Loneliness! is being called the modern plague. Here are some of the sources I found as I researched this blog post:
In 2010 the Mental Health Foundation found loneliness to be a greater concern among young people than the elderly. The 18 to 34-year-olds surveyed were more likely to feel lonely often, to worry about feeling alone and to feel depressed because of loneliness than the over-55s.
Source: The Guardian
Loneliness and Social Isolation in the United Kingdom
- 17% of older people are in contact with family, friends and neighbours less than once a week and 11% are in contact less than once a month (Victor et al, 2003)
- Over half (51%) of all people aged 75 and over live alone (ONS, 2010)
- Two fifths all older people (about 3.9 million) say the television is their main company (Age UK, 2014)
- 63% of adults aged 52 or over who have been widowed, and 51% of the same group who are separated or divorced report, feeling lonely some of the time or often (Beaumont, 2013)
- 59% of adults aged over 52 who report poor health say they feel lonely some of the time or often, compared to 21% who say they are in excellent health (Beaumont, 2013)
- A higher percentage of women than men report feeling lonely some of the time or often (Beaumont, 2013)
Source: Campaign to End loneliness
OVER the last decade, the United States has become a less violent country in every way save one. As Americans commit fewer and fewer crimes against other people’s lives and property, they have become more likely to inflict fatal violence on themselves.
This trend is striking without necessarily being surprising. As the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox pointed out recently, there’s a strong link between suicide and weakened social ties: people — and especially men — become more likely to kill themselves “when they get disconnected from society’s core institutions (e.g., marriage, religion) or when their economic prospects take a dive (e.g., unemployment).” That’s exactly what we’ve seen happen lately among the middle-aged male population, whose suicide rates have climbed the fastest: a retreat from family obligations, from civic and religious participation, and from full-time paying work.
Source: The New York Times
Suicide and Loneliness
by Kevin Caruso
If you are suicidal and feel intense loneliness, please get help for your suicidal feelings. Please take steps to be less lonely.
If you feel lonely and isolate yourself, your risk of suicide will increase.
So, get out and talk to people. You can talk with people in stores, at events, you name it. Open up to your friends and family.
Ask people questions. Be curious about them and what they do.
Talk.
Interact.
Share a laugh with someone.
Be with people.
And you may find yourself having fun!
The bottom line is, if you feel lonely, take steps so that you will not feel lonely any longer. Loneliness will only exacerbate your suicidal feelings.
If you are seeing a therapist, talk with him or her about your loneliness and ask for help.
If you aren’t seeing a therapist, I would strongly recommend that you make an appointment.
Take action to reduce your loneliness.
And remember that you are a great person.
You are awesome!
If you or someone you know is suicidal, please go to the Home Page of this (Caruso’s) website for immediate help.
Thank you.
I love you.
Take care,
Kevin Caruso
Source: Suicide.org
When Loneliness is not Loneliness
It was only a few short weeks ago, just prior to Christmas actually, during a conversation with my daughter, Sarah, that I came to the harsh realization that there had been a huge change in my mood and that I needed to get some help. Having already been on that ‘special’ part of the roller coaster ride of attempted suicide no less than three times in my life, I knew that I needed to ask for help, including that of my children.
Apparently there was a particular day when I was extremely down that she was concerned that I would try self-harm. I’m very happy to say though, that a long time ago I have made a commitment to the Universe and thus my children that I will never leave that legacy to them.
Recently, around the same time actually, I worked at a funeral where the first parent (Mom) had died a few months earlier with cancer. Now the two adult children stood actually clinging to each other in the rain while their ‘church’ gathered around them, but only to quote platitudes and avoiding the whole painful subject because of their own belief system. But that doctrine is a blog for another time if interest is there. The terrible tragedy of it all was that the daughter had found her father after he’d used a shotgun. An image that would be burned into her mind until another life, likely. I will never forget the empty look in their eyes. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t sorrow. It was utter emptiness. And only they, just the two of them, could feel it in the way they were feeling it.
Loneliness is a terrible plague. I say that emphatically! I say that passionately! I say that as an emergency!
