What is lonliness to you, and what would be the cure?

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To me it's being disconnected from people and not about physical presence. When I was depressed I didn't even feel close to my family, or know how to talk to them. We had very short, stunted conversations where I didn't know what to say to anyone, and I always felt bad about it later because that wasn't how I used to be. I used to love holidays growing up and then they just became awkward formalities where I feared maybe I wasn't wanted to begin with because of how I was.

But having people there in the first place matters. I started coming out of my shell again with the help of some people I met who were very empathetic and patient, because somehow I'd started feeling that I had to always be interesting, and happy, and positive, and useful to matter to anyone or to have friends. If I had a bad day and was no longer fun, then to hell with me. If I didn't have time to listen or visit sometimes due to work, then to hell with me. If I wasn't single or interested and our "friendship" didn't have potential, then to hell with me.

Which just made me feel like everything I had to do with people was a performance, or a business. Very shallow relationships where you could never be too careful, and some of it my fault as well. When I wanted people to love through good and bad, to be honest with, and to grow with.
 
To me it's not being content with the status quo. When you find yourself sitting alone, day after day. No plans on the weekend when you want some. No dates in the foreseeable future. That to me is when it becomes an issue. When the pattern is never ending. No light at the end of the tunnel. So to me the cure would be a break in that pattern to all the things mentioned above.
 
Tealeaf said:
To me it's being disconnected from people and not about physical presence. When I was depressed I didn't even feel close to my family, or know how to talk to them. We had very short, stunted conversations where I didn't know what to say to anyone, and I always felt bad about it later because that wasn't how I used to be. I used to love holidays growing up and then they just became awkward formalities where I feared maybe I wasn't wanted to begin with because of how I was.

This explains it pretty well. I guess not having people that you can connect with, feeling alone even when you might be surrounded by people, it's a very sad way to live... as if no one can understand you or you don't feel like anyone cares enough to try.

I've dealt with depression since I was a kid and during puberty it hit me like a truck. Spent my early teens being lonely, had one friend to count on and the rest of the time I could manage to distract myself with games and (a lot of) sleeping.... unfortunately came a time where I couldn't focus enough to distract myself, where being lonely took over everything and I felt completely disconnected from the entire world. Then I had my cats and that was it. Driven away friends because they couldn't deal with my whining, made my parents feel useless because nothing they did would make me feel better about life and being alive. After a while I realized I'm just very different from people my age (I'm 21), and I need to have meaningful conversations, connect deeply with whoever becomes a friend and be able to lean on them while also being of use, being an important part of their lives, even if just to make them laugh or smile once a day. After a while, being lonely kinda faded away, while I started making friends in my own way (mostly online) and after finding the forum. Solitude is still very much a part of my life and I feel lonely and sad from time to time, but mostly understanding myself and being able to find people that can understand me as well helped more than I could've imagined.

Nice topic, btw :D
 
Thanks dark. I keep putting them out when they come to me.

Did you find a cure? You are young still. Lonliness takes on different meanings at different ages
 
Restless soul said:
Did you find a cure? You are young still. Lonliness takes on different meanings at different ages

I agree with that and maybe it'll get better or worse as times goes by, at the moment it's manageable...

I have been treating my depression with the help of an amazing doctor and doing some therapy, besides that what "cures" my loneliness is having people to talk to, people that I can shamelessly care for and that I feel care for me too. I'm not suffering that much with the solitude, the lack of people around me physically is not an issue... yet.
 
Loneliness, to me, is the fact that I have no one to fight my battles alongside me, and is the reason for those battles to have begun in the first place.

It is the feeling of watching an unharvested youth turn into a morose confrontation with mortality.

It is perceiving the rest of the world hand-in-hand sitting around a bonfire, and not having an invitation to join.

It is perceiving an emotional feast from within a glass jar of emotional famine.

It is a cancer of the soul, lethal as any other, and invisible to most you will cross paths with in your life.

It is being a man but feeling like a boy who never got to grow up.

It is a teacher of how to take care of oneself, because necessity is the mother of invention.

