"I wanted to be seen. But I did not want to be seen. The paradox of my loneliness."

At the recent Parliamentary Friends of Ending Loneliness launch of our 2022 White Paper, we heard from a number of amazing speakers who shared personal and professional insights on loneliness with members and guests. Since the event, we have received so many comments and compliments from those in the room on the beauty and power of the words and experiences shared. We are so pleased to have been given permission to publish and share several of these speeches via LinkedIn articles over the coming weeks.

First up, let us introduce you to Phil McAuliffe You may know Phil as 'The Loneliness Guy' or 'The Lonely Diplomat'. ?On the day of the White Paper launch, Phil presented as a much valued member of the Ending Loneliness Together Lived Experience Advisory Panel. Thank you so much for allowing us to republish your thoughtful words Phil.

"First, I wish to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional custodians of the land upon which I live, work, raise my family and the land upon which we gather here today. I wish to pay my respects to Ngunnawal elders past, present and emerging and extend this to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today.

Secondly, thank you to Michelle H Lim and to the team at Ending Loneliness Together for the wonderful opportunity to be here with you this morning for the launch of the Strengthening Social Connection to Accelerate Social Recovery White Paper.

Good morning, my name is Phil McAuliffe and I’m here to share my lived experience of loneliness with you.

Isn’t ‘lived experience’ an interesting turn of phrase? It seems so much more refined and more respectable than me coming up this morning and saying ‘Hi, I’m Phil and I get lonely’. It’s a small reflection on the power of words and how we use them.

I’ve always been fascinated by words. I was a voracious reader at primary school. I would read books and pore over atlases and encyclopaedias, eagerly absorbing the words about the world beyond my immediate surrounds. My love of words was supplemented by the love of learning words in other languages. First in French at high school and then German at the University of Melbourne.

Then after graduating and because of working in diplomacy as both the posted officer and accompanying significant other, I added Spanish, and some basic Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and te reo Māori to my linguistic bag of tricks.

My love of words and language has, over my life so far, helped me in my roles as a public servant, a journalist, a writer and a podcaster. I’m sure that I’m not alone in this space or in this building when I say that there is something deeply satisfying in constructing a beautiful sentence to then make a point.

The words we use within our selves and between us matter. For me, learning and using language helps me appreciate on which traditions and structures a society places importance. Please keep this in mind.

So, to me and my loneliness.

I’m often asked when did my loneliness start?

I feel that I’ve long been an observer of life and watched how others interact with each other rather than feeling that I was amongst it. I desperately wanted to be included, and when I was, to my chagrin, I still didn’t fit in. ?

I had different interests and hobbies to those around me. I was in the debating team – again, following the love of words – at a school that put social currency on the guy who could kick and mark a football, rather than speak and write.

Upon reflection, I’ve always felt that because I’ve observed life and never quite fit in, I needed to edit myself – how I looked, how I spoke – so I could feel accepted – that I belonged.

So, rather than answer the question about when my loneliness started, I answer the question about when I noticed my loneliness. ?

I had a sneaking suspicion that I was lonely throughout 2016. I was 39 years old and desperately did not want to be the cliché going through my mid-life crisis. ??

I so desperately did not want to be lonely. Loneliness seems so sad. Lonely people seemed so clingy and needy. Type in 'lonely' in a text message and take note of what emojis are offered. I wasn't crying. I didn't have a sad face.

Besides, I was living my dream!

I was living in Seoul and on my second diplomatic posting and our third posting as a couple. I had so many people in my life. I had a wonderful family who I knew loved me. I had friends. But things weren’t right. I felt a growing void within me – a creeping and consuming numbness. I had spent much of the past 15 years living out of Australia and the friends we’d made in diplomacy were spread around the world. I felt that I had no one who could call and say, 'I need you to listen to me' without feeling like I was intruding, being a burden or saying anything inappropriate.

I simply thought that these feelings of emptiness were my lot in life. I put my head down and continued doing what I was doing. I doubled down on my work and sought the praise and attention of others. That surely was the way out of this feeling.

I also felt that I couldn't speak up. I was surrounded by smart people who looked like they had everything under control and loved their work and lives.?

I couldn't ignore that the job I’d loved and life we were living was coming at an emotional cost. I thought I was alone because there was no talked about the personal costs of diplomacy. If it did, it was usually through gossip or other unhelpful ways, and the topic was changed quickly after someone said a variation of 'get over it' or 'this is just how things are'.

Something within me refused to accept that this is how this were to be for me. I needed help. I turned to Dr Google. That was a safe first step. I found the standard advice: put yourself out there and do things that you love to do and do them with other people.

This is sound advice, to a point. But from where would the time needed to pursue my hobbies magically appear? I was so busy. I was a husband, a Dad to twin boys, I had an enormous job and had to be ready for anything at a moment’s notice. What in my busy schedule could possibly give?

I spoke to my then wife and used unfamiliar words to do so. Not having the words felt weird to me. She was awesome and supported me getting out on weekends to do something I enjoyed. I joined a swimming group. But this petered out after a few months and swimming isn't really a sport where one can chat with others too much. Besides, I felt so tired. The thought alone of getting out to meet people was exhausting.?

