Loneliness is excruciating. Agonizing. Tortuous.

It would have to be one of the leading stimulants of depression, anxiety and a great number of other mental health struggles.

What is it about loneliness that is so painful? Why is it so hard to live with? Why is the burden of emotional isolation so crushing? And why is it that the more ‘connected’ we become with ‘friends’ on social media – or even in real life at times – the more solitary we feel?

For so many people today, isolation is the new norm. Our reservoirs of trust in the goodness of humanity are at an all-time low… and we feel the need to push people away to protect ourselves. We have exposed ourselves emotionally so many times… and been hurt beyond what words can describe.

Loneliness is rampant. On every hand, individuals are struggling to come to terms with feeling ignored, unappreciated, overlooked, despised and forgotten about.

We crave connection… we yearn affection… and we long for a warm cuddle with someone special. We just want to hear someone say ‘I love you!’ with all the sincerity they can muster.

Maybe there are many people in your life you can point to with assurance and say ‘I know for sure that they appreciate me and love me’. Perhaps you have a loving family… beautiful friends… and a loyal partner?

And yet…

You are slowly dying of loneliness. Your heart is atrophying and wasting away. In spite of your assets, your accomplishments, your house, your connections or any other material possession great or small, you feel that your life is losing meaning. Your energy is ebbing away.

‘Is life worth living?’ you ask yourself.

‘How much longer can I endure this torment and unrest before it finally overwhelms me completely?’ you muse negatively.

‘If only there was medication I could take to cure my great loneliness’ you ponder desperately.

The hollow emptiness that prevails in your life drives you to distraction.

Wait, did someone say distraction?

Oh, yes… that’s right. In our efforts to mitigate and appease the pain of loneliness, our minds turn to distractions to run from the anguish, to numb the distressing pangs of misery, to muffle the dull heavy thudding of an empty heart and to assuage the distressing ache of unrequited love.

Distractions. What do they do for us? What do they look like in real life?

Trashy reality TV… and binging on tacky TV shows for hours on end. Incessantly checking alerts on your phone. Days of morbid inactivity spent gaming online. Compulsively ingesting alcohol and drugs to dull your sensibilities. Scouring dating websites in an effort to find the love of your life. Consuming a vitriolic and turgid torrent of porn. Chronic internet browsing and lazy YouTube surfing. Clicking an endless tide of links directing you to life changing articles on the ‘5 cool tricks to be a millionaire by 30’ and ‘3 easy strategies to guarantee success in your life’, or ‘Take this pill and lose 20 pounds in 20 days’ blah, blah, blah…

Meh.

So what is the solution? What is the alternative to turning to distractions? Are we doomed to live a life of desolate solitude?

No!

The greatest antidote to loneliness is love and everything that stems from love: affection, kindness, happiness, compassion, peace, joy and patience. Any and every positive emotion, feeling and experience ultimately comes from love.

Think of your heart like a sponge. It is the body’s natural organ for dispensing and absorbing love. It gives us the means to foster and maintain a healthy buffer of ardor and passion which helps to avert us from being overwhelmed with the negativity all around.

What happens to a wet sponge in the process of time? Moisture evaporates and it dries out. Thus it is with the heart. We cannot let our hearts and affections lie dormant and hope that they will remain infused and brimming with love and energy. We must keep them constantly exposed to the gushing brook of good deeds, to the healing balm of pure motives and to the gentle dew of kind thoughts.

Now imagine our heart ‘sponge’ is dry, and we turn to distractions to alleviate the loneliness. Before very long our hearts are palpitating with a thick gunge of negativity and lethargy and we feel even worse than before.

Or, instead of distractions, our mind ruminates furiously with musings of envy, bitterness, anxiety, animosity, prejudice, victimization and self-pity. These thoughts have the same toxic effect on our hearts and leave us feeling emotionally destitute.

So… love. How do we get more of it? How do we keep our heart pulsing with the purity of true love?

Well, ‘love’ is a noun. But, wait… isn’t ‘love’ also a verb?! Yes! A doing word, a word involving movement, activity and action!

Love in operation is the surest way to ensure that we can consistently enjoy its healing and comforting balm in our lives. Love in operation means that we do loving things for others and think loving thoughts about others and say loving things where appropriate.

This, by necessity, includes a healthy love for ourselves. Which parts of our unique individuality can we look at with fond appreciation and affection? If you can find nothing then develop something within yourself that you can truly fall in love with. Achieve something, abstain from something or take action to get out of your vicious tailspin of failure and procrastination. Just do something that you can be proud of!

Something truly magnificent to consider is that love is its own motive!

Love negates selfishness, it dispels fears and calms troubled minds, it brings peace to the soul and overlays the path of life with happiness and joy; it inscribes a silver lining around clouds of disappointment and defeat and fills the lonely heart with comfort and contentment; it brings perspective to shattered dreams, healing to broken hearts and wisdom to the one confronted with exhausting unanswered questions.

May you, my friend, find true love in your life… and find that there is enough love to fill your heart to overflowing. May you see that love can be found and enjoyed in a greater way than you ever thought possible. True love never fails.

About the author: Cody has studied psychology and self-help strategies for many years and is very passionate about helping others to fulfill their potential and live happier lives. 

Why does it seem like no one likes me?

Why do I seem to not be able to keep the friends I make?

Have you ever noticed how some people seem to make friends like it is the easiest thing in the world? People seem to naturally like them and be drawn to them? Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try, no matter how ‘nice’ you are, no matter how far out of your way you go to accommodate people, you always feel like you’re stuck on the outside of other people’s ‘friendship bubbles’ peering in?

