I have categorized nine different feelings associated with loneliness.
I will discuss each of these in turn.
Painful.
Loneliness is painful. Without a doubt, this was the most frequently
mentioned experience of loneliness. Words that have been used to describe
this type of pain include, hurt, sorrow, ache, sadness, depression, torn
up, bleeding, and broken. Clearly the pain is one in which the lonely
individual feels damaged, as though someone their spirit was crushed. It
hurts to feel lonely and it hurts even more because we don't have anyone
to share it with.
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Feeling lost, having
no sense of direction. Very interestingly, lonely individuals
described a feeling of being lost, and not knowing where they are going.
Other metaphorical words include things like darkness, night, blinded,
drowning, clueless, and lack of meaning. Why would we feel so lost when we
are lonely? I think it's because other people help give us a sense of
meaning and understanding of the world. When you have a problem that you
can't figure out for yourself, what do you do? You go and talk to someone
else about it. People help us to figure out what talents we have, we our
good points and our bad points are. In other words, people help us
maintain a sense of identity. When we are lonely, and no one is around to
give us support, we can begin to lose our sense of identity, no one is
there to point out our mistakes, to give us a different point of view, to
praise us when we do a good job. We can become encircled in our own
delusions and thinking without the benefit of others to break us out of
the vicious cycle. It is no wonder then that lonely individuals report
this feeling of being lost and confused, it's because there is no one out
there to maintain our sense of identity, our sense of self.
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A feeling of
nothingness. Another frequent feeling is that of nothingness. It
has also been described as a void, a black hole, an abyss, hollow, and
empty space. Basically there is a feeling that something is missing. When
we break up with someone we didn't want to break up with, or we are
missing someone we love dearly, we often describe that we feel a hole in
our heart, an emptiness somewhere in the space of our chest. What is this
emptiness that we feel? This emptiness is a hunger for others, for others
to be close to us, for others to love us. When we are hungry for food, our
stomach growls, we get an empty feeling in the pits of our stomachs, we
can't stop thinking about food, and sometimes it even hurts. In much the
same way, loneliness is a hunger for others, a psychological need that
must be satisfied. Aristotle called us social animals, in that we need
other people. When people are isolated, abandoned on a deserted island for
example, they make pseudo friends, in the case of Robinson Crusoe he made
friends of the animals there, and in the case of Castaway, he made a
friend out of a football. The need for people is a very real need, and
therefore when it is not satisfied, the feelings of hunger, of
nothingness, of a void is bound to occur as well.
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A persistent feeling.
For some individuals, loneliness has been an affliction that has been
going on for a very long time - one of the poets described it as going on
for years. In a previous section I made note of the difference between
state and trait loneliness. These individuals therefore experienced trait
loneliness. Why would someone experience loneliness over such an extended
period of time? There are several reasons. The first reason is that the
person is in an inescapable situation that is by its very natural
isolating. For example, a person whose job requires constant moving from
place to place, will probably not find the time to make secure friendships
and may experience loneliness. A second reason is that a person grew up in
a rejecting and/or abuse environment. In such cases, I believe, that
individuals develop certain mechanisms to help cope with loneliness. These
mechanisms usually involve put up personal blocks that protect one from
getting hurt by others by maintain a safe distance between all people.
These individuals learn not to trust anyone lest they get hurt. Because
they have developed these mechanisms, when they are older, they treat new
individuals and new circumstances in much the same manner. They construct
their social worlds to be one that is very isolating and lonely, but also
very protected from feelings of hurt (see also feeling no emotions as
well). A good trade off? I don't know.
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Loneliness can be
overwhelming. In some cases, loneliness can be overwhelming, so
overwhelming in fact that lonely individuals feel like they are about to
burst! There is a feeling of despair, not knowing how much more of this
painful loneliness one can take, feeling as if one is going to break apart
at any minute. How agonizing this must be! It's like blowing up a balloon
past its normal capacity. Lonely individuals may feel this way because
very often one is experiencing a wide variety of emotions and experiences,
and yet there is no one to talk to, no one to share it with. Imagine
having a problem with no one to discuss it with. Imagine making the
greatest discovery of a lifetime, and yet there is no one there to share
it with. These feelings may just be pushed down inside our minds, pushed
into a bottle as it were. But there is only so much the bottle can hold,
there is only so much our minds can handle. If we don't tell others, if we
don't share, if we don't let it out somehow, we may indeed burst. This is
why I feel that loneliness can be one of the most creative times in our
lives. It's because without the avenue of talking or sharing, we are left
mechanisms that are solitary. Such avenues include things like writing
poetry, artwork or even writing in a diary. These things may help to
subside some of our overwhelming feelings. No wonder therefore that I was
able to find 180 loneliness poems on the Internet. At these times we can
take the wonderful gift of art and communicate our feelings in ways more
vivid than ordinary conversations.
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Having no control over
loneliness. Some poets describe being unable to take control
over their loneliness. Sometimes loneliness is objectified into a person,
and loneliness takes on a personality all of its own. In this way it has
its own whims and fancies, it behaves in whatever way it feels like. Other
poets describe it as a jail, a prison cell, an inescapable reality,
anywhere they turn there is loneliness staring them in the face. In these
ways loneliness has grown greater than the individual. Individuals who
feel this way are probably not facing something important in their lives,
they are avoiding dealing with something. Several authors have suggested
that this type of loneliness has its roots in childhood, with feelings of
unfulfilled love and attachment, experiences so deep inside the person
now, that the demon that manifests itself as loneliness seems to have a
life and personality all of its own. Other times though, it may be that
the individual is trapped in a situation they would rather not be in. Such
is the case of the lover who has lost his/her love, the object of
affection is gone. These situations require us to accept the situation and
move on (more easily said than done!). In both cases though, loneliness
can feel like it is more powerful than you are.
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Feeling no emotions,
feeling numb. Cold, frozen, void of true emotions. These are
some of the descriptions that have been associated with feelings of
loneliness as well. It is almost as if we have shut down our emotion
center and perhaps may be we have. I have already discussed the fact that
loneliness can be very painful, overwhelming, resulting from rejection
and/or abuse. At some point in time, we may decide not to feel anymore, we
may become so overburdened with all the pain, the hurt, the sorrow, the
loss of control that we shut our emotion center down. We don't want to
feel anymore. In these instances, lonely individuals put themselves in
cold, frozen places where they don't have to feel anything.
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Feeling other emotions.
Several other emotions have been mentioned by the poets as well. These
include feelings of being scared and afraid, or angry or hatred. For some
people who have known what it is like to have close friends and family
around, being isolated and alone can be very frightening and scary. There
is a desire for comfort and security. Children, for example, sometimes use
their parents as a supportive base, and when strangers or danger
approaches they run back to their parents for security. In much the same
way this can continue throughout a person's life. When that security is
gone, and loneliness appears, it can also be a frightening time as well.
For other people though, there is a lot of bitterness and resentment.
Usually it is against the people who lonely individuals perceive have hurt
them in the past or present. It could be a ex-relationship, or people in
general or the world, but the underlying theme here is that the world has
hurt them and they are angry that it did. And so, in addition their
feelings of loneliness they also respond with feelings of anger.
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