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  • #366565
    Alice
    Participant

    Hello,

     

    I’m wondering if anyone has any insight to share that might help me please. I feel lonely every day. An inner loneliness that is with me whether I am doing my job or chores around the house or if I am just sat down on my phone doing nothing. It makes me feel like nothing works as I’m lonely if I do all the things suggested like exercise, eat right, have a clean house etc and lonely if I dont do those things. Nothing makes it go away.

    Recently I feel like life is like a fruit machine and I’m pressing all the buttons on life but none of it is lining up and I’m not getting out of it any joy or lightness, though I am trying my best. Around me people seem to have the knack of using the machine but I dont.

    I am not close to my family (geographically or emotionally). I do have some close friends in terms of them being there for me but they are busy with kids and their own lives so it’s not like we talk that often. I have often been called high maintenance so I do feel I have a high requirement for emotional connection and deep conversations. I struggle to find anyone that stays in my life to have this kind of connection with.

    I am reaching out to see if anyone else has felt like this and if anyone has any suggestions of what to do about it.  I feel like I could submerge myself in tv or googling or  fill my schedule with jobs but the outcome would still be the same – I would still feel an inner restlessness, gnawing at me and the feeling of being alone. It’s very frustrating and demoralising.

    I was in the supermarket earlier and I just felt so alone, everyone was going about their shop and I almost cried with my groceries at the till. Like how is this all that there is?!!

    I dont have anyone atm I have a deep emotional connection with, but I also think I have felt this void type loneliness my whole life. Like the feeling I ought to be somewhere else and I have not felt that feeling only a handful of times so I am thinking the problem is probably me. Any help or suggestion  for improvement for quality of life would be so appreciated. Even just to know it’s not just me who feels like this or from someone who has felt like this and then come out of the other side. Life feels very pointless and plain boring right now.

     

    Thankyou for reading this.

    #366576
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alice:

    “I am reaching out to see if anyone else has felt like this”: “Loneliness.. Nothing makes it go away.. an inner restlessness, gnawing at me and the feeling of being alone.. so alone.. I felt this void type loneliness my whole life. Like the feeling I ought to be somewhere else.. Life feels very pointless and plain boring right now”.

    I’ll tell you about the loneliness I’ve known for year and decades, and you can tell me if it is similar to your loneliness: time seem to go on forever, a whole eternity stuck in a day. Or in a night. Time does not move like the air flowing, it is stuck like solid, heavy. Looking out the window on a summer evening, seeing couples walk hand in hand, going somewhere, while I am going nowhere.. I want to be them, I want to be there.. laughing, crying, whatever they do, loving too. But I am stuck where I am, exiled from life, watching it but not living it.

    ???

    anita

     

    #366590
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Alice, you write very poignantly. Loneliness can be very isolating. You wrote that others call you high maintenance and I wonder what your definition of this term would be? The lack of human connection has depleted you. What do you think makes it hard to make friends? Like you, I am a deep thinker and most people can not relate. They want sound bites and slogans where I want depth and honest respectful discussion down to the bones of the issue. I am also displeased with how hateful people have gotten to others in the USA, lack of respect and kindness is endemic as is blaming. So it’s hard sometimes for me to find good friends. Can you relate to this, or does high maintenance mean something else? To me it means someone who takes and doesn’t give, who needs constant attention and validation or praise. Who calls all the time to just drone on and one without caring what is happening to the other person in their life. If your deep nature is the issue, look into indigo children and indigo adults. Maybe a path of reading books from the public library to teach yourself new things, history, philosophy, etc. Join a book club or discussion group (on zoom). Perhaps you’d be happier doing more giving, like serving at the food bank or animal shelter to help get out of the constant thinking. If you’d like to respond to any of the things I have mentioned or Anita has mentioned, please do.