It is a feeling of deprivation so dire that it makes me question whether I'm alive, for I have been deprived so much and for so long.

It is the disorientation I feel every morning when I instinctively ask myself what I'm doing here (what is my reason to exist), which is something I've done all my adult life.

It is the certain knowledge that, if I were to meet my end tomorrow, no one would notice me missing.

It is the origin of the sadness I feel about the state of this world.

It is the root cause of dangerously high Cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body, which keep a person in the fight-or-flight mode (i.e. anxiety), doing massive unnoticed physiological damage and speeding up the process of aging and death, which is ironic, because in a way, it kills you faster so you don't have to suffer your loneliness as much.

It is the only real problem I've ever had.

Cure ? Yes, there is one very effective cure, that we all know about but that most dare not think about.
 
I guess loneliness is different for everyone. For me though, it's the lack of connection with anyone. The lack of conversation. The lack of anyone to share anything with. The lack of having someone to be with, with who you feel wanted, even safe. It's about not being ridiculed about everything about you. It's about having somewhere to feel that I fit in. It's about being listened to, and having someone to listen to. It's about not having to fight every battle on your own. It's the lack of contact, physical, and emotional, and intellectual, and affectionate, and romantic/sexual. It's about traveling down the paths of life, and having someone to share it with, maybe not all the way, and maybe not the same person all the time, but not to have to feel that you have to walk alone all the time. It's about feeling like someone actually cares ... it's about having the chance to feel human, to me. Being actually allowed, for the first time in my life, to feel human.
 
Loneliness for me is notbeing ableto connect with otherswhile wanting to so badly, I feel like I'm missing that piece of me that allows me to create and maintain meeningfull relationships... There are a few people I like to converse with in my life but I often feel like i'm not good enough for them, like I'm failing them and they should stop wasting time on me...

Doing better since I joined ALL though, and for the first time in years I actually feel like I might not die lonely!
 
Cucuboth said:
I guess loneliness is different for everyone. For me though, it's the lack of connection with anyone. The lack of conversation. The lack of anyone to share anything with. The lack of having someone to be with, with who you feel wanted, even safe. It's about not being ridiculed about everything about you. It's about having somewhere to feel that I fit in. It's about being listened to, and having someone to listen to. It's about not having to fight every battle on your own. It's the lack of contact, physical, and emotional, and intellectual, and affectionate, and romantic/sexual. It's about traveling down the paths of life, and having someone to share it with, maybe not all the way, and maybe not the same person all the time, but not to have to feel that you have to walk alone all the time. It's about feeling like someone actually cares ... it's about having the chance to feel human, to me. Being actually allowed, for the first time in my life, to feel human.

Thanks. I Think it's your description lonliness that I and many others most can identify with here.
 
Emotional isolation, not feeling connected to yourself and others. You could have so many people who care about you and still feel quite alone. Lack of deep, meaningful connections with others and especially with yourself. In the end we are all alone, born alone and die alone. No one else than you can see through your eyes, walk in your shoes, have your specific unique life experiences. No one else can go inside your mind and feel your emotions with every inch of your body. For me, loneliness is about not belonging to anywhere, I'm like a puzzle piece which doesn't fit in. I could have friends online like currently and still there's no ''my tribe'', no group I am part of. I am just a lonely wanderer without a home.
 
Maybe we are born and die alone, but it doesn't and shouldn't have to be that way in-between.
 
Restless soul said:
Maybe we are born and die alone, but it doesn't and shouldn't have to be that way in-between.

If my post seemed like a criticism, that's not what I intended.

True, no one should feel or be lonely. It's sad...
 
Feeling disconnected from everyone and everything around me, being misunderstood.
 
Lonliness is waking up one day realizing you don't want to do the
Usual routine you been doing for years alone. Sleepwalking and droning on. No plans with others ever. Be it new years birthday.
Family doesn't count entirely. Especially when all your family has family of their own. There comes a point where you put your foot down and tell yourself this is silly, not fun pathetic. Beyond pathetic. Some people don't realise they are even lonley we might be lucky. We took the pill that woke us up to it
 

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