Some of you who don't experience loneliness also have spouses and children. I'm extremely lonely and have been single all my life, never wanting to be. Loneliness and depression feed each other, I think. I used to enjoy long stretches of pleasurable solitude, requiring it for creative projects. However, there has also been a predominance of isolation as well, due to introversion, low self-esteem, etc. Leaving the work world, going on SSDI, not having a husband and kids, or other relatives around, it has been gradually driving me crazy. Cognitive abilities, thinking, memory, goal planning, concentration, are really slipping more than ever. As Lastyearisblank said, to need to communicate, to relate, and not have that need be met is torture. I'm always wondering why it has been such an isolated life for me, when I enjoy people, need and care about people, and others have cared about me. I've often held myself back from initiating contact, asking for closeness, revealing the need because of feelings of unworthiness, "I'm too depressed for people"..."not successful in a worldly sense"...etc. I wish I could be more coherent and articulate. I can't grasp a larger meaning of loneliness, only my own subjective experience of it right now.