Loneliness!

[Stefan Romir]

I long ago cornered the market on detesting it.

[InbetweenDreams]

@Stefan Romir I still think it would be helpful to know why it is that you cannot have a visitor and that you are unable to go out. While I certainly am not looking to be in your business but to better understand why that is or why you think that you cannot have those things.

I don't know how to cope with being alone or without social interaction and be isolated.... and I'm pretty introverted. So I don't have any good answers because loneliness is a feeling. People who have many friends, a relationship can also feel very lonely.

It's how you cope and what you do with your time...

This guy has been in this iron lung since 1952. He is paralyzed from childhood polio. He still did a lot of things all from the confines of that iron lung. This is not to make you feel bad but that you can achieve a lot in a bad situation. I don't know what your situation is and of course you don't have to share it, but there are ways to deal with feeling lonely and there are things you can do about your situation even if it is small.

[Stefan Romir]

I appreciate the truth in what you say. For security reasons (related to other members, already here, and who know me by a different name) I can't. These others know me and the missing details very well, but they know nothing of my sexuality. If I include the missing details and they see them, one day, they would know who I am, immediately. I'm "OUT" to nobody I know, offline. Without publishing the details that complicate my life so much, they'd never work out who I am, and notice WHERE...I am. It's an annoying truth that I must observe, and safeguard against happening. Life is far too complicated!

[calgor]

Well, here I am, again...clinical depression and I'm, as usual, alone!  I wish there was a way of getting rid of loneliness, without having to have company - I can never again have that, at all.  The silence is one of the most notable symptoms of loneliness during the graveyard shift, and putting music on has no effect.  How does a person actually plan the future years of their life when they know that they can never again be in the company of anybody?  I'm almost aware that there is no way to plan such a bizarre period of life, ahead of time.  No matter how many times I post, here, about this, the lack of solutions will not increase in number, from zero, but...it still helps. 

I used to welcome wrong number calls on my phone, but that only happens around once every 5 years, now.  I must be the only member who has had a 20 minute chat about mental health troubles...with a wrong number caller.  That was years ago, too, and is typical of my loneliness and my lack of dignity. Sometimes, I trigger the sound of old answerphone messages, because I get to hear familiar voices and I get to pretend that they are with me, for just those seconds, or so.  I just desperately need what nobody can give me, because the remedies are nowhere to be found, anyway. 

Just...knowing somebody knows I'm there!  That's a good start, for me...just that somebody, without a listenable voice, but with printed words, is at least out there.  I feel like one of those radio DJs in movies about the end of the world, wanting to reach out and hear the voices of others, but finding that there are so few left, they feel like giving up.

During previous periods of this unbearable loneliness - many years ago - I used to try to get an acquaintance/friend to "parallel watch" with me.  We'd agree a time, in the evening, at which we'd start the same film: their home and at mine, because they'd expressed an enjoyment at watching some of my own favourite films. 

That is the closest I can get to enjoying entertainment while being alone.  Just...knowing that they were watching the same scenes that I was made me feel so much better, but only for the duration of the film, of course.  After a while, I found out, from some of them, that they had been lying and had not parallel watched anything at the same times as I did, because I'd phone them, after the film was finished, and ask them what they thought of it.  Their answers were too lacking in the slightest knowledge/memory of what happened with characters and story lines.  So, that fell flat on its face, with all of them, in the same month.  These are the same people who expect help, or advice, from me when they have problems, but who are never there when I have my own!

To me, while watching films:  (1) those locations are places for me to be; (2) those situations are things to distract me and keep me moving and thinking; (3) those characters are people with whom I can keep company.  Movies, for me, are never merely movies.

When I go, I want it to matter that I was here.  I want to be able to say that I have friends - real friends, that I have achievements that some might actually remember, about me.  There is none of those.  I am beginning to realise that I've achieved nothing, life-long.  I can't leave behind anything that I've ever built or otherwise created, and it's a terrible feeling.  I've had contact with some of those who went to the same high school as did I.  I look at their lives, their successful careers, their marriages, children and grandchildren, and I can't add anything like that to my own list...because there's no list, for me.

To phone the Samaritans, or any other people we can call, is not helpful.  It takes up to 20-30 minutes to get through to them, and, by the time I've given them the basics, to help them understand how I'm feeling, they come out with, "Oh, I must go, now, in case others are trying to get through."  The ringing tone and repetitive message lasts longer than the phone calls to them!  What's the point of them?

I just realised that...this post is like putting pressure on people who can't help me.  But, I need to do posts like this, now and then.  Deathly silence and never to have company again?  Being able to create anything, like a post, is better than sitting here, wondering if all of this will ever change, or...how it could change, if it could.

If you've read this far, thank you for keeping my words company at the reading end, as they were company for me, at the writing end!

SR.

Your mention of wanting someone to share watching a movie with brings to mind twitter again. There are a lot of groups that watch movies together and converse about them using a common hashtag. Just as one example fans of Turner Classic Movies use #tcmparty You can usually find people there around the clock talking about the movie that's currently on or just talking movies in general.

[Stefan Romir]

Thanks, for that...it's worth remembering.