Loneliness

What does it mean if you're never lonely? If you simply do not experience loneliness throughout your life, regardless of how much time you spend alone? I've heard and read about other people being plagued by this feeling, including those near and dear to me (but NOT my parents or brothers). It seems to have skipped my family.

My wife feels lonely from time to time. Unfortunately, however, it's just not something I can help her on or relate to in any way. I feel colorblind in this respect. I've always all my life been perfectly happy to be alone, and it never palls. I read about how, in prisons, people go insane after being put into solitary confinement. I simply can't relate to that. I think I could do such a thing, as they say, "standing on my head."

What does loneliness really mean? Not the "feeling" of loneliness, but its psychological significance? If people later on in life feel lonely, what does that say about their early childhood? What did they have then that they don't have later? And what's a "normal" person's feeling about loneliness? When is it pathological?

Can't say very much more. I'm stumped about this. Hope you'll all pitch in and have a discussion about loneliness. Take care!

I can relate to what you're saying because I don't feel lonely often in my life. I can tolerate being alone without feeling lonely. Maybe it has to do with whether person's introverted or extroverted - I classify myself as semi- introverted. I was shy most of my life and learned to manage it, so that's why I say I'm semi-introverted. Since I have kids, I enjoy the times when I'm alone.

I think it also has something to do with self esteem. Some people might equate having lots of friends and loving family with their self worth, hence if they're alone, they feel there must be a reason or something wrong with them. I can understand how old people feel lonely, when their loved ones are all dying and not interacting in society like before. Interesting topic Ygrec23

I would say that most people would go crazy in solitary confinement. They don't call it torture in most countries for nothing. It has nothing to do with individual personality, it's just how we're built as a species. We need other people to regulate our own moods. To some extent maybe the meaning of our lives comes from the values and the judgments we take from society.

Aside from that I can understand the drive to be solitary. Isolation can mean creativity and independence. But I think what bothers most people is the feeling that they can't access others if they need to. There are a lot of people in this world who for social, emotional or geographic regions just can't get their needs for company or conversation met met. And it's painful. I think most people want to know that there is someone out there.

Just the other day there was this newspaper article about the last survivor of an Amazonian tribe. All of his family and friends had died out. This man lives all alone in the jungle. He has nobody to talk to, can't access medical help or modern facilities unless he travels 100 miles. To me, that would be a form of torture. But for someone who feels like they are keeping alive the values of their culture, it may be very different.

In any case I think the point is some people strongly value being connected, some people less so. Depending on that you may feel one way or the other about loneliness. But we all need people at times.

Loneliness is just a feeling, no matter if one is alone or not. Frankly, I felt quite lonely today. Some friends of mine were around, and I was longing for someone to talk to. Everyone was busy talking with other people though, so I stood alone. I probably would have jumped in with a perky "hello" to one of the conversations or something to that extent, but I was feeling down. I lack rest from the past few days, and I'm so tired, I don't care.

Perhaps, having the sort of lone feeling is just a feeling of longing for a specific something. I could text message a friend of mine saying "Yes, I'm alone, but not lonely" had I been in a better mood. Plus, if I were in a better mood, I wouldn't even be talking to my friend, even if I was all by myself. I would have done something else to occupy my time. So, I too, am not bothered by being in a solitary or isolated state.

So, I'm starting to believe that lower moods contribute to the feeling of being lonely..
Anyone agree?

Hmm, and I'm thinking about the solitary confinement. I feel a good number of those who must go into confinement already has some sort of disability that would make them feel alone. Say I, a person who, for now, is without any diagnosed mental disorder/disease/etc, is put in there though. I like to think often, but eventually, I'd think about being all alone and how nobody else is around. And so forth...

Conclusively, I think it's not about being alone, it's about thinking too much into how lonely one is...