    #366655
    Alice
    Participant

    Hello anita,

    Thankyou for writing back. I relate very much to what you said here:  Looking out the window on a summer evening, seeing couples walk hand in hand, going somewhere, while I am going nowhere..

    I feel like I am living on reality and not IN reality. Like almost being on the surface of life, rather than diving in. Its perhaps loneliness plus the feeling of living the wrong life or being very unsettled and restless where I am so I look out on others happy relationships or success or marriages and feel jealous but dont know how to create that in my own life or even if I should or deserve to. I would say it’s a lack of inner peace feeling that is with me all of the time unless I am asleep.

    I have felt lonely my whole life. I hated school and didnt have anything in common with my parents so I was very alone then. I feel very alone now still. I do have a boyfriend and some good friends but no one i feel actually emotionally is close to me and wants to understand me. I am responsible for that too as I do tend to push my boyfriend away at times as it doesnt feel right being with him always. At the same time i feel my boyfriend is too much on the surface of life too and doesnt seem to want to connect emotionally. It’s like we are talking two different languages.

    #366656
    Alice
    Participant

    Hello Rose of Yellow,

    Thankyou for taking the time to write to me. I agree with your defintion of high maintenance which was:  someone who takes and doesn’t give, who needs constant attention and validation or praise. I feel I am needy and do like a lot of attention and feel lost without praise. It is not a good part of me and I have been trying to be more self sufficient.

    Thankyou for your reply about indigo children. I had not heard that idea before so had a google. I am not sure I am an indigo child, in the past i had thought maybe i was more “old soul” as I’m a Capricorn but actually I feel i can be very stubborn and immature and naive in life so I think that’s probably not actually true.

    I just have like a ball of loneliness wherever I go. I could spend the whole day with colleagues and get in the car to go home and want to just cry as it feels like no one has actually “seen” me even though they would be talking to me about work etc. Or I can be at my boyfriends family parties and just feel invisible and like I want to run upstairs and cry in the bathroom. I just dont feel connected to anyone really. I had an ex I felt so emotionally connected to but he is married now with children but it’s like I’m trying to look for THAT feeling everywhere and getting frustrated and sad I can’t find it again.

    Thankyou for your suggestions about doing things that interest me, learning new things and attending a book club. I have thought of joining a book club for a while so it’s a good incentive for me to do that now. I also read alot of philosophy and spiritual books currently or books about loneliness too. Thankyou again for replying.

    #366664
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alice:

    I want to try to understand how you felt as a child, growing up with your parents, by repeating your words in a different order, and adding in parentheses my words/ changing of a few pronouns:

    I am not close to my family, emotionally; no one emotionally close to me and wants to understand me, to connect emotionally. No one has actually ‘seen’ me even though they would be talking to me. (I) feel invisible and like I want to run (away) and cry in the bathroom. I am needy. I need attention and validation or praise, feel lost without praise. (Don’t) have anything in common with my parents. It’s like we are talking two different languages. I just don’t feel connected to anyone really. It doesn’t feel right being with (them), the feeling of living the wrong life. I look out on other happy (homes) and feel jealous but don’t know how to create that in my own life or even if I should or deserve to.

    I feel an inner restlessness, gnawing at me, the feeling of living the wrong life or being very unsettled and restless, a lack of inner peace feeling that is with me all the time unless I am asleep. An inner loneliness that is with me whether I am doing chores, or exercise, eat right, and lonely if I don’t do those things. Like a ball of loneliness wherever I go, nothing makes it go away. I have felt this void type loneliness my whole life. Being on the surface of life, rather than diving in, feeling I ought to be somewhere else. I’m not getting out of (life) any joy or lightness, though I am trying my best. How is this all that there is?!!.

