Loneliness

William R. Colagrande, MS

The feeling of loneliness is a universal experience, part and parcel of the human condition. Everyone feels lonely at least some of the time. Where people differ is in how often they feel lonely and how they respond to the feeling when it occurs. While the experience of loneliness is fairly straightforward, the root causes are fairly complicated.

Webster defines loneliness as a state of feeling sad or dejected as a result of lack of companionship or separation from others. There is often an accompanying sense of feeling empty inside or of feeling lost. Loneliness is often confused with aloneness. One can be alone without feeling lonely and, in fact, spending quality time alone is necessary for maintaining proper emotional health and equilibrium. Feeling lonely implies that we would prefer being in meaningful contact with others but find that contact lacking, either in the moment or as part of a chronic condition.

That a person can feel lonely in the middle of a crowd points to the fact that it is not just being around other people that counts: one must have some type of meaningful contact with them. How one goes about achieving that contact depends in part upon whether their feelings of loneliness are situational or chronic. Moving to a new city, just having broken up a relationship or starting a new job are all examples of situations that may, for a while, contribute to feelings of loneliness. For most people, the passage of time will solve these problems. When, however, feeling lonely has become a chronic condition, things start to become more convoluted and difficult to sort out. It is this aspect that we will examine and attempt to better understand.

The real problem with loneliness is not so much the experience itself but the ineffective ways which we have evolved in our attempts to deal with it. Loneliness itself is a primary issue. Our responses to loneliness are secondary issues. By secondary I don’t mean to convey they are of secondary importance. I mean only that they comprise our reactions to the original issue. Indeed, despite being secondary issues they by far constitute the bulk of the problems. An example of how this occurs can be found in the fact that many people feel ashamed, guilty or depressed around the fact that they feel lonely. Feeling ashamed, guilty or depressed are reactions to loneliness and comprise the bulk of the problems we face in attempting to get our lives in order.

One of the basic and most misunderstood components about chronic loneliness is that somehow we have arrived at exactly where we want to be. Sounds crazy I know, but consider this. Important things that we want in our lives, like meaningful companionship, have both benefits and costs. Sometimes, even though we are aware of desperately wanting the benefits, we may be much less aware of our reluctance to underwrite the costs.

Costs in this case may include things like risking rejection, being hurt, feeling a fool, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, etc. It’s not so much a case of not wanting companionship as it is of not wanting to foot the bill for it. While this reluctance leaves us feeling lonely and dissatisfied, it also permits us the cold comfort of feeling the victim of some cruel plot which fate has in store for us. Other people seem capable of forming friendships and romantic relationships, but not us.

Though it is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around, at least initially, viewing the unconscious choices we’ve made as the problem is infinitely preferable to the alternative, e.g. having been born under a bad sign. Why? Because the former interpretation allows us to take meaningful action while we remain helpless pawns of fate in the latter.

The most difficult thing to work though is the blame and self-contempt we usually experience when we consider that it is the result of our own choices that have brought us to this lonely state. But even the desperate avoidance of further socially-inflicted pain makes sense when you consider key circumstances. For example, when a young child, an infant even, is repeatedly hurt, it feels to him like this is how it is, this is how it’s always going to be. At least as adults, we have the maturity and experience to reasonably challenge that assumption, something we were incapable of when we first formed it. It may not sound like a lot, but believe me, it’s an enormous distinction.

Once you begin to work through secondary processes such as this one, you begin to experience a positive momentum building up. As you work though your previously unconscious or poorly understood resistances, you begin to have more and more rewarding contact with others. The more rewarding contact in turn provides you the impetus to continue working on your resistances, and so on.

It’s a challenging process as successive layers of fear, rage and pain have to be confronted, re-experienced and integrated back into our inner experience. But the stakes are definitely worth it. Not only do you begin to assume the true character of your humanity (we are, after all, social beings by nature), but you also experience the joy and sense of freedom that comes from knowing you are giving your best to life.

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Comments, questions, concerns? I’m always interested in your feedback: e-mail bill@i4hd.com with your ideas.

Click here to learn more about the exciting new workbook Twelve Things you probably never thought about in Overcoming Loneliness, now available through the Institute for Human Development.