You may be having 1000 contacts on your Facebook account. You may be meeting 50 new people at work each day. You may be having a complete family. But still you may feel emptiness inside you. For you are not emotionally connected to them. This is loneliness that a person can feel either temporarily or for a prolonged time. A lonely person goes through emotional and behavioral changes from time to time.
Loneliness is modern day epidemic despite more means of communication. The lonely feeling is masked by people because of the fear of being judged as unlikeable, a loser or weird by others that makes them hide their sense of aloneness, alienation or exclusion. It’s like being without aid and protection of others. It can hit anyone. Talent, financial success, fame, adoration offers no protection towards things a lonely person goes through.
Abraham Maslow in his five stages of human needs has placed the need for social relatedness or love and belongingness that motivates human behavior at third place. All want to be accepted and supported by others but if this very feeling is missing from a person’s life then it can result in loneliness and lonely people may turn to other means to fill their void and become a victim to many disorders.
An airhostess mentioned in her blog, ‘the dating apps-I hate them and yet I find myself falling into a pattern. There is an intense loneliness that settles in when I open a dating App. I keep asking myself ‘Why are you here?’. I delete the app and a day rolls by when I again fear my person does not exist in day-to-day activities and will only manifest his presence through my phone. So its swipe-swipe-swipe-match-look-contemplate-exit-think. This is lonely desperation’. Lonely people turn to dating apps for the feeling that someone likes and wants to talk to them that gives them a sense of belonging.
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“If we cannot connect with each other we will connect with anything we find”, said a heroin addict. He bonded with heroin as he could not bond as fully with anything else. Lonely people are more likely to get hooked to a drug or alcohol as they feel these are their best friends. They do this to avoid the reality that is filled with fear, denial and guilt. Lonely people may turn to substance abuse because they are lonely and they remain lonely because they are addicts. It’s a vicious cycle.
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Things lonely people go through are psychological too. Lonely people are not lonely because they do not know how to talk to people but because they are scared of messing up relationships. They feel they are unlikeable and unworthy of good relationships causing fear and anxiety about the process of forming them. They dread bad social experiences and lose faith that it is possible to enjoy good company. This results in more loneliness. The social interactions that lonely people have are not as positive as others hence the relationships they have do not help them to cope up with stress as relationships normally do.
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The finding of a research conducted on people ranging from 18 to 26 years found that more lonely and depressed the participants were the more likely they were watching television, using the activity to move away from negative feelings. The fictional drama helps to replace all the drama in lonely people’s lives while they are watching Tv. A great movie raises the dopamine level in any person’s brain that makes one feel better. This happy feeling develops a craving for more Tv in lonely people going through sadness in life.
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Lonely people are vulnerable to falling in wrong relationships knowingly. Despite knowing that a relationship with a married or engaged person, premarital or extramarital affairs are unrealistic still they fall for it for it makes them feel better than suffering alone. It may relief them for sometime but when the excitement fades away the consequences and truth of such relationships worsen their condition.
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Lonely people do not have any live person to bounce their ideas off, celebrate their success or narrate their day to day events so they talk to themselves as if someone is listening to them. They compliment themselves, encourage themselves to do something, take decisions and make goals all while self-talking. Talking to oneself respectfully not only relieves from loneliness but it also helps to clarify thoughts, makes the person smarter, firm up any contemplating decision and line up important things.
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People keep pets for the affection, companionship and fun it provides. Pets especially dogs helps to deal with frustration and loneliness. A lonely person goes through friendlessness and finds solace in company of pets. High attachment to pets is directly related to high level of loneliness according to a study. A dog provides not only emotional support but the lonely person also gets a chance to meet new people and pet lovers as a result of dog walking. Though, pet support may not be sufficient to compensate for insufficient human social support.
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Lonely people keep their lives so busy that their mind is always occupied with work and leaves no space to feel the loneliness. But this busy lifestyle does not relieve the loneliness in a person permanently though it can ease for a while. So instead of facing the reality and trying to build connections with their relations, they are running away from it.
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A Ph.D. scholar mentioned in his article, ‘Loneliness and sleep problems have plagued me since I was 7. My family moved twice in a year and I struggled to make new friends. Lacked self-esteem, plummeted shyness developed a pattern of persistent loneliness. Empty days matched with insomnia filled nights. Little changed as I grew older working from home, I spent hours in bed from sheer loneliness, then wandered the house at night and arose to work at 3 a.m.” Loneliness destroys quality of sleep. Lonely people wake up more at night and spend less time in bed actually resting. They may be due to a feeling of no safety, less structured lives and lacking stimulation to go to bed without feeling tired.
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Loneliness is major precipitant of depression. We are social animals and function best when our social needs are met. If this need is not met we suffer mentally and physically. Loneliness erodes our arteries, creates stress. High blood pressure and lessens learning and memory. Loneliness tears our emotional well being with its feeling of sadness, emptiness, isolation, deprivation. Loneliness precedes depression. And depression can increase the risk of suicide.
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