    And now, my input: seems to me that you are still living (as so many of us) the same emotional experience that you had as a child, which is similar to mine. I will express mine as I think relates to yours: all the thoughts and emotions I had were not noticed by anyone, which amazed me  because I felt so strongly, and even stronger because no one noticed. It was like living in  a vacuum, a whole world of thoughts, emotions, fears, wants, hopes, desires, a living imagination.. and all of that trapped by a vacuum that surrounded me. No one sees me, no one hears me, no one notices. All the hurt I felt, and the anger.. they were all mine and mine alone, torturing me, and the desire to connect so strong, suspended in that vacuum.

    You wrote regarding your current relationships with friends and your boyfriend/ others, that you need “constant attention and validation or praise”, that you “like a lot of attention”- that’s because you got so very little attention, validation and praise. The desire for attention, validation and praise grew stronger and stronger in the years-long- absence of these things, as a child.

    “It is not a good part of me”, you wrote regarding needing so much- I say it is not a bad part of you, but a natural, understandable part of every human/ social animal: to need so much social connection in the context of a social vacuum. The less we are given of what we need- the more we want it. It is the wrong kind of life (“living the wrong life”) for any social animal to live in a vacuum. And it is “very unsettling and restless, a lack of inner peace feeling” for every social animal trapped by a social vacuum.

    “I can be very stubborn and immature and naïve in life”- the child in you stubbornly wants to get what she didn’t get then, and enough to make up for the severe lack. The child within you is immature- a child, a child who doesn’t know yet that we can’t get a redo of our childhood.

    I hope to read from you again.

    anita

     

    #366685
    Alice
    Participant

    Hello anita,

     

    Thankyou for writing back and your detailed analysis of my posts. That is exactly spot on. I do feel like I am reliving the past and struggle to motivate myself to do healthier behaviours. For example as a child I was often out of the house. I would either be at my friends and helping them with chores that their family were doing, or volunteering at animal sanctuary. Both of those things meant I was quite busy alot of the time. However when I wasnt volunteering or with my friend (or my friends had not wanted to be friends with me as happened later on in childhood) I used to just sit in my room feeling very very alone and sad. Like huge sad feelings and I wanted to escape those.

    This same pattern happens now. I am either very busy with work or hobbies or if for some reason I’m not busy e.g I’m feeling very unmotivated and sad then I tend to just sit on the sofa or lie in bed and do nothing. I am both hard working at times and very lazy.

    Also as a child I was compared to my richer, more popular, prettier, more talented, socially better next door neigbours, cousin and other children of family friends. I was always found to be less than e.g look at so and so why cant you be like that or see how so and so does that, do you want to do that. Sometimes it wasnt said that obviously it was more just a vibe or feeling I got. Like i wasnt the child my parents wanted to have. They wanted someone better. I also do the same now. Compare my life to others that i know or have heard about and feel like my life isnt any good.

    In terms of not reliving that childhood experience and not doing childhood again, what have you found to be the path forward in your own life?

     

    I very much resonated with the following words you wrote about your experience:

    all the thoughts and emotions I had were not noticed by anyone, which amazed me  because I felt so strongly, and even stronger because no one noticed. It was like living in  a vacuum, a whole world of thoughts, emotions, fears, wants, hopes, desires, a living imagination.. and all of that trapped by a vacuum that surrounded me.

    I like the word amazed as I felt that too. Like it’s like no one ever noticed how I was feeling and my parents would just rather sweep it under the carpet and not know. Or it was turned around e.g “you were always a difficult child” or I was told I was quirky etc and again just not the child they wanted. My feelings or emotions were never ever taken into account. Then I feel guilty now for not liking my parents or wanting to spend time with them.

    In terms of living in imagination, yes that was also an escape.  I read alot of books. I remember crying at the end of one of them as it was about the character having friends and I wanted that too. I tended to be drawn to books with strong families, like the Weasleys in Harry Potter. I just wanted to feel safe in my own family but I know it’s not a safe place.  I also used to pretend I had “friends” that were celebrities or something (in my head I didn’t talk to others about them) but we would have imagined conversations in my head. That lasted for a long while in childhood but not for the past 10 years or so I wouldn’t think.