Somewhere, in some biography of him that I read a long time ago, the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's family was described pretty much as follows: everyone had their own room, everyone stayed in their own room, and everyone had their meals delivered to their room on a tray left outside the door. I can conceive of that, though my own family ate together at dinner time, discussing solely and only purely intellectual topics from my father's daily reading: Reinhold Niebuhr, Bertrand Russell, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles Sanders Peirce, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, etc., etc. Nothing even slightly personal. I never even knew what my father did running his company during the day. Not the slightest detail. Nor were any of us asked about what had happened in school or what we had learned that day. My parents, both mom and dad, were kind of proud (if that's possible) not to be people who reflected on themselves, not to be among those who thought (critically or not) about their own feelings or personalities. In the many years since then I've come to suspect that this may well be unusual. And for all I know it may have something to do with not being lonely. Take care!

At first i was not going to respond to this inquiry. Loneliness is a feeling that involves feeling connected to other people, other loved ones. If neglect occurs at some point in a person's life...friends at school, church,home, the loss of this connection is felt. If you were to pass away would it matter to you if no one in the world cared? Older people suffer loneliness when the have less of a purpose or function in life and when many of their friends and family which helped give their life meaning have passed away before them.
Loneliness is not really about being alone so much as feeling disconnected from the world.
Solitary confinement is different. Many people get scared when faced with their own thoughts. Silence can force an internal look at one-self. Too often people criticize what they see in themselves negatively. This negative criticism sometimes is learned from the media, family and friends talking about others, and provoked by chemical imbalances. In general people were designed to be social creatures. It is important to have a community, or family, or group where the individual has a purpose, a function, within that group. This gives them meaning. So when alone it is okay...may even be preferred as a result of the meaning found from being part of the group, or community.
It occurred to me after reading all the posts that you were genuinely interested, not really poking fun of those who experienced loneliness. You both, Opaq... and Ygec..., might ask Doc John to explain what is loneliness.

Ygrec That's an astute pondering,I'd be curious to know as well.Somehow I would think that either a sort of behavior modeling occurred....or genetics were involved?It'd be hard to say .But I imagine that irregardless what sort of household I grew up in,unfortunately I was "drawn this way"...ie...as a person who feels deeply and requires alot of human interaction and stimulation.I feel positive that seclusion would create an irreconcilable madness within me.My brother was raised by my father...and my father ...hmmm....created in him a severe lack of need for other humans.My mother raised me and I am the opposite.I suppose that exposure to modeled behaviors appear in our case to be highly contributory.

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.

Not at all.

I like feeling disconnected.

I don't feel that way.

What you say is true.

I wouldn't DREAM of poking fun at lonely people. It's OBVIOUS that they're hurting.

It occurred to me this morning that it's possible that when I was a baby, the human feelings generated in me by my mother and my brother (both of whom had huge, huge problems) were sufficiently unpleasant (they certainly were so later on, after memory began) to make me recoil from human contact and take refuge in self-isolation. Hence the (at least surface) immunity to loneliness.

I thought of this possibility in connection with another realization at the same time: though I do very well on academic work and all kinds of formal tests, I have little or no automatic insight into other people's thinking, sayings or doings. I have (I think) reason to believe that other people have much more automatic understanding of the minds of people with whom they associate, whether as family, as friends or as co-workers. From what I read in developmental psych this understanding is based on interactions with mom as a baby.

I believe that underneath it all, I have as much insight into others as the average person does. However, there's something in my mind that refuses to "go there." To some unconscious part of me, knowing or suspecting other people's thinking, emotions or feelings is threatening. I just don't want to know. And I believe that goes all the way back to near the beginning. So my "happiness" with isolation would really be satisfaction with what's second-best, in the sense that I'd probably be "happier" were I entirely convinced that human contact is a pleasant, enjoyable thing.

And being here on PC, exchanging posts and PM's with all of you, is human contact with heavy protection against real intimacy in the sense that we don't get closer to each other than the written word. For me, that's acceptable and enjoyable.

Does this make any sense to any of you? Does anyone out there "enjoy" the same condition?

Take care!

What if you want connections but feel you cannot have them because of something wrong with you, something that would make other people not have anything to do with you? Suppose you drew that conclusion from your childhood, where when you wanted connection that want was forcibly rejected?

