people can identify their emotions so easily. For me, it's usually pretty hard!

Good question. I don't actually think that I know how Loneliness feels. I don't think I've ever been properly lonely. If I had to define it though, I'd say it's like depression. When you are really really unhappy all of the time for no known reason.

I hope not everyone is like me. They shouldnt be...lol
Im more stable now. I dont have the roller coaster after a break up.

This break up is not like the other break up becuase I had history with her
when I was younger. We broke up several times before. It hurts.
There's also a duaghter involved. Our daughter was
also given up for a adoption at birth. She also very much effected by it...
even to this day she longs for her mother and me. Her parents that would
love her and be there for her unconditionally.

So it's alot more about making things right. Setting things right for all of us.
A lot of hurt and pains from all parties. Enough blame for the both of us....
So for me it felt like a break up from hell....and I gone through a divorced.
It's also she was my finace when we were younger too. We were to married.
And both wanted a family we can call our own. I do love her very much
as Ive always had...Thats why we keep trying again and again. She loves me too.
It's like the difference between looking at a dirty glass of water and a clean
glass of water kind of thing.

I dont feel lonely in a sense I need someboy....anybody.
Simply becuase I drop 3 other women in the process of trying to set things straight.
And Im not sitting home alone. I have friends. I can meet other women.
I actaully go out with other women half our age.,,but i still rather be with her instead.
I dont really want or need other women...So when I hit on other women, it's
not a big deal to me either..wheather they mess with me or rejects me.

The actaul feeling i get is wierd!!!!.lol
I have this aching pain physically at the center of chest.
I also have pressure in my head from time to time...Not foggy as much anymore.
The problem i have the most is be okay when Im not ok....
It's like my mind cant wrap itself around life. Everything seems retarded or piontless
to me. My goals, my career, my hope, my dreams...ect ect
As if life lost luster. Nothing really turns me on.
Im seriously....when a hot chick half my age is giving a blow up, i think it's a fucken joke.
While most guys would really get off and get excited.
It would be the same if i win a million dallor or get successful in anything else too.
It seems pointless.

The thing of it is...Ive move on with my life before. Ive lived my life without her.
My mind and heart cant seem to wrap itself around that idea anymore.
I hope that makes sense.

For me loneliness is a feeling that I don't matter to anyone, that I am totally alone. Sometimes it makes me feel agitated and almost sick inside. It is like a weight on my chest, crushing me. It is a deep longing to be connected to someone, to be important to someone, to know there is someone on my side, to love and be loved. I feel this way all the time.

Tiina63 said:

For me loneliness is a feeling that I don't matter to anyone, that I am totally alone. Sometimes it makes me feel agitated and almost sick inside. It is like a weight on my chest, crushing me. It is a deep longing to be connected to someone, to be important to someone, to know there is someone on my side, to love and be loved.

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As above... and even if you're surrounded by people, feeling like you don't belong and can't connect to anyone.

Hello desert wolf-yes, even when I am with others I often feel just as alone. There will be the occasional moment of contact, of mutual understanding, but these come only infrequently.

But how does it feel to not belong, to be unable to connect? Aren't those reasons for "real" feelings/emotions, like feeling that you're about to cry, or the weight on the chest? How do you know that that's actually what you're feeling, and not that maybe you had something bad for dinner? I think it's this part I'm having problems with.
Maybe I'm confusing feelings with emotions; I don't know the difference, but it seems like feelings cause emotions. Different feelings can include the same emotions. This might be common knowledge. Heh.
If this is the case (a feeling describes one or more emotions, a state of mind, and labels it), how can we pinpoint a state to a certain feeling?

well...I know becuase. When I was with fiance. I didnt have these achy breaky heart feelings.
I felt alive..jevilated. I felt lite. I felt i could breathe again.. My vision were clear.
I can look at a simple sunraise and feel peace...
Peace that's the difference...Over all I felt peace.

Today I dont feel that peace.

It's way differnent than having a heart burn after dinner.

Lonesome Crow said:

well...I know becuase. When I was with fiance. I didnt have these achy breaky heart feelings.
I felt alive..jevilated. I felt lite. I felt i could breathe again.. My vision were clear.
I can look at a simple sunraise and feel peace...
Peace that's the difference...Over all I felt peace.

Today I dont feel that peace.

It's way differnent than having a heart burn after dinner.