    I felt like I walked around with one of those big hand signs like “this is wrong” pointing to my family but no one saw. It makes me very angry and I have been told by others in my life before that I am an angry person.

     

    #366681
    Ree
    Participant

    I feel like you guys went into my head and put my thoughts to paper for me. I have turned to God and put all my trust, faith and burdens to Him. This has helped but there are still times that it affects me.

    #366754
    Alice
    Participant

    Thankyou Ree. It is good to know in a way that other people feel the same as me, but at the same time its 100% not as I know how awful it feels.

    I am glad you have been able to find religion and something to hold onto to help you through. I do not believe in a religion itself per sea although I have tried to go back to church a few times but I just dont think it resonates with me. I do know people who are religious and it has helped them so hopefully you find comfort and peace in a higher power too.  Thinking of you and sending out good wishes. X

    #366760
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alice:

    I wasn’t aware until a short time ago that you posted yesterday, otherwise I would have responded to you yesterday.

    Because you were compared unfavorably to other children, you understandably formed this core belief: “I (am not) the child my parents wanted to have”.

    Core beliefs like this, based on the real-life experience of childhood, do not change because we grow older and become adults. Core belief are made of thoughts and emotions that were recorded in our brain as children, in the physical form of chemical processes. As an adult, a variety of daily experiences activate these processes, so we keep experiencing the same kinds of thoughts and emotions that we experienced as children. These core beliefs expand from the context of child-parents, to the context of child/adult- anyone.

    “In terms of not reliving that childhood experiences and not doing childhood again, what have you found to be the path forward in your own life?”-

    The path forward for me has been this (and I am explaining it with the advantage of being able to look backward from where I am now): it is a long, long path. It requires endless patience. It cannot be instantaneous. Clear rational understanding of my development as a child is not and cannot be enough to make a difference in those chemical processes I mentioned, because what was recorded in childhood is not only thoughts but strong emotions. Rational thinking and understanding cannot undo these powerful emotions. This is why it takes so much time and so much patience. Every time I had an aha moment, an excitement about understanding something I didn’t understand before, I thought that I got it, that now I am over this or that. But not so.

    The path is long, with twists and turns, ups and downs, and derailments. You come across a section that is flooded, figuratively, and you cross that part slowly and successfully, and you think that you are done with floods, but not so. You have to take breaks, no rushing the process. The more you rush the process, the more stuck you get, and the more time it takes.

    Let me know if this makes sense to you, and we can continue to communicate here for as long as you want to.

    anita

     

    #366804
    Alice
    Participant

    Hello anita,

     

    Thankyou for writing back and sharing your understanding of your journey.

    I realise it is a long path and do get frustrated at times that it isnt faster and I am not fixed or like (insert name of someone I think is wise) on my journey. I also know the feeling of learning things again and again and again until the lesson well and truly is learned and then probably again for good luck. It is very frustrating.

    I also know there are areas in my life that I am not learning actively e.g I feel and often am so lazy and out things off I know I should do but also other people would say I am not lazy and I am busy but I know, left to my own devices, I would struggle to get things done. I seem to go through peaks of great activity and then troughs when everything seems pointless. A small of example of this is my house. At certain times it is very tidy and I keep on top of it all and at other times it starts to slip and I think what’s the point as it always needs tidying again and again. A little example but I think it shows I am easily discouraged and often tired. The kind of tired where sleep and food does not help.

    In terms of childhood beliefs. Do you have any suggestions about changing those or being able to see them as things in the past. For example the one about not being my the child my parents wanted is based on real life fact e.g. they either directly compared me to others and said how I was lacking or kind of implied it so I KNOW that is true. How can you argue with the facts?

