Loneliness feels like my life doesn’t matter to anyone. As if it wouldn’t really matter if I didn’t wake up tomorrow. Yes, a few people would miss me. They’d remember me occasionally and think it was a shame I was no longer around, but no-one would have their life altered by my no longer being on this earth.
Loneliness feels like shrinking and shrivelling. It feels like my whole body is getting smaller from the lack of human affection, from the lack of loving physical touch from a fellow human to whom I matter.
Loneliness means those moments of human connection and time spent with people I love are more important than they have ever been for they literally sustain me. I can feel myself coming back to life, like a sunflower turning it’s head towards the sky. Then my friends go home, and the sun goes in, and I begin to shrivel. Again.
Loneliness is sitting in my own flat, alone, all day, interacting with voices or 2D figures through a screen. Some days, I don’t even speak to voices or 2D figures. I just hear the sound of my own thoughts, on repeat, endlessly, until I need to get out the house or put on a podcast for a change of topic.
Loneliness isn’t painful as such and yet it’s more painful than any illness I’ve ever been through. More painful than heartbreak even. It’s a dull, constant ache that literally makes my heart feel heavy and sad. At least with heartache there’s a sense that you loved and lost and that the pain will be over one day.
Loneliness is the feeling that I’m not really a part of anything. It’s the feeling that I’m disposable. That my work could be done by someone else. That my friends could find other friends. That I’ve nothing to share with the world.
Loneliness means that when others tell you your life is worth something the words are hollow, because you know it really isn’t. It isn’t a lack of self-worth that’s the problem. It’s a lack of human connection. It’s a lack of feeling like I’m building something or that I’m a part of something that matters. That I’m someone’s Mum, that I’m part of a community that depends on me, that I’m helping create something that others value.
Loneliness is all your friends having started their own families, seeing their joy, and wishing for that myself yet being unable to create it or find it. It’s the cold space in the bed next to me. It’s the quiet kitchen I cook in each night. It’s the mind-numbing TV until midnight because turning it off means facing the silence.
Loneliness strays into the territory of depression where well-meaning people say things like, “maybe a therapist could help”. Therapy, which assumes the problem is inside of me, when really it’s the lack of people around me.
Loneliness is the irony of living in a city of millions, and not being able to find a partner. Not being able to find something meaningful to be a part of.
Loneliness is having so much to share and no-one to share it with. It’s having to cope all on your own and having no-one to discuss decisions with.
Loneliness is having to pay for someone to rub your shoulders.
