Loneliness
June is #MensMentalHealthMonth. This year I have spent time off work due to depression and anxiety. I haven't really told many people. This seems like a good month to talk about it. This isn't my first experience of a collapse in my mental wellbeing. I wrote a book about it last time. This seems like a good month to give it away as posts on here. The book used to cost ￡7.99 but you can have it for free as it was written to help people. If you do feel it is helpful and have a few quid to share please go to paperboatcharity.org/donate and support some of India's most vulnerable children.
Loneliness is a killer. It quietly sneaks into our lives and pushes us to the edge of what we can handle. The organsiation, Campaign Against Loneliness recently shared a list of some hard-hitting statistics on loneliness, here are a handful of examples:
When the UK national press reports on loneliness they use words like ‘epidemic’ or ‘health crisis’ and I have often considered these to be deliberate hyperbole chosen to sell papers. However, having read some studies by charities and universities it may be that loneliness is even more of a problem for our society than this language suggests. Loneliness is a health concern, it is literally killing people, through physical and mental health issues. Loneliness drives people to their deaths by suicide. It exacerbates other health issues and, in keeping people removed from a community, stops thousands of people from getting help and support that they deserve and need.
Loneliness is measurable and real, but I want to draw a slight distinction between the voice of loneliness and the loneliness that these statistics are speaking of. For the sake of that distinction, I’d like to label the loneliness of these statistics and studies and isolation, i.e. the physical state of being alone. Isolation is a consistent and unchosen lack of human contact. Isolation is at epidemic proportions but so also is the voice of loneliness, that is, the voice in our head that tells us we are alone.?
The phrase is a cliché, well worn of its original efficacy, but the feeling of being alone in a crowded room is a deeply painful experience. It is also an experience with which I am all too familiar. A few years ago I was part of a church which held smaller group meetings on a weeknight. These were held in a church member’s home and were very relaxed and welcoming affairs with coffee, cake and conversation (Christians love alliteration). I would go faithfully every week, I would receive regular WhatsApp messages from the group. There were in-jokes and shared memories. We would belly laugh recalling the time that someone had embarrassed themselves and other times we would listen in support as someone would share of their job loss or bereavement. These were the very definition of good people, generously giving themselves to others.?
From the outside, my membership of that small group must have looked life-giving but the reality was that every week on the drive home I felt the same way in the car. I would leave the group feeling that I did not belong and that I was not welcome. I was convinced that I was not liked, nevermind loved. I was sure that people found me annoying or ill-informed. The best I could accept was that I was tolerated by them. My mind had turned on me, I could not see the good in my life through fear and the pain which followed it.
I was in a group of people who cared deeply for one another and yet I felt alone. I was consistently in a room of 15 people whom I knew by name. I knew their jobs and the names of their children. I knew their preference for tea or coffee and the details of their most recent exercise regimes but I felt lonely when I was with them. This often made little sense to those around me. They could see that those people cared about me, to their eyes it was unmissable, but I couldn’t believe it. They could have a list of evidence that they cared, all of which was factual, but it made little difference, I was lonely in a crowded room.?
I must say again at this point that the people in that room were and are wonderful people who did care deeply about me and who showed that care in many ways. They showed up for me many times when I needed support. They called and texted to check-in. They are kind and loving people. My experience of loneliness had little to do with them or their actions. It wouldn’t have mattered what they did, I was incapable of feeling it. My experience of loneliness was about the voice of loneliness in my head and not about them at all. I was haunted by a voice that told me I didn’t belong, a voice that told me I didn’t fit in. That voice had changed how I acted and the behaviours that followed caused me to magnify my own feelings of seclusion.?
One of the thoughts that would come up on that weekly drive home was that I knew a lot of people, so how could I be lonely? It’s a fair point and one which I found confusing as I worked out why I felt the way I did. How can I be lonely in that room? How can I be lonely with a large group of friends? I knew a lot of people and yet here I was tormented by a feeling that I was alone.?
One morning as I walked on the beach I had a moment of clarity. It wouldn’t matter if I knew 100,000 people, I would still be lonely because few if anyone really knew me at all. Or at least I felt that they didn’t know me. The voice of loneliness that I heard over and over, my own mind speaking loneliness to me, was given a voice because I felt unknown. My loneliness was not the condition of knowing very few people, it was the condition of being known by very few people. I was not alone, I felt lonely. That distinction felt important because it brought some hope. If there were people present in my life, then I could allow myself to be known by them. I could show the people that I already knew who I really was even though the thought felt terrifying. What if the real me was actually unlikeable?