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Yep; so the question becomes how you would define that achy breaky heart feeling. That's the problem, but maybe one should just accept that feeling, not trying to define it further, just knowing that it can go away in at least one way.
But I think I want to dig deeper: what property in a relationship is it that I'm actually looking for? Which property's lacking is causing those feelings? I think that can be enlightening, maybe make it easier to resolve the situation and go back to feeling content.

For me loneliness is when at the end of a hard days work, I realise I have no one to relax with, to chat with, to moan to, to eat with.
I'ts NOW when I'm alone at my keyboard because I have no one to talk to, no-one who REALLY wants to listen to my thoughts, fears, hopes, desires.
It's when I've gone to one of the few pubs I'm comfortable going in alone and come home afterwards feeling worse than ever. Wondering how I'm going to face tomorrow at work, if I'll be able to get through the day without breaking down.
It's wondering if any woman will ever want to share my life for any period of time at all.
It's wondering why the alcoholic, abusive drunk still gets to go home with the girl, to share things like normal life, while I get to spend time alone with tv for company.
Whatever. Work, sufferance and death. I almost look forward to it.

tusk said:

Lonesome Crow said:

well...I know becuase. When I was with fiance. I didnt have these achy breaky heart feelings.
I felt alive..jevilated. I felt lite. I felt i could breathe again.. My vision were clear.
I can look at a simple sunraise and feel peace...
Peace that's the difference...Over all I felt peace.

Today I dont feel that peace.

It's way differnent than having a heart burn after dinner.

Click to expand...

Yep; so the question becomes how you would define that achy breaky heart feeling. That's the problem, but maybe one should just accept that feeling, not trying to define it further, just knowing that it can go away in at least one way.
But I think I want to dig deeper: what property in a relationship is it that I'm actually looking for? Which property's lacking is causing those feelings? I think that can be enlightening, maybe make it easier to resolve the situation and go back to feeling content.

Click to expand...

K...
Please dont take it the wrong way, think that i know more than
you, or better than you. Cauase there's a lot of honeysuckle I still cant
figure out and dont understand....obviously Im still looking for
some sort of answer.....

I enter recovery at a very young age. Somewhere alone the line
I felt something wasnt right.lol I was actaully one of those young
adults that a group of older people tried to help or raised again.
They loved me until i could learn to lve myself. Bascailly they were
like grandparents, uncles, aunties i never had. They also passed on
a lot of informations and living tools to me. Very enlighten people.

I also had professional help and theropy. Lots of one on one teachings with a spiritaul advicsor or counselor. Lots of one
on one work with my sponsors. Lots of teachings and concepts/conceptions ive never heard of. Lots of personal reserch
and developments. Lots of workshops and siminars. Lots of conseling from my so call second mom ( my best friends mom). Im like her second son.

One of the exercises I was asked to do...
Make a list of emotions to expand my emotions volcabuaries....
To get in touch with my feelings.....
Such as sad, blues, down, tired, upset, irritated, depressed,despair, grieving....ect.
Do the samething with positive good feelings.
It helped me to more define my emotional scale.
So I can distinguish feeling tired from feeling sad.
So if I didnt get proper rest, sleep..ect I know Im just tired...not lonely. Im just feel tired.

K...within recent years I find this to be rather helpful.
It's like breaking down the components.
I was able to separate myself from my feelings or emotions....
Notice the wordings.....

I FEEL angery..verses I'm angery.

In other words...Im not my feelings. I have feelings.

This helps me to feel what I need and want to feel.
It also helps me to not react to my feelings in a negative way.
It also helps me to not to beat up on myself for feeling angery.
Its' how I respond to my feelings of anger.
There's options to make actions....
I can simply vent...to release or process my feelings of anger.
I can write music to express my feelings anger
I can throw rocks to release my feeling of anger.
I can even break things to release feelings of anger.
(such as breaking bottles)

I can even take positive actions through my feelings of anger.
I also kind of understood the concept of energy transfer because
I worked at an electricity power generation plant.
It's all based on energy transfer..wheather it be nucelur, biomase,
water, steam,mecahincal or solar...Energy simply gets tranfer into
electricity...The electricity then gets transfer back into mechanical
energy again....such as an electrical motor driving a water pump.

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So if..I apply the same concept with Feelings of loneliness...
Loneliness is just a feeling.