When I actually looked at what was going on for me I realized, though, that it was NOT LONELINESS that was the culprit for my mood change. It was only a very small part of what was going on for me. Here is a list that I came to realize that was affecting me:
- Seasonal Affective Disorder
- My daily battle with physical pain
- Holiday Blues
- Financial Stress
- Career (or lack thereof) Stress
- A failed attempt at a relationship that fizzled after only 4 months
- A reoccurrence of my lifelong battle with Dysthymia
- Lack of exercise
- Poor diet. I had employed my sweet tooth overtime
It was, in fact, not loneliness that was the core issue, but that terrible ‘D’ word that carries so much stigma – even now in this day and age! That said, loneliness can then become a byproduct of depression. My Mum used to say that, ‘misery likes company’. It’s never been the way with me. It’s just the opposite. When I feel miserable I distance myself – even cut myself off completely. I don’t want people to ‘feel sorry for me’ or employ their ‘need to fix’ me. I also allow my Ego to come out to play because I don’t want to be seen in this weakened condition.
When Loneliness IS Loneliness
The truth of it is, that no matter the core issue, when someone is lonely, they are lonely.
I have been blessed to have people and resources come to my life, especially over the last 5 years, that have shown me that
- I could be and was lonely, even in a relationship
- I could be and was lonely, even in a successful workplace
- I could be and was lonely, even in a small or large group of people
Why is that? I can remember even as a child being on my own most of the time. I’ve never been a friend collector on Facebook. In fact I have only 157 friends if you go by that Facebook number. I know I have many more acquaintances, actually. I could easily site thousands of people whom I know and actually know me. But I wouldn’t call them, no they me, friends in the truest meaning of the word. Acquaintances, work mates, neighbours, maybe.
Why is it in an age when most of the population of the planet is or can be connected virtually, that we now have the worst loneliness and its resulting mental and physical and societal issues?
I’ve learned, I’m very sensitive to other people’s energy. You may even call it their mood (even if well disguised). I sense that. I am also very sensitive to all the people in a room.
I don’t do well at parties. Part of it is a slight hearing problem I’ve had all my life that reduces a group of people, hubbub and music to a lull of what sounds like a device boring a hole in the earth. But what I’ve come to realize is that I, if not careful including the use of alcohol or lack of rest or other factors, can feel bombarded by the host of energies.
Imagine 3 people in a room besides yourself. Imagine number 1 SCREAMING at the top of her lungs about her recent breakup with a dolt of a girlfriend/boyfriend. Imagine number 2 SCREAMING and POUNDING his fists because he’s excited about the new promotion, raise and cute secretary that comes with the raise. Imagine number 3 HAMMERING with a sledgehammer on a tin table because he’s trying not to say how upset he is at his wife for telling him he drinks too much at parties-just before the party! Now imagine 3 more people with 3 more ways of communicating; then 30 more!
It may seem overly dramatic to those of you who just experience a party as that…a party; fun, exciting, mixing, conversation and more. But for those of us who used to be called sensitives or wall flowers, a party can be a pillaging of our senses.
So I’ve actually come to like my time outs. I like being alone. Even if I feel lonely when alone, I often prefer it to going and joining some group like the aforementioned party. I didn’t know all that, though, until I found myself not in a relationship four years ago. At first it was Hell! Truly! The loneliness mixed with the grieving process was daunting. I tried ‘dating’ pretty quickly. That was a disaster! I attracted (energetically) almost the exact same personality I’d just left. I’m so grateful for a good spiritual counsellor and my own inner wisdom (once I chose to listen to it) because I realized I had to STOP! Take time out. BE ALONE. I got tired pretty quickly of being told to that “you just need to get laid. You need to get up on the horse again.” WHO needed me to do all that? Not me! I need more than that.
How often to you sit in your living room with all the lights off, TV off, laptop off, people off? I do it. I am suddenly aware of just how noisy our modern world is. Right now I’m sitting tapping away here. Gracie is sound asleep on her ‘princess heating pad’. Sarah is reading in her chair. There is supposed to be no noise. Yet, there is the noise of the fridge running, the tap-tap, moan and groan of the radiant heat. I can hear cars in the distance. And yes, there’s the tapping of my fingies on the keyboard. Now Gracie is having a bath. My blood pressure is up a wee bit so I can actually hear it in my ears!
