Loneliness(es)

I wrote the following words a little while back. They were for an anthology on ‘loneliness’ that was originally intended for publication later this year. Unfortunately, not enough submissions were received (possibly due to the general unwillingness of people to talk about feeling/being lonely) so the publication was cancelled, and I was asked if it was OK to delete my entry. I thought about this, but rather than wipe it, I decided to just put it out here…:

“The thing about feeling alone is that we assume that this is the same as being alone. We tell ourselves that we shouldn’t feel lonely because ‘look at all the people, friends and family, we have around us in the world’. But the number of loved ones around you doesn’t mean you are guarded against loneliness. Loneliness is also not of one form. It is not a single feeling – we can feel lonely in several ways.

When my brother died by suicide, I was surprised to learn how lonely I could feel when so many people were around me, expressing their love and condolences. I am grateful they did, but the thing was, no one around me had had the same experience; while they could sympathise, they could never fully understand, entirely grasp, the experience of becoming an only child at the age of 30 years – and I could never fully explain to them the meaning of my loss.

Eighteen months after his death, I gave birth to my daughter, and was again surprised at the depth of loneliness I could feel as a new mum, a loneliness that mothers don’t necessarily like to talk about because it’s not how they’re ‘supposed’ to feel when they’ve just grown their family.

Taking both of these experiences together, I realise now that I wasn’t experiencing loneliness – I was simultaneously experiencing different lonelinesses, the products (side effects) of certain different (difficult) life experiences.

My lonelinesses gathered and meshed. And they made me angry (at others and myself), made me frustrated (at others and myself), made me irritable (at others and myself), made me feel that no one understood or would ever understand (and I blamed both others and myself for this). I didn’t like these sensations, but I couldn’t admit it was my lonelinesses causing them. These lonelinesses were making me be not me, pushing me further into myself – I started to hide the sensations of being alone, putting forward an ‘I’m fine’ face. I didn’t withdraw my physical presence, but on a daily basis I simply pretended and consequently denied to others and myself that I was just deeply lonely. I thought I simply had to accept feeling alone (even in a crowd) was now a central feature of everyday life. The only way to describe how hard this was is to say that my stomach felt like it was screaming – it was nothing short of exhausting to perform the role of a non-lonely person.

But now I know you don’t have to accept loneliness(es), you don’t have to feel alone or feel shame when you have periods when you do. Importantly, you don’t have to work so hard to hide when you are experiencing a loneliness. In my situation, I began to make changes by starting a conversation with myself, being honest with myself about my feelings and emotions, writing them down and reading them. This was hard but doing it then showed me how and where to find places to connect with others feeling lonelinesses of the same type.

Because loneliness is not of one character – I have ‘suicide loss’ loneliness and ‘sibling loss’ loneliness, but I also at times have ‘parenting loneliness’ or ‘work loneliness’, for example – we need to have and keep wider support networks, to call on different people for different types of support in combatting the loneliness(es) we are experiencing. I’ve also realised that lonelinesses come in waves – sometimes one part of our lives is the source of stronger sensations of loneliness rather than another, and realising this multi-faceted, fluid nature of loneliness has helped me to seek out different people at different times for different forms of support, to help me level out the blips. For example, for me, it may not entirely be an aid to chat with a non-bereaved-sibling if this month’s sense of loneliness is really (specifically) coming from my experiences after the loss of my brother. Recognition, validation from others can so help those specifically-characterised feelings of loneliness. All it sometimes takes is one conversation with someone who has the same experience, who ‘gets it’, to help you feel less alone.

So, when you’re feeling lonely, cut yourself some slack (it’s not a problem to feel the way you do, even if you think the situation around you seems to suggest you should be feeling the opposite) and ask yourself: ‘what bit of my life is this coming from?’ Answering that one question for yourself can open the door to actually seeing your different lonelinesses, helping to signal so many more pathways to help and support that will help give you spaces to drop the mask, and ultimately keep the sensations of being alone at bay.

No one is, ever will be, entirely alone.”