I feel lonely at the moment...Nothing wrong with feeling lonely.
Lonely is just one of hundreds or thousands of feelings I might feel or chose to feel.

It's the samething with fear...I feel scared, I feel paranoid..ect
Fear is just another one of my feelings..such as I feel frieghthen.

Such as content....Content is just another feelings.

So it's kind of cool...to have many many feelings...
It's like a candie store...

Everything comes down to a simple chioce or perferernce.

After a while...Logically. i would choose to feel good feelings or positive feelings.
I also know how to trigger positive feelings. It just takes practice.
It's about focus or pivet. When negative feelings arrised or gets trigger.
I'll simply make a chioce..run with the negative feelings or trigger positive feelngs.

When I feel heartaches...I feel the heartaches. I know why I feel those heartaches.
I feel hurted...so it's how i repond or react.
Sometimes i'll simply just sit still..embrace it.
Other times I'll just go hug a chick with big titays. It donst always have to be an inside job.
It's not any differenent than going out for an ice cream or a simple walk in nature to trigger good positive feelings.

So for me,....just this junction in my life.

It's these two combinations.
Accepting I feel hurted...so that I dont live in denial of this.
It's been a healing process. Ive simply embraced my heartache for whatever it maybe.

Im also awear sometimes it's like a mental or emotion loop.
If I focus in on the pains...it'll get tunnel vision. It'll simply overwhelm me.
It can also become chornic that will lead me to a state of depression.

It's not any differnt than having a physical wound, a major cut or laserations.
It's there...dont deny it...but dont focus in on it all the time either.

So I'll simply focus on happiness and fulfillment.
The feelings of fulfillment already.
My feelings come from within side of me. i can do the inside job like that too.

LC; I'm on my journey to trying to understand all these emotions and feelings, and it seems you started it quite some time before me. It's fascinating when you notice new stuff about yourself like that.
And I never though about 'feeling content' as a feeling, that's interesting.

Lonesome Crow said:

If I focus in on the pains...it'll get tunnel vision. It'll simply overwhelm me.
It can also become chornic that will lead me to a state of depression.

It's not any differnt than having a physical wound, a major cut or laserations.
It's there...dont deny it...but dont focus in on it all the time either.

So I'll simply focus on happiness and fulfillment.
The feelings of fulfillment already.
My feelings come from within side of me. i can do the inside job like that too.

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Maybe I shouldn't have started this thread, people that feel loneliness very strongly should probably not focus on it in this way... I'm sorry In A Lonely Place and if there was someone else.

Like a void in the soul

It feels like emptiness. A large hole in your heart.
It feels like being infinitely tired. Not having the energy to move.
It feels like forever. Every second lasts an hour.
If feels like never ending pain.

tusk said:

Maybe I shouldn't have started this thread, people that feel loneliness very strongly should probably not focus on it in this way... I'm sorry In A Lonely Place and if there was someone else.

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why would you feel bad?

I said dont take it the wrong way...
It's just copping skills or living tools that was pass on to me.
It's not the only way.

Nothing wrong with trying to understand yourself or your feelings.
At one piont in my life...I didnt know what the hell I was feeling.

Please dont compair yourself with me.
WhAT i have is what profesional term PTSD.
There's was a lot of traumatic events that happened in my past relationship.
I get flashback...ect It triggers alot of thoughts and emotions
in me.

So I had to learn another copping skill or tool that might help
me. To some extent it has...other times it dosnt.
Bascailly it's totally opposite of what you're asking...
"Dont figure the honeysuckle or even try to understand it no more" lol
It prevents me from picking at my wounds...bascailly.

As i said..I feel hurted or damaged. I dont really feel lonely.

Lonliness is like the difference between masturbation and sex.

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This is lonly^

blackdot said:

It feels like emptiness. A large hole in your heart.
It feels like being infinitely tired. Not having the energy to move.
It feels like forever. Every second lasts an hour.
If feels like never ending pain.

Click to expand...

Sometimes it feels like being burned alive on an emotional level.

I realise I'm lonely when I talk to myself more often and imagining myself talking to someone. And when I just feel so bored and has no one to interact with.

Tusk, no harm done. I think sometimes I personally need to get this 'bad stuff' out of me. Often I'm down but don't show it. Sometimes it needs to be shown.
Maybe you have to hit rock-bottom before you can start to rise again?