Loneliness

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How do you deal with loneliness? Either when you are alone, or where you are surrounded by people who don't get you?

I have resorted to putting some easels in my largest room (which is not large) and I invite people
in to draw still life or draw each other drawing. Every so often my little house

has someone in it for a couple of hours a month. Putting up easels is good but they have to be
safe, and so I have found cheap light ones. I kept photos of my mini art room on my

phone and I showed the images to people. After a long gap some kind of drawing and tea and biscuit group is underway (I don't know how long for though).

As for the loneliness in the world I go window-shopping to a lot of charity shops because they are low stress for me. I have one real friend but they are planning to move away in a year or so, which means i'll be looking around a lot more charity shops!

In terms of the deep-deep-deep isolation I consult The I Ching. It's a Chinese Oracle which in ancient times was used to improve a person's character. It selects archetypes that appear in pairs. Some people use it to find out what is going to happen tomorrow, but I know what is going to happen tomorrow...... So I use it for its other purpose, which is as a source of contemplation, since Taoism is a Philosophy rather than a religion. I suppose it is mental yoga.

Apart from this I write stories and then add extracts to a sort of a blog, although I don't finish enough stories to add many very often.

I paint paintings and very occasionally I find someone with a wall to hang them on. I draw cartoons, and these might have to go on walls instead of paintings, because the wall that is available in a sort of community room doesn't have much space.

I don't know how I feel about the isolation because it is total sometimes. I feel like I am on a deep space flight and
I am flying an old office chair, a mug of tea and a battered old desk to some distant galaxy.

I would say of all these things the most useful are the cartoons. They don't need words or even to be drawn particularly well or to be large. Invent a character and see what happens to them. The stories and the paintings are solitary pursuits and the easel room is too I suppose, even though people do wander in. You see no one has space for easels because they have tv's and sofas and furniture and intense normality in the way. I just cleared a space.

I collect old cheap used cameras and sometimes I go walking. My one friend likes photography too. I go to writers groups and they are useful. They often meet in libraries, which is good for my sensitivity to sound.

I'm a director of a kind of charity, but I just give advice now and then because the building where the charity works is noisy. I draw cartoons for them too now and then. I helped to set it up but I couldn't join join in when all the planning became social, because I can't do noisy places.

That's all I can think of really.

It has been worse to be lonely around people who don`t get me than to simply be alone. In the end I had to try and stay away from them to give my self a chance to think for my self and find my self even.

I chase away loneliness with books, movies, my own little projects, nature, internet and talking to myself . I like "my world" where I can feel and think the way I do without interruptions so I am not sure I feel very bothered by my social isolation. It was a bigger problem for me when I was young. Then I felt ashamed for not having friends and living an active social life. I was embarrassed by it and wanted friends for that reason too and did many stupid things in order to fit in in different groups. The loneliness was much more painful back then. I don`t feel ashamed anymore and I think I can wait and find people I connect with and in the mean time I am more troubled with fear of people and flash backs from earlier happenings than loneliness. Besides I have family members so I am not completely alone. But I don`t have friends.

Sometimes when I walk around in the forest I have missed someone nice to talk to to walk with me. Also I will admit that at times I feel a sting of longing for more input and to share thoughts and ideas and experiences with others. Then I go to the internet and my books. There are many interesting people I can meet through their books and articles. Right now I am reading Thor Heyerdahl.
It is complicated, but if the longing becomes strong I very quickly remember how wrong it went in the past and feel a relief that I have the safe space around me today. I guess it is fair to say that I keep loneliness in check with memories of earlier experiences.

I've been my own best friend. I talk to myself out loud. Years ago I noticed that when I sit in a chair and my hands aren't occupied, I hold my own hand for comfort.

As a child I was very lonely and endured profound emotional pain partly because of it. Sobbing deeply into my pillow at night so no one would hear was a matter of course. I kept it all to myself.

As a teenager, I loved the band The Smiths (still do, but don't listen to them as often). I identified perfectly with Morrissey's lyrics and they were an emotional salve for me. I was not alone!

If there are any positives from my experience as a youth, I would say the loneliness gave me emotional resilience (that sounds better than saying "I'm dead inside." ) and the ability to live more or less contentedly on my own. I'm a survivor. I know that may be easy for me to say given that I have a family, but I felt at a very early age (single digits) that I was going to need to be on my own from an emotional perspective.

