Healthy ways to avoid the hurt of loneliness.
September 28, 2014 5:35 PM Subscribe
How do I safely navigate through life without having to succumb to loneliness? Is it possible?
I've been struggling with loneliness for quite awhile now. I haven't had a romantic relationship in almost seven years. It wasn't a messy break up but I definitely needed the time to work on myself. I've definitely come a long way. But I've been noticing that I'm still dealing with some effects from past traumas that I'm working on (I've been in therapy for a year so far). I've gained some confidence and insight into where I'd like to be in life recently and I feel okay about it.
The problem is that loneliness still creeps in every now and then. And when it does, it does a number on me. It usually sets in whenever I'm out enjoying a night out and I see a couple and immediately wish I had someone to share moments with. I get out of that train of thought but it's been happening a lot more often now. I've been trying hard to just enjoy the company of friends and be in the moment, but it always leads to me wishing I had more people who understood me in my life. I've had problems with seeking deep connections with people, setting up expectations of friendships and having intimate conversations. I understand that not everyone moves at the same pace as I do and I've been doing a good job of respecting people's boundaries (not revealing a lot information about myself and expecting them to do the same).
It's been great on some days but other days it feels like I can't control this want I have. No matter how many times I tell myself that I'll find someone or that I'll be part of a social circle that will make me feel less alone. I've been escaping through my art, books, films and just chasing interests. I just want to know other strategies to avoid being distracted by this emptiness I feel. It feels like I'm suppressing needs that my mind is telling me to fulfill. Romantic and sexual and whatnot.
I will continue to work on other areas of my life and to just enjoy life, but I feel hopeless sometimes. I feel like I can't find the solution to this problem I have. It's frustrating. Especially since I've been fixing other aspects of my life. Help me get through this period. How do you get through this? I love books, watching movies, listening to podcasts. I also exercise and try to be outdoors as much as I can.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
I've been struggling with loneliness for quite awhile now. I haven't had a romantic relationship in almost seven years. It wasn't a messy break up but I definitely needed the time to work on myself. I've definitely come a long way. But I've been noticing that I'm still dealing with some effects from past traumas that I'm working on (I've been in therapy for a year so far). I've gained some confidence and insight into where I'd like to be in life recently and I feel okay about it.
The problem is that loneliness still creeps in every now and then. And when it does, it does a number on me. It usually sets in whenever I'm out enjoying a night out and I see a couple and immediately wish I had someone to share moments with. I get out of that train of thought but it's been happening a lot more often now. I've been trying hard to just enjoy the company of friends and be in the moment, but it always leads to me wishing I had more people who understood me in my life. I've had problems with seeking deep connections with people, setting up expectations of friendships and having intimate conversations. I understand that not everyone moves at the same pace as I do and I've been doing a good job of respecting people's boundaries (not revealing a lot information about myself and expecting them to do the same).
It's been great on some days but other days it feels like I can't control this want I have. No matter how many times I tell myself that I'll find someone or that I'll be part of a social circle that will make me feel less alone. I've been escaping through my art, books, films and just chasing interests. I just want to know other strategies to avoid being distracted by this emptiness I feel. It feels like I'm suppressing needs that my mind is telling me to fulfill. Romantic and sexual and whatnot.
I will continue to work on other areas of my life and to just enjoy life, but I feel hopeless sometimes. I feel like I can't find the solution to this problem I have. It's frustrating. Especially since I've been fixing other aspects of my life. Help me get through this period. How do you get through this? I love books, watching movies, listening to podcasts. I also exercise and try to be outdoors as much as I can.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Could you get a dog to have for company and distraction? It helps.
posted by fourpotatoes at 7:24 PM on September 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by fourpotatoes at 7:24 PM on September 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
What helps me sometimes is perspective. I am in a satisfying romantic relationship and I have a decent social group and I like where I live and like what I do for work. And when I tell people I get lonely they are usually pretty much like "What? Why? Shut up." So I think the thing is that loneliness in some ways is a state of mind that isn't related to what is going on around you. I mean, I know you'd like to be partnered and I respect that is a real feeling and something you care about. But it's possible it won't end the loneliness.
I'm not much of a Buddhist but there is this idea that desire is really at the root of all suffering. You want a thing you can't have or you want to hold on to something that won't last or you worry about a thing that might be and it eats you up inside. And living inside that feeling is actually in many cases just an additional bad feeling besides the bad feeling of whatever it is that you fear or can't have, if that makes sense. So like it's one thing to not want to die. It's quite another to be paralyzed by the fear of dying, it's its own bad thing.