    In addition I am very scared of rejection and have been rejected over and over in my life by romantic partners, best friends etc so there is something in me or a behaviour or series of behaviours I do that I cannot yet see objectively or identify that pushes people away and so they leave. Again the belief of “people always leave” is also true as it has happened in my life over and over. I dont know how to deal  or move past beliefs which are true.

     

    At the moment I feel alot of shame and guilt for not living up to my potential at work or in my life. My house isn’t as tidy as I would like, my career isnt as good and I have not yet thought of a good business idea that would allow me to create something of my own making. I often feel like I am bogged down in the detail but dont see the big picture so I do do things e.g volunteering, work etc but it doesnt all fit together in a cohesive way somehow.

     

    I also feel very lonely every day. This makes it hard to be motivated and positive (although I can “put on” those things for a bit e.g  during a work task) as i feel quite negative and angry most of the time.

    I may be going off on a tangent here. These were the things that came to mind today. In terms of the journey. I appreciate it an intellectual sense that it will be long, emotionally I have been frustrated about the length before and the fact that after doing x or y I still feel the same inside. Where do you suggest I go now or start?

    #366821
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Alice:

    You are welcome. “I feel and often am so lazy… left to my own devices, I would struggle to get things done. I seem to go through peaks of great activity and then troughs when everything seems pointless… I am easily discouraged and often tired. The kind of tired where sleep and food does not help… my parents.. either directly compared me to others and said how I was lacking or kind of implied it so I KNOW that is true”-

    – The facts are that your parents thought that you were not lacking when you were not at all lacking. They were wrong. You know now that not everything that people think is true to reality. Imagine your parents thinking on the matter was wrong.

    “How can I argue with the facts?”- you did argue with what your parents presented to you as the facts: you tried to show them that you are not lacking. You tried hard, in so many ways, for so long, and you failed to change their minds and hearts about you. No wonder you got so very tired.

    You are still trying to show that you are not lacking when you are in those “peaks of great activity”, tidying your house, for example. Thing is, you are in the habit of trying and failing, so you get discouraged and exhausted, and you figure that trying is pointless.

    You may wonder how do I know that you are not lacking, and that your parents’ “facts” were wrong? My answer: if you were truly lacking, you wouldn’t have felt hurt  that your parents know what is true. You felt hurt because what they implied was not true.

    “In addition I.. have been rejected over and over in my life by romantic partners, best friends, etc. so there is something in me or a behaviour or series of behaviours i do that I cannot yet see objectively or identify that pushes people away so they leave”-

    I am sure this is true, just as there were series of behaviors on my part that pushed people away. But here is my point: those behaviors that push people away, are not the behaviors that pushed your parents away. They rejected you before those behaviors developed.

    “the belief of ‘people always leave’ is also true as it has happened in my life over and over. I don’t know how to deal or move past beliefs which are true”-

    Imagine the following (it is a crude imagery, but fitting): a flower, beautiful, wonderful fragrance in the garden; a sick animal approaches and vomits on the flower. The vomit dries out but the stink remains. Flowers nearby bend away from the smelly flower. Animals that walk by, move away from the stinky flower.

    Back to you: remove the stink of your parents untruths, and you will see that you were beautiful all along.

    “I still feel the same inside. Where do you suggest I go now to start?”-

    – go to a mirror in your house, look into the eyes of the woman in the mirror and ask yourself out loud: is it possible that I am not lacking, is it possible? But don’t try to answer this question, just hold the question in your awareness.

    Post again anytime.

    anita

    #367002
    Amrita
    Participant

    hi,

    I too deal with the very same feelings ,right along since i was a kid always felt that i was an unwanted child or people never need me… this very feel makes me go out of the way in working or doing things for people just for that appreciation that i am important at some place..

    How would i deal with such a feeling or situation?

    #367026
    Anonymous
    Guest

    * Dear Amirta: I suggest that you start your own thread: click FORUMS above, choose a CATEGORY, click it, scroll down the page to the empty boxes and type there. I will be glad to read and reply to you in your thread.

    anita

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