Last edited by Magna on 27 Aug 2018, 8:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have no sympathy, no friends, no colleagues since about 11 years. I do not suffer so much because of the lack of friends, but lack of wife is rather "painful" to my mentality. I have never had a close friend. I rather do not have the need of being loved.

I am almost 27 years old and have no spouse. Of course I have no offspring. I get psychotropic drugs which may alleviate my sexual drive (which is positive, in fact I want to be totally asexual), but the need of having wife rather remains. Wife and children looks for my "mind" like "pet animals" which can be asexually caressed, kissed, hugged...

Getting a shower is a success for me. Contact with so cold or so hot water is for me "like a torture". It is really unpleasant. My mentality does not have need of getting a shower. People often get a shower day by day.

My loneliness started to hurt, real pain. People that are really lonely will know what I mean. At one point, I let it go, gave up on everything. Accepted the feeling completely, embraced it. Started thinking that being alone isn't so bad, and the feeling I had got less bad, and eventually, it sort of went away. I lost my 2 best friends a few months ago, who left me to rot when I was in the hospital, when I was always there for them through everything. Have no friends, nobody to really talk to. It's okay though, don't mind. Like my nickname implies, I am the Lone Loyal Wolf. Have always been alone, probably always will be, and that is okay. I am on the wrong planet and people don't really like me, so it's better this way.

<--- Destined to a life of solitude.
<--- Watches movie (crime dramas, thrillers, horrors).
<--- Listens to music (classical, metal, punk, rock, ska).
<--- Goes for the occasional walk.
<--- Maybe one day he'd get back to playing music and writing.

I did not get married until I was 43. I did not start dating until I was 30. I knew that I would not have a successful marriage until I met a woman who had an unusual amount of kindness.

My wife and I are now in our 60s. I thank God for her everyday.

If I would be married, I want to be so relatively early in my life. I do not want to have children when my wife would be about 40, because then there is larger chance for some serious health problems in offspring (such as Down syndrome). My nature wants the wife. I am very probably not able to marriage and having offspring. I am almost 27 years old, my parents at my current age had two born children and I have not ever had a sympathy, girlfriend. Marriage with a woman without mental disorders is not attractive for my nature. My mentality prefers celibate than marrying non-attractive mentally woman. I want the best for everyone. I do not want my offspring to be disabled.

I prefer to call it solitude and I think it's a gift if shared with a little bit of human contact once in a while (dropper dose).

How I deal:

Don't seek to belong where I don't.

Don't seek to become who I am not.

I never feel lonely when I'm out in forest.

I attend to my own needs without guilt, knowing that if I tried to help others [based on experience] that it blows up in my face and ruins things for everybody else.

I suppose that I've been lonely for a great deal of my life, not having a long term partner,mate,wife,etc.
Honestly, I'm acutely aware of my own mannerisms and how they often have effects in how social scenarios take place and the outcome of such.Yet, there is also unknown variables which no one singular person has management over whatsoever, so I tend to let things take place or not take place;basically, I tend to take a neutral stance.

I rather do not suffer due to loneliness caused by lack of friends and colleagues. I was lonely, but it did not cause sadness and depression.
I wanted to have female partner for physical contact when I was a child, I teased girls due to that, it was evil and sinful, it was wrong and I regret it. I was a bully for single girls and was mobbed when I was about 6-15 years old.

I like looking at cats, squirrels, rabbits because they look cute and sweet. But more attractive for my nature is caressing a woman than an animal. I prefer contact with persons than with animals. nal beings are "interactive", animals are not, they may be "boring" in some way due to it.

Not very well lately. I'm kind of a loner and an introvert so I don't desire friendship in general but I do wish often to be with kindred spirits.
I try to think on my own considering people don't understand certain things about me but I guess that's the most loneliest part about it for me is it makes it easy to overthink so I really don't have people to advise me about certain situations. The few people who do understand don't really know how to help.

I feel the most lonely around my family members. I'm okay for a few hours and than after dinner, I sneak into the spare bedroom and go on WP. Maybe I won't feel so lonely at the the next family gathering with the direction that things seem to be going for me at the moment.