So it sounds like you know some of this implicitly because mindfulness and being in the moment is part of deflecting this. And part of what was really helpful for me was realizing that my lonely feeling maybe didn't even have to map on to something in my real life world, it was just an existential feeling that my brain felt like having for some stupid reason. And loneliness isn't great, but it could provide me with an opportunity for action (I often write letters when I am lonely, not to say "Hello friend, I am lonely" but to remind myself that I have friends, that I can be a good friend and to give myself something to do to get out of my own head and interact with the physical world). I don't mean to be fatalistic about all of this, but I've tried hard to come to grips with the fact that it just may be that people aren't going to deeply understand me. And part of that is something that I can work on, and part of it is on me to accept. Raging against it and being frustrated is just making something suboptimal worse. And that's something that I can control.
It sounds like you've been on a good healing path. The weird thing about trauma is once you work out some of the initial awfulness, a lot of more subtle emotions come through, ones that you might not have even had the toolkit to deal with in the past. It sounds like this is part of that. Which doesn't help a lot, perhaps, but might allow you to give yourself more credit for how far you've already come.
posted by jessamyn at 8:03 PM on September 28, 2014 [26 favorites]
I'm not much of a Buddhist but there is this idea that desire is really at the root of all suffering. You want a thing you can't have or you want to hold on to something that won't last or you worry about a thing that might be and it eats you up inside. And living inside that feeling is actually in many cases just an additional bad feeling besides the bad feeling of whatever it is that you fear or can't have, if that makes sense. So like it's one thing to not want to die. It's quite another to be paralyzed by the fear of dying, it's its own bad thing.
So it sounds like you know some of this implicitly because mindfulness and being in the moment is part of deflecting this. And part of what was really helpful for me was realizing that my lonely feeling maybe didn't even have to map on to something in my real life world, it was just an existential feeling that my brain felt like having for some stupid reason. And loneliness isn't great, but it could provide me with an opportunity for action (I often write letters when I am lonely, not to say "Hello friend, I am lonely" but to remind myself that I have friends, that I can be a good friend and to give myself something to do to get out of my own head and interact with the physical world). I don't mean to be fatalistic about all of this, but I've tried hard to come to grips with the fact that it just may be that people aren't going to deeply understand me. And part of that is something that I can work on, and part of it is on me to accept. Raging against it and being frustrated is just making something suboptimal worse. And that's something that I can control.
It sounds like you've been on a good healing path. The weird thing about trauma is once you work out some of the initial awfulness, a lot of more subtle emotions come through, ones that you might not have even had the toolkit to deal with in the past. It sounds like this is part of that. Which doesn't help a lot, perhaps, but might allow you to give yourself more credit for how far you've already come.
posted by jessamyn at 8:03 PM on September 28, 2014 [26 favorites]
Meditating 20 minutes a day helps me. I just plop down right in the middle of all the angst and turn the light of awareness on my thoughts. This helps me see that they are two-dimensional and that it will not kill me to stop taking them seriously. Although sometimes getting quiet like this brings me in direct contact with the intense agony I have been running from. I will not lie to you: this is not easy. Sometimes I cry; sometimes I fear for my life. Then it passes. And I smell the breeze and I fall in love with a flower.
When you stop and face the demons chasing you they are transformed into angels.
posted by macinchik at 10:37 PM on September 28, 2014 [5 favorites]
When you stop and face the demons chasing you they are transformed into angels.
posted by macinchik at 10:37 PM on September 28, 2014 [5 favorites]
Regarding the dog suggestion - notonly is it wondeful to go home to a friendly face but its a great way to meet fellow people/dog walkers.
In the lakefront neighborhoods of Chicago, where lots of singles live, you can see groups of doggy people meeting up at different times of the day and evening as they are all out there at least 3 times a day. Of course you have to love dogs.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 9:35 AM on September 29, 2014
In the lakefront neighborhoods of Chicago, where lots of singles live, you can see groups of doggy people meeting up at different times of the day and evening as they are all out there at least 3 times a day. Of course you have to love dogs.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 9:35 AM on September 29, 2014
The Buddhist author Pema Chodron has some great books that have helped me with this. Suggestions about how to have a more active social life are good, but you can't *always* have people around so you also need to learn how to accept and cope with loneliness. I recommend "Comfortable with Uncertainty" and "When things fall apart". They sound like cheesy self-help books but they are very practical lessons on how to handle your emotions.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 3:13 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 3:13 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Buddhist teacher Cheri Huber's book Be the Person You Want to Find seems at first glance as though it's a cheesy relationship book, but like all her books it's really about learning to drop suffering and be happy just as you are, whether that's partnered/single/in company/solitary/anything else.
posted by Lexica at 4:37 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Lexica at 4:37 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Why don't you start dating again? You know, OKCupid and the like? Also, there's always meetup.com for finding people who to do your hobbies with.
posted by defmute at 9:46 PM on September 30, 2014
posted by defmute at 9:46 PM on September 30, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by saturdaymornings at 5:42 PM on September 28, 2014