Dwelling on the Negative

Psychologists refer to dwelling on negative things, in the past or present, as ‘ruminating’. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema at Yale University conducted numerous studies on ruminating and discovered, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people who persistently focus on negative things are far more likely to become and remain depressed. It sounds obvious when laid out that way; how can dwelling on the negative not lead to depression and misery?

Unfortunately, over the years, the media has popularised the idea that the only way to deal with events in the past that have had a negative impact on our lives is to talk about them. Talk therapy and psychotherapies are predicated on the idea that digging into our past can explain our present problems and emotions, which can certainly be true if you have an unexplained issue or emotional problem. This does not, however, mean that talking about the past can resolve those issues or emotional problems; there is a world of difference between identifying a trigger from the past and dwelling on the events that caused the trigger.

Dwelling on the negative things that happened to us only serves to prevent us from moving forward into the future. They become excuses and ‘reasons’ not to make steps in the present to correct issues in our lives and, more importantly, reliving distressing or traumatic events in the past over and over again in our heads reopens the wound time and time again, making it impossible to start to heal.

Rose Tinted Nostalgia

Conversely, for many adults the past was a simpler and happier time. As we get older, often our friendships become more difficult to maintain and making new friendships seems to border on the impossible. For those that did not find a partner early in life or who do not have a family around them, memories of the past can be extremely enticing. Reminding ourselves of a time when we felt carefree and had an abundance of friends before people paired up and settled down, or thinking of a time we used to be successful in our careers before becoming sick or entering a period of unemployment can remind us that we are capable of living a life that held happiness or meaning.

It is difficult to accept that life changes – especially when those changes leave us feeling lonely or unfulfilled. Nostalgic memories of happier times are one thing, but when this turns to self recrimination for ‘allowing’ our lives to get off track or bitterness and anger about whatever it is that we feel derailed things, thinking about past happiness becomes just as dangerous as thinking about past trauma.

Leaving the Past in the Past

Many people do not realise that it is possible to stop thinking about the past. They will insist that they cannot stop the thoughts that pop into their head and are unable to prevent the periods of rumination that bring them down and stop them from moving toward a happier and healthier future.

It is very difficult to stop thoughts from popping into your head. It is, however, entirely possible to prevent yourself from dwelling on those thoughts or giving them space in your head. Acknowledging that you get to choose what you spend your time focussing on is the first step, after understanding how dwelling on the past is damaging you, to healing in the present.

When thoughts of the past pop into your head, consider the following:

Have I thought about this before? Did thinking about it then resolve anything in my present? If the answer is no, then thinking about the past could well be damaging and engaging in something to distract yourself from your thoughts instead. Make a list of activities you can do that do not involve thinking about the past and have this on hand.

Is there a current problem that needs to be resolved? If there is a current issue or problem, instead of dwelling on the things in the past that led to the difficulties you are experiencing, get into problem solving mode instead. Make positive plans to deal with the problem or seek help from professionals offering Cognitive Behavioural Therapies to help with adjusting your mind-set and finding solutions to current issues. CBT is proven to be extremely effective for helping people reclaim their present from problems and issues caused by past events, without spending excessive time discussing them.

Will thinking about this change what happened? The answer is, assuredly, a solid no. Accepting the bad things that happened in the past or the things that changed our lives in negative ways to create our current future is a powerful tool. Practising self compassion and treating ourselves with kindness and respect goes a long way to helping us move forward. If you would not constantly remind someone you care about of traumatic and terrible things that happened to them in the past, or bring up perceived mistakes again and again, you should not do this to yourself either. You are as deserving of care, protection and compassion as anyone else.

The past has only as much power as we choose to give it. It is not easy and it takes effort but the reward is the future you are giving yourself by leaving the past where it belongs. You have the power to choose – choose to reclaim your present and stop letting the past steal your future. If you feel like you need help and support, join our forums and chat rooms and find other people facing the same problems and struggles; we are stronger together.

All the advice, everywhere, about abusive relationships tell you to get out – to leave – to stop the monster that is hurting you. But what do you do when the person making your life unbearable, the person that is making you desperately want to die to make it stop, is you? What do you do when ‘I hate myself’ isn’t just a throw away comment, but is, instead, a pain so deep that you would do anything to make it end?

I’d Be Better Off Dead

Sometimes it feels like it is impossible for anything to get better – you’ve screwed things up so badly that there is no coming back. Nothing you do is right, nothing you do is good enough. It feels like there is no escape, because the person you need to run away from is the one person you can never leave behind. I understand that feeling well; I have been there myself, standing in the ruins of a life I have obliterated so completely that I cannot even find the pieces, let alone start to put them back together. How do you start to repair things, to build a life that feels worth living when the moment things seem to get better, the moment something good happens, you self destruct and blow it all to pieces again?

Here on SF, I see it every day. Kind, warm, caring people who give up their time and energy to reach out and help other people in pain, because they know what it feels like to hate yourself – what it feels like to loathe yourself with such venom that you want to die. The world is full of good people who hate themselves so much, feel so disgusted by their mistakes, by their own thoughts and actions, that they believe they would be better off dead. I have spoken to literally hundreds of them. If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you came here because you are one of them.