I called my employing agency’s contracted counselling service a few months later. I spoke to a lovely person who listened to me and then told me what Dr Google had said: find what I loved to do and 'put myself out there'. When I reminded the counsellor that 'out there' was in a non-English speaking country and my Korean was terrible, they cheerily said, 'Oh. Well try anyway'. Put myself out there was not the easy solution I'd hoped speaking with a counsellor for a few minutes give be.

But this is what I was beginning to appreciate about loneliness: any cure or treatment seemed too hard; an exhausting mountain to climb.

Weeks went by. My funk got deeper.

I realised that there were days when no one, no one, asked me how I was. Did I not matter? I felt hollow, like a thin shell. I felt unseen and alone.

On reflection, my masks of boundless competence and endless good humour I’d cultivated to help me get postings meant that I wasn't giving people much of a reason to ask. I asked how other people were, but when they asked me, I rarely gave them reason to worry: I was always happy and life was great.

I was scared. I felt that people had formed relationships with the image I was working so hard to project into the world, and not the real me. Indeed, I did not know who the real me was. Any cure for loneliness would inevitably involve me taking off my masks and hoping that people in my life would still love me.

This terror kept me from seeking out more help.

Circumstances intervened and the opportunity to get help emerged. I started a coaching program and it was just what I needed. The program involved a lot of talking. It involved a lot of sharing and listening to myself and others.

Language and words came to my rescue.

At the end of the program, and after a lot of hard work, I felt like I had stepped into myself for the first time. This was a powerful feeling.

I’d worked out what I found unsettling about the 'just put yourself out there and connect with people who share your interests' mantra. I'd been focusing on the out there and the interests. My problem had been with the ‘your self’ bit.

This was a revelation. I needed to know and accept myself before I could connect with others and the world around me.

Having started to reconnect with myself and having learned new words and ways to use them, I started to reach out to people in my life - both past and present - with whom I wanted to connect. This included those people physically around me on postings, and others with whom I was still in contact over social media.

The major impediment to this connection was busyness. I lost count at the 'I'd love to, but I'm really busy' responses.

When the connections happened, they REALLY happened. I was having real, open, honest, courageous and vulnerable conversations with people. We shared words and language. I shared my experience. They’d almost always respond with ‘me too’.?

Things got real. It was beautiful.?

But these attempts at connection did not always go well. I noticed that some friends and I had drifted apart.

Moreover, I shared with some people that I was lonely and wanted to reconnect and was met with words or sentiments like 'you deserve it', 'this career is your choice' or 'you should have expected to feel lonely'.

This is hard to hear when I'm putting the real me out there. It hurts. But all these experiences – positive and negative – planted a seed within me for future work – work that I do now. ?

Sometimes I can see that my candid words and how I choose to use them holds a mirror up for people. This can make them feel uncomfortable. That's OK. It took me years to accept my loneliness and then own it. I'm familiar with the discomfort.?

A few years ago, I summoned the courage and used my words to stammer my way out of the closet. First, I came out to myself. Secondly, I came out to my then wife. Then, some years later, to our children when we made the tough decision to end our marriage. Then I came out to family and friends and to the world.

I often reflect on the words I used to first come out and the words I received when coming out.?

I feared coming out for so long. I feared the words and the judgmental language that I could receive from those around me and the world. I did receive – and still receive – judgment from others. But those most important to me have almost universally said beautiful things and expressed loving sentiments.

I want to share this important observation with you. I come out regularly for two reasons: for being gay AND for experiencing loneliness.

Coming out is always hard. I still fear judgment. I still fear being excluded. I still fear feeling that I don’t belong. I fear that being gay and or experiencing loneliness are the only things that you see me as rather than the complex and beautiful human I am.

Coming out is always worth it. I met my lovely partner, Jeff, because I came out. Me coming out as lonely has led to me being here this morning.

I want to share this: it’s far easier for me to come out to you and to the world as gay than it is to come out as someone with a lived experience of loneliness.

Coming out as lonely is scary.

For me, the fear comes from you and me not really knowing what words to use or how to express sentiments receiving the news of my loneliness. I fear your judgment. Mostly, I fear your pity. I fear you wanting to use your words to connect with me out of pity.

Once again in my life, I find myself being fascinated by words and language: this time it’s of the words and language we use in English to engage on loneliness.

I want to make three observations before I wrap up. They all relate to the power of words and language.

First, there is absolutely a stigma to loneliness. Our words in public discourse can speak about the need for connection, but not the driver for why we need connection. We seem to want the fun solution without sitting with the tougher problem.

Secondly, where words are spoken and written about loneliness, they’re almost always spoken and written in the third person. Using the third person puts the discussion about a tough emotional topic at a safe distance beyond us. It’s easier to be objective and not have to engage with the emotion when the conversation topic is kept outside of us.

This brings me to my final point: as someone well familiar with the courage it takes to come out – and keep coming out – when I share my loneliness experience, I know that there is awesome connective power in bringing the words and sentiments of loneliness into the first person. My path in life which brings me to stand here this morning comes from using my words to own my loneliness and share it with you. It’s powerful. Can you imagine the power of many of these kinds of discussions in families, friendship groups, workplaces and other places where humans gather around Australia?

Perhaps it’s time that we all came out to bravely share our lived experience of loneliness.

So, here I am. I'm Phil. I'm still prone to feeling lonely and I’m here for the conversation.

Thank you."