what is loneliness?

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I don’t really know what loneliness is supposed to feel like. Maybe I feel it right now? Or maybe I always have. Also my thoughts and feelings are really visual I think so sometimes what i just feel is a different combination of images and colours and it changes a lot. (Loneliness I think (?) is sort of purple/grey/brown)


Does anyone relate to this confusion..? Doesn't necessarily have to be synaesthesia related...maybe i'm merely in denial? and have been for years as a way of coping?

Loneliness is having a sense of disconnection from other people and feeling sad because of it.

This is a problem I have been thinking on as well so I'm interested in the answer. I wonder if we all have unique ways of viewing or understanding emotions. For me I have a disconnect with them so the easiest way to figure them out is by the thoughts that I have and logical deduction what these thoughts mean. So if I find myself thinking about others and thinking about interacting with them but I am not interacting with them then this means I'm lonely.

The problem with diamonds explanation, for me, is that I have no idea what sad means perhaps because I have no way to separate it from others and establish a distinction. Although their explanation is good. I simply cannot apply it.

Feeling alienated and detached and isolated and disconnected from others when you don't want to.

I don't feel lonely often but when I do, its usually that I want to share some information with someone or ask them a question but they aren't around.

I only feel lonely when in a room with a lot of social interaction going on that I am unable to participate in. Mainly that's family get together like one happening towards the end of the month. Otherwise I am quite content to be alone.

I believe that there are two separate, and distinct, types of loneliness.

The first type is when you're missing someone, because they're away from you...or dead.

The second type is when you've got no-one in your life to miss.

The first is very sad, the second is very dangerous.

I've always suffered from the second type of loneliness and it means that I'm now no longer a functioning human being.

I say loneliness means that you feel very sad just because you have no friends and are unable to make friends and talk with people.

Isolation, detached, disconnected, to name a few.

I can explain in depth how loneliness feels to me. I don't feel like my life is lonely any more, as I have a boyfriend, friendly work colleagues, a few friends around who I can call friends (including my boyfriend's family), and I am always on Facebook. But if I haven't really spoken to hardly anyone for more than 2 days, I find I become depressed, and I know it's to do with loneliness.

And when I'm lonely, my anxiety levels become much higher than usual, I start overanalyzing everything, and I start becoming paranoid that something bad is going to happen to me.
When I last had a week off work, my boyfriend was working all that week, and I stayed at his most of the week. I wasn't bored at all, as there was always things to do; housework, shopping, and my hobbies (which is writing). I was enjoying myself, but at the same time I began getting depressed. I craved social interaction so much, and when my boyfriend came home each evening, tired after a long hard day at work, I really wanted to talk to him nonstop and have sex. But he was too tired, and just wanted something to eat and to sort his paperwork out. We did talk a bit, and kiss and cuddle and everything, but I could tell he wasn't up for too much, where as I was full of energy and could talk and have sex all night long with him.
Then the loneliness and depression kicked in. I started becoming paranoid of him not liking me any more, even though I knew he was only tired and hungry. When I've been working all day too and I come to his after, his tiredness and low mood doesn't affect me too much. But when I haven't been at work for a few days, his low mood hits me more, and I begin taking it personally. That's what I mean when I say that when I'm lonely and depressed I start becoming paranoid that something bad might happen. I know it's only loneliness and depression that makes me get like that.

That is why some people do go a bit mad when lonely too much. They begin getting paranoid about everything around them, thinking people are out to get them, thinking bad stuff is going to happen, overanalyzing everything, and just finding different things to be sad or depressed about.

My best definition.

Being on your own but surrounded by dozens of people who are SUPPOSED to be including you.

e.g., the guy in a military unit who doesn't fit in

Being alone doesn't bother me. Being "alone in a crowd" does...but not a crowd of strangers because I accept that strangers have no reason to "include" me just because I am present.

The best way I can describe it is being in a room with widows that look out but not looking inwards a door that is hard to open no phones e-mail or any other communication devices. and you sit around in this room with nothing to do nobody to talk to but yet you are reminded of the activities going on outside you are reminded of the 'fun things' people do but because your in this room that you can't get out of your stuck inside....and when one finally is able to break through that person realizes that he's not like the other people because he or she had been secluded in that room for a long long time while that person can see out he fails to pick up on the social cues & subtleties in which people have.