By far the most common issue with our member is feeling like nobody cares – that there is nobody to talk to and that nobody likes them. The struggle to make friends, whether you are still in school or whether you are an adult, is a very real one for many many people. You are far from alone if you feel isolated and lonely.

It is a well documented fact that loneliness is a deadly condition. It contributes to poor health, lower life expectancy and, of course, a massively increased risk of suicide. It is easy to conclude that there is something ‘wrong’ with us, especially when we compare ourselves with people we think are socially superior or quite simply more ‘likable’ than we are. Sometimes it’s easier to tell ourselves we are defective than it is to take a good hard look at our lives, figure out what the ‘real’ problem is, and take steps to fix it.

I Need to Talk To Someone

If you need someone to talk to – if you need some immediate social interaction and to not have to face the pain and despair alone, join our forums – we have hundreds of active members every day who understand exactly what it is like to feel like there is nobody to talk to, all helping and supporting each other.

Often online interaction is far easier for people who have spent a long time isolated and alone. Having time to think through what it is you want to say, being able to delete and reword things until you are happy with them, and even not having to be self conscious about body language and ‘looking awkward’ makes online friendships easier and less stressful for many people. But the truth is that online friendships, wonderful as they often are, do not make up for a lack of rel life human interaction. The first step to fixing any problem is to really understand what is causing it, so its time to ask yourself:

Why DO I Have No Friends?

People end up feeling friendless for a number of reasons, and none of them are that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. if you are isolated and lack social interaction, there is most likely a reason for it. I don’t know you – I don’t know anything about your life. But after years and years of talking to hundreds of our members who struggle with friendship and socializing, there are a few common reasons.

Social isolation is often caused by one or more of the “D’s” – Distance, Difference, Depression. For many people on SF, it is all of these things; they may have physically moved away from friends (or friends have moved away from them) or may simply be in a place where any social groups or activities are some distance away from them. Equally, they are often very different from their old friends, or from people who they meet in their day to day lives, making it difficult to strike up conversation of find common ground. The most common issue, however, is that their depression lies to them, causes them to isolate themselves from people either because they believe they are hurting them, or because they believe they are disliked and unwanted by everyone.

Distance

Distance is one of the hardest issues to overcome. Continuing friendships over a long distance takes a lot of commitment and energy and very often, much like Long Distance Relationships, friendships that involve a several hour journey to hang out do not stand the test of time. Even if they do, it is impossible to see that person on a week to week basis so it does not help with normal social interaction when our friends are so far away. If distance is a problem for you – if there simply are no people in your vicinity with whom to strike up conversations or find activities that you enjoy, you may need to take a serious look at moving. It is never as easy done as said, and takes planning and investment (both in terms of energy and often money) but sometimes it is necessary to treat finding a fulfilling social life the same way as you would treat finding a job. if there are no opportunities where you are, it is better to look at moving than it is to remain unemployed (or in this case, friendless). Distance is nothing you ‘did wrong’ but it is a changeable circumstance. Maybe not this week or even this month – but of all of the ‘reasons’ that people are isolated and friendless, it is often the easiest to fix.

Difference

Friendship is built, fundamentally, on having something in common with someone. If you do not have anything to talk about that both parties find interesting and engaging, you are going to struggle to have a genuine relationship. Similarly, if you do not like doing the same things, you are going to find it difficult to spend time together. You need to figure out what it is that you like to do, then work out where the people who also like those things are. Look for clubs, groups, activities. Go online and dedicate some time to research. Then go to those places. And, if what you come up with as a list of the things you like to do is along the lines of ‘play video games and get drunk/high’ then accept that in order to find meaningful friendships you are going to have to make meaningful changes in your life.  Ask yourself if you need to expand your horizons and find new interests and hobbies in order to make friends.

There is a long propagated myth that to be ‘liked’ and have friends, all you have to do is “be yourself”. Unfortunately this ignores the fact that social and cultural conventions evolve because there is an acceptable way to behave. People like people that they can relate to and understand. If you go out of your way to be different and to not ‘fit in’ then it stands to reason that you are, in fact, not going to fit in. It may be (however much you do not want to) that you need to take a look at yourself and the choices you are making and figure out if you are limiting your potential friendship pool by making a conscious choice not to be approachable or relatable.

Depression

Depression and anxiety lie to us. They tell us that people don’t like us, don’t want us around and that we are better off alone. This is by far the hardest issue to content with because it is not just a situation or a choice you are fighting – it is a mental illness. I have personally stayed home or avoided a social gathering more times than I can possibly count because I feel worried, out of place and convinced that people don’t want to talk to me anyway. From years talking to other people with similar mental health problems to me, it is obvious that I am far from alone.

People often become ‘friendless’ because they repeatedly turn down invitations or blow off events and people simply stop inviting them. It is understandable for people to feel that YOU are rejecting THEM when you stand them up or cancel them at the last minute, or simply refuse to make plans at all. By isolating ourselves, we push ourselves deeper and deeper into a situation we cannot climb out from and we erode our social skills by locking ourselves away.

If this is you – and there is no shame in it, if it is – the number one most important thing you can do for your feelings of isolation and loneliness is see a doctor – get help. If possible, get some skills focused therapy to help you rebuild your self confidence and your social skills. And, as often as you can, “do it anyway”. Go to the social event anyway – even if you know it will be horrible and stressful – even if you know you will not enjoy it. Depression and anxiety make these things hard but the longer you do not do them for, the harder they become. It is important to remember that however hard it is, it is not impossible, even if it feels that way.

For support, friendship and advice – join our community and visit our forums and chat rooms. We have thousands of members who understand what it is to feel unwanted, friendless and alone. We want to help you.