Loneliness!

[Stefan Romir]

I always thought that I was fine with the fact that I was a bit of a hermit, living on my own, no family near me, and only really knowing work colleagues in the city where I currently live. Then the Covid lockdown happened and I was suddenly working from home and completely cut off. The only face to face interactions being with the shop assistants at my local supermarket for months on end.
This forced isolation soon triggered bouts of loneliness, on a level I'd never experienced before. I managed to get through it by increasing regular phone contact with my family, almost daily chat with my two best friends on chat platforms whilst gaming online in the evenings, and also interacting with old friends and new members on here (Andy kindly reinstated this forum after it had been closed for several years, not long after the lockdown started).

Your situation sounds even more restrictive, from what I've read, due to your medical condition. I don't know what options are open to you, whether you are able to have regular virtual chats with family and friends. I'm guessing you might have regular contact with Healthcare staff perhaps, if your medical needs require that? 
I'm wondering whether there are any virtual support groups they can put you in touch with, for folks in a similar situation?

Reading helps me too. I can get lost in a book for hours on end, completely immersed. The characters I'm reading can become friends for a while, but I'm a bit sad like that 

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There is nothing sad about doing that...I do it, with movies.  

Stefan R.

[CellarDweller]

What is catfishing?

It's when you connect with someone online, and an online relationship develops, but the person misrepresents themselves. You think you're talking to a gay man in his late 40s, and it turns out that you are talking to a straight woman in her 20s. They can sometimes do this with more than one person at once.

[Stefan Romir]

What is catfishing?

It's when you connect with someone online, and an online relationship develops, but the person misrepresents themselves.  You think you're talking to a gay man in his late 40s, and it turns out that you are talking to a straight woman in her 20s.  They can sometimes do this with more than one person at once.

Oh, okay...some folk lead such sad lives, if they have to do such a thing...money scams, I can believe, but I never do!

[Stefan Romir]

Loneliness appears to be hooked into a mood, but it's not always obvious what that mood would be.  It appears to ride on the back of a mood, and be more noticed during that mood span.  In itself, it feels nothing like a particular mood.

Depression is supposed to bring about a feeling of loneliness, even when the sufferer is in a room full of people, but I've never experienced that, myself.  My own brand / type of loneliness is the original 'on-my-own' version.  It's not like an emotion, in itself...it's more like an absence of a cluster of other, more comforting, enjoyable emotions (running very well together) that we label "loneliness".

[Stefan Romir]

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.

[ChadCoxRox]

You are clearly cerebral and I like it! I'm not sure why you'd choose to suffer without recourse beyond a post or two, but I can personally and professionally attest to the power of some good psychotherapy, with both pharmaco- and talk therapies to effectiveness devise and implement a plan for recovery. You can even do this right from the privacy and painful comfort of your solitude!

Better Help Online

[Stefan Romir]

Thanks, Chad. The "Better Help Online" would cost £40 - £70 per week and that is completely out of the question, for me.

In the UK, such therapy is free, but I've seen a fair old few, over the years, and they're really not a great solution. The greatest benefit that they were, to me, was that there was someone new to have phone conversations with, once a week, or month.

I'm tired, right now...bad night. I'll be thinking more clearly, tomorrow, maybe.

Thanks, for the response.

[ChadCoxRox]

Therapy is a tool for you to use and if you can't see a professional therapist, then you might consider alternatives like peer supports.

The main thing is to build in some external accountability so you have safe challenge to be more to you than what you have become accustomed too if it's a pattern of discomfort. The peer support may be innocuous like a choral group or book club or more recovery focused as I would recommend.

Get some damn help and don't rationalize excuses.

[Stefan Romir]

I like the idea of peer support groups, except that I'll never be able to be with any of them. It still sounds pretty good, as an idea. I've always found that ordinary people know a lot more about mental illnesses than the experts, anyway.

[ChadCoxRox]

I like the idea of peer support groups, except that I'll never be able to be with any of them.  It still sounds pretty good, as an idea.  I've always found that ordinary people know a lot more about mental illnesses than the experts, anyway.

If you approach and establish, it can all be contained on the net and phone. I detest the idea of you're being SO utterly isolated..