Loneliness is a feeling that is not customary to talk about. British writer Olivia Lang shared her story of dealing with loneliness.
I was in my thirties when I first encountered loneliness. The relationship ended before it even started. My man lived in New York, and I moved in with him with the hope of a happy future. But after a couple of months we broke up.
I was left alone in a strange city, trying to make ends meet. I didn’t have any friends in New York. No wonder I soon felt like an orphan, cut off from the world.
The first conclusion I drew from that situation was that loneliness is the result of a lack of love and intimacy that we would like.
When you feel invisible
What scares me the most is the feeling that your loneliness pushes others away from you. Once, as a teenager, I was sitting at the railway station, waiting for my father. It was a sunny day, I was reading an interesting book.
An elderly man sat next to him. He tried several times to strike up a conversation. And I didn’t want to keep up the conversation. The man left, and only recently, as an adult, I realized how much he wanted attention. And I’m ashamed that I didn’t talk to him then.
How did I feel alone? It was terrible. It was as if I had become invisible or found myself in outer space millions of kilometers away from people. But at the same time, she felt painfully vulnerable in a world made for families and couples.
As the months passed, I became more and more isolated. I did not want to burden my friends with stories about my condition, I was just afraid that they would run away in horror, and therefore became more and more withdrawn.
Loneliness and unhappiness were synonymous for me
Later I learned that the longer we are in isolation, the worse we feel. According to psychologists, loneliness destroys a person’s ability to see meaning in social interaction. Why do we need people? Why a new relationship? They only cause pain. As a result, the vacuum around only increases.
It is said that when people get used to being alone, they trigger what is called social anxiety.
In this state, a person sees the world in a negative light, expecting and remembering only rejection — whether it be an unfriendly meeting in the store or a dismissive tone of a friend that under other circumstances we would never notice.
Over time, I really began to notice the bad more often. I didn’t realize that I myself had created a vicious circle in which I become more and more suspicious. The worst thing is that this condition is not easy to recognize on your own.
Making sense
In crowded New York, I learned one more thing — loneliness affects not only outcasts, but also people in relationships, people who have a lot of friends or who lead an active lifestyle. I have seen how people in marriage experience real loneliness, but are afraid to even tell themselves about it.
Why? There is just an unspoken rule — we must lead an active, rich life, and loneliness is the lot of losers. And I thought so too. I found that I was more afraid to admit I was alone than to have such an experience.
But what’s wrong with failing, or being sad? We have become too afraid of feelings, especially negative ones, despite the fact that they are an inevitable part of life. And there is no shame in wanting love and attention.
If you see an evil person, remember — he is just lonely.
At some point, I realized that I was not the only one. That there are millions of lonely people in the world. Some have experienced a bereavement, some are shy, some lack social skills. Someone became an outcast in childhood.
Do you remember those classmates that everyone laughed at or shunned? When a child is pushed away or too cruel to him, he withdraws into himself and becomes a loner for life.
Some become too aggressive and some become too closed. But this is exactly how children deprived of love behave — withdraw into themselves or become embittered. So they protect themselves from new suffering.
If you see an angry person, then remember that he is just lonely.
No need to be ashamed
The more I realized that I was not the only victim, the softer I became — towards myself, towards the people I met. Loneliness has a significant plus — it makes you be more attentive to others and appreciate new relationships.
My sudden isolation opened my heart. So I want to say thank you. It was the hardest time of my life, but I got through it.