That is loneliness.

I used to be that way: I had the impression that I had no idea why people were the way they were. That has changed.

I have been intrigued about this topic, Ygrec, since you brought it up, and I have been pondering it. However, that said, I am still sort of talking off the top of my head in my response and might even ramble a bit. But here are some thoughts I have:

I think humans were created to need each other. In the Biblical account of Adam in Genesis, he expressed that he was lonely, since no other creature God had made met his needs. So, God created Eve.

Whether someone takes this account literally or as a myth, I think it is correct. Man is not meant to be alone.

That said, I do agree that early childhood experiences play a major role in how we end up relating to other people. For example, children who are abused might end up with a lot of mistrust of others and feel more comfortable being alone. Also, though, children who are abandoned, literally and/or emotionally, might develop borderline personality disorder. I know from experience that people with BPD often do not want to be alone and that their major fear is abandonment. And, the lifestyle that we get comfortable with as a child can certainly carry over into adulthood, as in the examples given of children who spent lots of time alone and whose parents did not encourage emotional intimacy.

My belief is that the most emotionally healthy people can be comfortable being alone, because they are comfortable with themselves, but they also enjoy sharing themselves with others. Maslow said that "self-actualized" people did have only a few friends, but they were close to them.

We all know the stereotype about "loners." Most every time we hear about someone who does something like kill a bunch of other people, that's the way they are labeled. I'm not sure if they started out just being loners or if their unusual behavior turned other people away.

I can't say how I would react if I were in solitary confinement for a long time. In fact, I don't know that any of us would know for sure until that happened to us. I do know that prisoners of war who are separated from others often report that they survived by thinking about the people in their lives.

I do believe that our individual (innate) personalities also play a role. As was mentioned, for example, the traits of introversion and extroversion could be factors. Introverts need some time alone to recharge their batteries, and the opposite is true of extroverts. But, still, I think both types need time with other people. BTW, introversion is not the same as shyness.

As Barbara Streisand sang, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." I believe that the ideal is to be able to find some "kindred souls," who understand us and accept us. Friendship is generally built on mutual interests. I do find that being on PC helps me because I can relate to folks who know what it's like to be mentally ill and accept that aspect of me. I can be myself here. I have close friends IRL, though, some who are "normal" and one who is also bipolar. I can talk about being bipolar more, though, with my friend who shares that disorder.

Well, these are my random thoughts. Maybe I won't be ostracized for my remarks!

Good topic ygrec!

For me there is a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. The first is a state of being - I'm either with other people or I am by myself. The latter is an emotion. I have been in a crowd and felt lonely. I was told my therapist I was tired of feeling lonely in my marriage. For me loneliness comes from a lack of connection with other people. I live alone and love it. I appreciate the solitude and quiet. I do not feel lonely when I am home by myself. Conversely, I work with people who go out of their way to exclude me from socializing at work. There are times I feel lonely at work becase of this. Does that make sense?

I think it was sociologist David Reisman who wrote a book called "The Lonely Crowd." We can be in a roomful of people and still feel lonely. We just don't feel a sense of connection.

As far as wanting to be with other people, but not feeling that we're worthy, or feeling that we'll be rejected, or being too shy, and so on, I think that's where therapy can play a major role. We can develop a greater sense of esteem and become less shy, for example. I used to be pathologically shy, but believe me, after years of therapy, I can talk with the best of them and even stick my neck out IRL and here in asking people to be my friends. I have had one person who has "defriended" me since I have been here, and that has bothered me, but I can see from the person's posts why that happened. All we can do is try to reach out to others. If we get rejected, and we all will at some point, then that's just part of life. Unless we take chances, then we're not going to make those connections that we desire.

If you'd like to try me out as a friend, then just read my profile and see if you're interested! I see so many people here who do say that they are lonely and there's even a group for lonely people.

How did you change it?

Interestingly enough, the French language has no special word for "loneliness." When they have to translate the word "lonely," they use the adjective "seul." But "seul" basically means "alone," not lonely. I wonder what the situation is in other languages? Take care.