As this book progresses you will understand the reasons why that felt terrifying. My understanding of myself was a tapestry of reality that had been spoiled by painful experiences, memories and lies about myself which I had believed. Overcoming low self-worth is a full-time job and it is hard work.
Overcoming a sense of inadequacy is a long-term project that is only progressed by working across our whole life and identity to restore false and broken ideas of self.
The idea of letting someone into those spaces in my soul was scary enough to cause me to have sleepless nights and panic attacks.?
When we stumble across moments of hope it is important to seize upon them when we have the chance. Hope is not the most common commodity and we should never take it for granted, for it is the most life-giving of things.? Hope has the ability to raise our gaze to something beyond the pain. It strengthens our resolve and can give us something to live for. Never ignore it when you uncover it. Grab hold of it tightly.?
In that moment of hope on the beach,? began to question my sense of self. Why would I hide myself from people? What was I ashamed of? What made me fearful? What was the worst-case scenario in being known? If I was to answer these questions I needed help. So, after avoiding it for years,? I booked in for some talking therapy for the first time in my life.?
I will be honest. I had very low expectations. In light of every word, I have written above you will think the next sentence is ridiculous. I had always prided myself on being very self-aware, I considered myself to be someone who knew their own mind and understood why I acted the way I did. Why would I need to talk to a counsellor? Misplaced self-confidence is a hell of a drug! Yet, despite my lack of faith in its value, counselling was a conventional method for improving mental health so it seemed like a good thing to try.?
I had never been more wrong in my expectations of something. Counselling was wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, it was also exhausting and painful. Counselling moves from soothing and uplifting affirmation to a sense of having your skull torn open and someone poking their finger around in your brain. It is both energising and arduous to have your mind attack and heal itself at the same time. I cannot recommend it to you enough. Even if you feel perfectly healthy having an hour a week to just talk to a neutral person about the things that are on your mind is a healthy practice.?
Very quickly I found myself spending much of those sessions naming and unpacking the things I was afraid of letting people know. I understood my fear of rejection was the strongest fear on the list. I was caught in a cycle of believing that if people really knew me that they would reject me, so I would keep myself hidden in order to save myself from possible rejection that may never happen. In both pathways I’d designed in my head, being rejected or keeping myself hidden, I was going to end up feeling lonely. This closed circle of damage had a strange comfort to it.? I had tricked myself into believing that I was keeping myself safe. I was subconsciously telling myself that by choosing to be lonely, that was much less painful than being forced to be lonely by the rejection of others.?
Our minds sometimes do that to us don’t they? The negative and destructive patterns we choose are often in the guise of self-protection yet the results are the same. In my case, I was lonely either way, except rather than being made lonely I had chosen to be lonely. If I had been rejected and made lonely then I could find new people to build friendships with, there was a way out but I was choosing loneliness, the only escape from which was to choose to let myself be seen, really seen, warts (I don’t have warts) and all. It was time to go public with my true self.?
I am aware as I write this that the language of ‘true self, going public and rejection’ feels like dramatic language. Again, this is a trick that an anxious or depressed brain can play upon us. I will talk about this in the chapter on comparison.
Often when we are suffering we tell ourselves that we are being dramatic. All that kind of thinking does is compound our struggle. Undermining our own feelings is a shield that protects our negative thinking. It insulates our damaging thoughts from examination. It keeps them intact and free from question. We will never overcome our pain if we cannot honestly see it for what it is. There is nothing dramatic in being honest with ourselves.?
In therapy, I discovered that I was masking three main areas of my life and in doing so was keeping myself from ever really being known by anybody. There are three parts of my life which I continue to hide but much less so than I used to. The journey back to health is a long road that I will walk for the rest of my life. I came quickly to the realisation that I was hiding my beliefs about faith, I was hiding my fears and I was hiding my struggles.?
I was turning up every week to this Christian group and when we discussed faith I felt like I was on a different page to many in the room. I chose to stay silent or to share a diluted version of my thoughts when I disagreed with someone because I was afraid of being banished to some theological exile.?
I was silent about my fears because I felt I would look weak or faithless and therefore be rejected as some kind of lesser man or doubter.?
I hid my struggles because I felt they were unworthy of attention. I felt that the things that I was afraid of, impending fatherhood, being unable to provide for my child, my blood pressure killing me, my lack of any sense of career direction or that I was wasting my life, were irrational and invalid. If anyone knew these things they would think I was melodramatic or immature. I believed that anyone in their mid-thirties should have these things under control. By 35 you should have it all together, your ducks should be neatly in a row performing some kind of work-life balance conga.?
