Loneliness! A word filled will immense desolation and emptiness. The feeling of loneliness is hard to explain as different people goes through different traumas. But when Pensive Stories asked a Clinical Psychologist, Rubina Jahan, she wonderfully explained loneliness. She said, loneliness is an emotion or our perception of getting detached from everything. Sometimes we feel like we don’t have enough social support or relationship or becomes unable to connect with others. And when a person goes through this feeling of isolation, emptiness, we can say he/she has entered in the loop of loneliness.
But the definition itself isn’t clear enough to identify our internal emotions and the feelings we experience while dealing with loneliness. That’s why Clinical Psychologist Rubina Jahan has provided Pensive Stories with some invaluable lessons and advice that’ll help us to know better and fight with this silent feeling.
Why do I feel lonely even when surrounded by thousands of people?
Often people think that I’m surrounded by thousands of people then, why I feel like I’m in the middle of a deserted island? Or there’s no existence of myself among all these people! Actually, loneliness can catch you anytime and anywhere. It’s all based on our perception of seeing things. For example, sometimes we feel lonely when we can’t get comfortable or find nothing in common with a group of people. But the next moment we may find someone who is the exact opposite of ourselves, but the conversation goes on! You can’t say how, where and with whom you’ll feel connected. And until that happens, you will continue to feel lonely even when within thousands of people!
Is loneliness a part of life?
We human beings are connected with an invisible wire or string. From the day we born and till death, we create numerous connections with different people. Some of them stay, some leaves. So we can say loneliness is a part of our life cycle.
Also, the realization of loneliness typically starts from the beginning of adulthood, when we begin to develop our perception of seeing things in a new way and develop an understanding of what we like to do or what’s right for me. And when we fail to achieve those or make a balance between those things, our loneliness begins.
How longer does loneliness stay in our life?
Our feeling of loneliness is more or less similar to everyone, but the intensity varies. You may feel lonely for a short period, and that’s somehow easy to overcome. Such as you may suddenly start to miss your childhood friends whom you haven’t met for a long time. But that feeling won’t last long, and it’s easy for you to divert your mind from those thoughts.
But when you start to find yourself alone constantly and couldn’t find anyone to express your feelings of the void feeling inside yourself is so deep that it’s becoming impossible for yourself to overcome. We can say you are suffering from chronic loneliness, and this isn’t something to avoid. Because chronic or long-term loneliness becomes a part of our life and affects our body and soul. And it’s hard to erase that negativity without the help of others or professionals.
Why do I feel like hurting myself when I feel Lonely?
When we fail to defeat our inner demon, many of us start to hold on the negative coping mechanism, and the most common form of that is “Self-harming tendency”. It typically occurs due to the chronic loneliness as not everyone is mentally strong enough to fight those negative feelings. It’s quite natural, and there’s no one to blame. But it not a solution as well. Sometimes it becomes so acute that a person has to seek professional therapy or medication. But if you don’t want to do that, then the simplest yet powerful solution for this issue is to discover yourself and make yourself important to you. Tell yourself every day that you’re enough for yourself and never give up to find new connections. And most importantly stop blaming yourself!
Be thankful!
And the last yet most valuable advise Pensive stories got from Rubina Jahan is, we need to be thankful for ourselves and whatever we have in our life. It’s okay not to be okay, but that doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t be better. We need to hold on our faith and hope for something good. Take your time, there’s no hurry, and hopefully, you’ll find something that’ll turn your sorrows into smiles!
Written by: Fahmina Ahmed Papia; Content Writer of Pensive Stories, Associate of HR & Finance, Voice of Business and Marketing Student of the University of Dhaka.