I think by getting up the courage to believe in myself enough to dispute some of the things I was brought up to think about myself, and to dispute what some other people thought I was. It developed into a period where my former anxieties seemed to be removed, my thoughts formerly suppressed could flow cleanly, and with that flow of thinking I could understand what other people were doing.

But, this led to rejection (by my therapist) and a devastating breakdown, during which I experienced a lot of things I had only read about in fiction before -- terrible things. So I learned that I had a lot of terrible potentialities too, and how people in general can suffer. Finding those things out about myself also enabled me to understand other people.

Maybe I had to live through some of that, at least in my head, to understand it really.

Pach said: (in blue)

Hmmm. I don't think I'm even there yet. When anyone criticizes me I always think they're right. I mean always.

That certainly sounds good.

How could such negative things flow from what very much sounds like such a positive, previous turn of events?

Hmmmm. I do agree that there's an immense, IMMENSE amount of suffering out there, in every society. But to my mind there are quite a large number of others out there (a minority, but still appreciable) who, for one of a large number of reasons, aren't suffering, or who are INFLICTING suffering on others!

Well, I think perhaps you have gone beyond me and know things I don't. Of course, that happens all the time. We're all endowed with different experiences, wisdom and knowledge, and (for me at least) being able to learn from others who, like you, have OTHER experiences, wisdom and knowledge, is the great advantage of living in society and not being, entirely at least, a lighthouse keeper.

Take care. And thanks.

I can't give you a definitive answer, but I'd like to make an observation. You say you've always been perfectly happy to be alone and it never palls, but according to your own post, you got married; you are married. Sure, people, particularly people in unhappy marriages, often claim to be "alone" and/or "lonely" even when their partner is in the same room. (And I don't mean your marriage is unhappy, but of course some marriages are). But the fact remains that they really aren't alone (although they can be lonely). But they aren't alone. If you think you can't help your wife with her loneliness and you have intellectually dusted your hands of her emotional state because you can't wrap your head around what loneliness is, you could ask her what you can do to help her with her loneliness. I don't believe we have to understand everything about someone to help them, particularly if we are open to the idea of asking how we may help.

EXCELLENT post! You are quite right. I do have the benefit of my wife's company, however introverted I may be. No, I do not feel alone or lonely. And as you say, I may be ignoring my wife's contribution in that regard. As for what I can do about her loneliness, you are correct: I should ask her. And do what she asks me to do. What you say is true: we don't have to understand everything about someone in order to help them. I do thank you for your response. Take care.

Hmmm.. if someone asked me if I was lonely, first I would answer NO, because I don't want or feel the need for any friends.. I like being alone. Then, I would say- sometimes YES I am lonely, because I AM in a marriage that I wish did not make me feel lonelier- because I have an expectation that it should at least live up to the little that I need to not to feel lonely, if that makes any sense.

But I think one thing we are missing here, is defining what exactly is "NOT being lonely". What is the opposite of lonely? That is subjective, depending on what the definition of loneliness is to you- what you are used to , or what you expect, or think you should expect or want.

A few years ago I would have said that I was lonely because I SHOULD have more friends. Now, I am thinking that it's just fine if I don't want that. In a way, it takes lots of pressure off of me.. it makes some of my perceived issues easier. And so what's wrong with that? It isn't up tp anyone else to decide where the line crosses, since we all have different comfort zones and/or the need/or lack of interaction with other people.

I am not lonely of people, really.. I am lonely of creative energy and peaceful acceptance.

To me it's always turned out to be about conflict: for instance, wanting to be with someone (for whatever "reason") and not wanting to be with them (for whatever other "reason") and (usually) on top of that, thinking I must feel that way for the wrong "reasons".

We only feel lonely when around others, but never whilst alone.

As I said, my therapist at the time rejected the experiences I had found extremely positive, and suggested to me that they were signs of illness. He called into question, in my own mind, what I thought I knew, and that led eventually to a massive breakdown.