Of course, the reality is that almost every adult I know, once I get to know them, feels like they are a bit of a blagger. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel like they are, at least in some way, out of their depth. I wait for the day when my ‘I know what I’m doing’ badge will arrive. Perhaps there is no destination in adulthood, it may just be a constant learning about who we are and how the world works, only to see ourselves and that world change as we learn. Perhaps we will never get a proper grip on things and the desire to grasp at life is causing us harm. Perhaps we should try to find a way to enjoy living and learn to accept that we will always feel that part of our world is out of our control. I think that could be a path to real liberation.
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I began to open up. With my heart racing, I began to disagree. Disagreement, it turned out, was actually quite fun. People found my point of view at least a little bit interesting and I was not rejected. There were more heated moments of discussion, there were some baffled looks, there were times I was dismissive of other people’s views and times that other people were dismissive of mine, but the discussions were life-giving. I was wrong about what would happen if I stopped hiding.?
Staying silent and in essence choosing to be unknown, and therefore lonely, had been a huge mistake. There was room for my beliefs in the discussion, this seems so obvious now, but when I felt like the ‘other’ in the room that acceptance felt impossible. I shared my fears and felt seen. Others in the room shared some of those fears or had previously overcome them. I opened up about my struggles, people helped me to find perspective. I had removed my mask just a little and had begun to feel known for the first time in years. I was still often lonely, but rather than that being an unbroken drone in my life, drowning out my joy, it was now broken and punctuated by moments of feeling held and loved and known, truly known.?
The voice of loneliness in my head was loud for a long time and on many occasions it still is. I had tried for years to silence or muffle it by meeting more people, building larger groups of friends, trying new hobbies to make memories with new people or by listening to other people’s stories. The more I surrounded myself with people the more lonely I became because I was going about things backwards.
I’m now convinced that, whilst knowing people is a cure for isolation, the only real cure for loneliness is allowing ourselves to be seen and known as we really are.
The only cure for my loneliness was to take the risk of vulnerability. It was when I was sure people could see the real me, or at least a more real version of myself, and yet they still showed up in my life that that voice lowered in volume. My sense of loneliness became less intense as I deliberately let myself be known better. There are still days, of course, when I feel like I’m back to feeling invisible in a crowd of people but those times are becoming increasingly rare. I am a little way down a much more healthy path.?
What are the things that you hide from people? What are the parts of yourself that you keep from view and so stopping anyone from really getting to know you? Do you think you can overcome the fear of being known in order to defeat the sense of loneliness you feel??
My advice is this, make choices to fight back against that voice, but be kind to yourself. Start small with perhaps one person and let yourself experience both fear and acceptance at once in what is essentially a controlled environment. Be kind to yourself because the reality of this world is that there will be times when it doesn’t go to plan and the person doesn’t respond well. In those moments remind yourself that they, like you, live in a society that at times seems to be designed to destroy our mental health and self-worth. You never know what they are battling at that time and you can make allowances for that, but neither should you accept mistreatment, we are all worth much more than tolerating it. Take a risk in the next week, tell someone something you’ve wanted to say for a long time. You never know what might happen.
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If you recognise that you, like me, need help speak to your GP or call one of these numbers:
SANEline
If you're experiencing a mental health problem or supporting someone else, you can call SANEline on 0300 304 7000 (4.30pm–10pm every day).
National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK
Offers a supportive listening service to anyone with thoughts of suicide. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652 (6pm to midnight every day).
Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
You can call the CALM on 0800 58 58 58 (5pm–midnight every day) if you're affected by suicide or suicidal thoughts. Or if you prefer not to speak on the phone, you could try the CALM webchat service.
Shout
If you would prefer not to talk but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258. Shout offers a confidential 24/7 text service providing support if you are in crisis and need immediate help.
Papyrus HOPELINEUK
If you're under 35 and struggling with suicidal feelings, or concerned about a young person who might be struggling, you can call Papyrus HOPELINEUK on 0800 068 4141 (24 hours, 7 days a week), email [email protected] or text 07786 209 697.
Nightline
If you're a student, you can look on the Nightline website to see if your university or college offers a night-time listening service. Nightline phone operators are all students too.
Switchboard
If you identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, you can call Switchboard on 0300 330 0630 (10am–10pm every day), email [email protected] or use their webchat service. Phone operators all identify as LGBT+.
C.A.L.L.
If you live in Wales, you can call the Community Advice and Listening Line (C.A.L.L.) on 0800 132 737 (open 24/7) or you can text 'help' followed by a question to 81066.