Dealing with lonliness.

[Deltius]

Hello there,

I have posted a few times on the forum and anyone who has followed my couple posts this is the result. My close friend who I have mentioned a few times has officially downgraded me to the "lowest priority friend" due to me talking to them as an emotional anchor (they were the only ones that would listen so I got into a terrible habit of doing it) the TLDR so to speak is this paired with assumptions and general negativity has caused them to almost completely cut me off.

Now the purpose of this post is about loneliness, I have always felt lonely but now it's been 3 weeks and I have not talked to anyone other than my housemates and my parents when I visited them last weekend. The feeling is much bigger now and honestly concerning, I have been doing mediation, diary writing and other general wellbeing things such as forming morning routines and structure over the last 3 weeks and so my mood has been, sort of good but also bad. Like Good relative to my other moods but still kinda sucks. Loneliness is a key part of this feeling, I do admittedly feel it is what I deserve for not putting in more effort sooner and is the fruit of my actions especially considering this all happened to someone I care about more than most. I don't like making excuses, the reality is the only reason I am changing now is that my MH improved to the point where I could actually fight it off. Anyway, how do people deal with loneliness and find things to do. If I even think about it or hear about people having fun I feel bad and often breakdown.

[smallwolf]

Hello.

There is good and bad with having/using an emotional anchor. Part of that is there is someone to talk to. Another side is if you (plural) only talk to them about the bad stuff. I don't know if you talk them about fun things as well?

Things you could try... are you able to get involved in some community group or similar? What sort of things are you interested in? This can help in building new relationships. Of course this can be more difficult when there are lockdowns etc.

In doing this you might meet people with similar interests to you.

Suppose you like playing chess... you could do a google search for "chess clubs near me".

What sort of things do you like to do?

[Deltius]

Hi Smallwolf,

I did talk about some good things too. Now I just don't have an anchor which is life I guess. In regards to what I like to do, right now I have been gaming, reading, practising guitar and starting to figure out drawing. I would do music with other people but I am nowhere near good enough to perform in front of others.

[cabbagebus]

Hey Deltius,

About your friend: even if you treated them as a so-called “emotional anchor”, it doesn’t sound like you had any ill intentions and you were probably just doing your best to cope anyway you knew how. It’s really hard to lose a friend. I think every now and then people can rely too heavily on others and it’s a difficult situation because you aren’t trying to hurt anyone, but it’s still understandable why your friend might want space. I don’t think you should blame yourself and I’m sure your friend is understanding of your situation even if you aren’t speaking with each other. If you feel like you are the “lowest priority friend”, this isn’t healthy for you either, and is another good reason to not speak as much.

Feeling lonely really sucks and it sucks more because it makes you want to withdraw even more from the people around you. Something which has helped me is seeing reducing loneliness as a “task” or a “chore”.

I do things just because I know it will make me feel less lonely and not because I particularly want t0. For example, talking to my roommate. I like her as a person, but we aren’t really friends and we barely have anything in common. However, we tell each other about our days and talk about mundane things and sometimes I try to think of interesting questions to ask her and find out what her opinion is. It’s also a good way to practice listening (which I’m pretty bad at sometimes) and making an effort to be genuinely interested about her responses. It helps “break the cycle” of loneliness, I think.

Other things:

- I try to play video games where you specifically have to interact with people and that weirdly helps as well.

- Talking with my parents often, like calling them when I’m walking somewhere for 10 mins, is nice too.

- Listening to podcasts can be fun and helpful.

- Leaving your house just to walk around where other people are or even going to something like the cinema alone can help. Sometimes it does make me feel worse to see people spending time together, but there’s something about going places alone that is weirdly nice.

You aren’t alone and your feelings are normal. Just try to hang in there 🙂

Also, don’t beat yourself up about not “putting in more effort sooner”. Working on your mental health is really hard and there’s no right or wrong way. In the end you’re fighting for your own happiness and no one else’s and you shouldn’t feel bad about doing things “wrong”. You’re just doing your best 🙂

Cabbage 🙂