For us to really thrive we need to be alone! You may disagree with that, as I would have four years ago. But now that I have done it, I realize how much I need to be alone in solitude. I can do whatever what that aloneness. I can write, type, meditate, snooze, read or simply BE. I absolutely looooooooove to sit by the sea and just be. I love the water. I am a Cancerian after all (the crab).
It’s not an easy equation this loneliness. When is it simply aloneness? When is it another emotional, spiritual or perhaps medical quotient in the equation? When IS loneliness just that…Loneliness? Only you can tell.
What has been so helpful to me is remembering that
- I am part of a created Universe (I do believe that). Therefore there is a Creator who is never far away. All I have to do is reach out.
- I am part of a created Universe with wonderful Light Beings like Angels, Guides, Helpers in the Heavenly realm. All I have to do is reach out.
- I am part of a created Universe with a pro-created family. All I have to do is reach out.
- I am part of a created Universe with acquaintances, friends, loved-ones. All I have to do is reach out.
- I am part of a created Universe with wonderful little creatures like my Gracie. Well I seldom have to reach out. She is always close by.
- I am never really alone. Sometimes I lack the things or people in my life for a few minutes, hours, perhaps days. But I am never truly alone.
So why do I/we get lonely? Only you can tell.
I hope that this rather long posting has brought you some insight, hope or direction. If you are lonely, depressed or somehow at the end of your seatbelt on the roller coaster please, please reach out. It’s really not so hard. Go and sit on a park bench if you’re not up to walking (as we can be when like that) and just smile at passers-by; don’t even speak. Or pick of the phone and call or at least text a colleague, friend, family member, loved one. You don’t even have to tell them your lonely or depressed if you don’t want to. Just talk about the weather. Ask them about them. It works! It really does.
Have you ever thought about volunteering?
I would also encourage you to get out your pen and paper (or keyboard) and create some lists. Some ideas:
- Who do I have in my life that are
- friends
- work mates
- neighbours
- people at the grocery store
- parents
- siblings
- children
- adopted family members
- besties
- ministers, counsellors, or the like???
- Who do I have in my life that may be feeling lonely too? Or for those of you who are not lonely right now, may be lonely and you know it or sense it?
- What has changed in my life in the last few days, weeks, months, even years, that has been a mitigating factor in this?
- What can I ‘fix’?
- What can I get help to ‘fix’ from list number 1?
- What needs to go on the ‘to fix’ list for now and must be dealt with; but the resources aren’t there just now?
- What dream have you lost?
- What dream can be recaptured?
- What dream needs to be buried, either literally or otherwise. Perhaps writing a letter and burying it, washing it, burning it, mailing it, placing it in a special prayer box is needed?
- What can you do to move on, either right now, or pretty quickly? What will it take? Who will you take on that ride with you?
Last Loneliness Thoughts
If you see someone who seems depressed, not just having a bad day or even week, but for an extended time, talk to them. You may be the only real honesty and real caring they’ll feel.
If you are that person find whatever way you need or works for you and press on. Maybe you need to make that call for professional help.
There is a young man who has courageously ‘come out’ about his on-going battle with depression and now even has a stand up comedy routine. His name is Kevin Breel. This is his website. Take a minute and see him on YouTube here. He has also done a TED Talk here. His Facebook page is here. And of course, last but not least, his Twitter is @kevinbreel.
When it comes down to brass tacks, yes we all could do with a bit of alone time. Yes we all feel lonely from time to time. Yes we all do or statistically will feel depressed at some point. Please don’t be lonely alone. Reach out. Remember that booze, drugs (even prescribed ones-unless there is a chemical issue), sex, any avoidance technique will only cover it all up…for now. But the poopy smell from the elephant in the room will still be there unless you shovel it up and even perhaps shoot that damn elephant once and for all…and not yourself.
Remember you are part of a created universe.
You is special!
God don’t make no junk!
I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a quick…or long-winded email if you like. James@LifesRollerCoaster.com
Loneliness 101
How often, how long, how do you, meditate? I’ve had these questions posed more than once in my lifetimeI’ve had these questions posed more than once in my lifetime. When I was a church going man it was called devotions. But that didn’t make it any easier. For over thirty years I was told that it was essential to either have devotions (when I used to attend a church) or meditate.