Forgiving Yourself

Maybe you are here because you feel like you don’t deserve forgiveness. You do. I don’t know what you have done, what choices you have made. I don’t know anything about you, but I know that if you were not a good person you would not feel so bad – you would not care so much that you want to die. If you deserved the hate you direct at yourself, you would not be able to feel it. You deserve to be forgiven. You deserve love and support and people who care about you. You deserve to be heard.

I am not trying to tell you that you are perfect just the way you are. Nobody is perfect. But imperfection is what makes us able to empathise, to love, to do the amazing things that humans do as they strive to be better. I am not telling you that you do not need to change; everyone changes, over time, and if there are things about yourself that you truly hate then you can work on changing those things. I know how easy it is to think that you need to change everything – that there is nothing good worth keeping or saving. You’re wrong. You may need help to see the good things; that happens when you have spent so long in such a dark place – it is hard to see the light. It is okay to need help. It is okay to ask for it. You may not feel you deserve it but you, like the other hundreds and hundreds of people who come to SF hating themselves, are wrong.

It’s Easier to Believe the Bad Things

Sometimes self hate doesn’t even come from things we did, or the mistakes we made. Sometimes self hate is built by other people – people who lie to us about who we are. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are people who pretend to be friends, sometimes they are parents. When they are people who are supposed to love us, it is easy to believe that they are mean or violent because we deserve it.

It is hard enough when the negative words in our heads are our own. When they belong to people we love, it is that much harder to ignore them. To be told that you are not enough – not smart enough, not pretty enough, not g00d enough. If you get told often enough that you are a failure or that you are stupid or broken or ugly, especially by someone you love, it is easy for those lies to become your reality. Please, don’t let them. I know it is not easy and I know it hurts. I know that the only thing you want right now is to be someone worth loving, to be someone who deserves to live. I know you don’t believe it is possible and that is okay – let us believe it for you until you are ready to hear the truth from people who see you without the blackened tint of self loathing. Talk to us.

Depression is a Liar

Depression lies. It is a dark insidious thing that creeps into our brains and whispers to us that our more negative feelings about ourselves are true. Many people have no idea that the sucking black hole inside them that makes them feel like people would be better off without them is an illness. Depression makes people pull away from their friends because they believe they are bad for them, that they will hurt them. It tells people that ‘nobody likes you anyway’. It distorts and it warps and it leaves you believing there is nothing good left. Depression can make you believe that you are a worthless failure that will never amount to anything; it can make you believe you are too ugly to leave the house and that the world would be better off if you were dead.

If you feel any of these things, however much you believe that you feel them because they are true, you need the help of a doctor and you need the support of people who understand those feelings. I understand you do not believe you deserve that help. I understand you hate yourself because you believe you deserve that hatred. Let us show you that isn’t true. Join our community and talk to people who have beaten those feelings, people who can help you change the things you want to change and accept the things that you simple do not need to. Let us hold a candle in that darkness and show you the good things you cannot see for yourself.

Socializing become such a mine field of potential problems and panic that it seems like the only possible thing to say to an invitation to hang out is ‘no’ – even if you really really want to go.

It is impossible to ‘let things go’ and sometimes you spend hours worrying about every single thing you have ever done in your life that might have been bad, wrong or harmful to yourself or someone else.

And that kind of worrying can lead to such overwhelming exhaustion and fear about facing the day that it feels impossible to get out out of bed at all.

And even when you are trying your very hardest to believe that you are strong and capable (things that feel like superhuman powers a lot of the time) your ability to jump to conclusions and twist innocent statements and thoughts into world class catastrophes undermines your confidence in a second.

Anxiety is not something you can “just get over” – it is hard work and needs professional help and a lot of support. If you need to talk to someone, join our community (if you need to just lurk for a few days before you feel brave enough to speak to anyone, we totally understand!)

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.

Are there any painless suicide methods?

Most people find SF when the pain is so bad that they can’t take it any more. That is how I found SF. If you are here, reading this, the chances are you are so tired of hurting, so exhausted by the relentless black hole of pain inside you that you are looking for a way, ANY way, to make it stop. Painless suicide methods seem like the holy grail right now. I get it – believe me – I understand.

Are There Any Painless Suicide Methods?

The simple answer is no. I understand that your instinct now is to click off this page and keep looking, but STOP. Wait. Just stay a few minutes. The problem with suicide methods is that up to 97% of the time, they fail. And that is just the completely committed “I want to die right now this second” group. Suicide is painful and messy and horrifying – and I completely understand if you are sitting here thinking “yes, well so is my life” – I have been there.

One of the most common things our members say when they first join SF is ‘I am too much of a coward to go through with it”. Not killing yourself isn’t cowardly. Not killing yourself isn’t weak or spineless. It is okay to scream for help at the top of your lungs right now – you deserve help and nobody can do this alone.

We have thousands and thousands of members and each and every one of them knows what it feels like to want to fall asleep and never wake up. To stop the pain – for it to be easy and peaceful and painless. Suicide isn’t any of those things. It is painful and lonely and scary. The thoughts and feelings you are dealing with are not shameful or weak or wrong – but really wanting to die and really wanting to make the pain stop are not the same thing. 

What About Pain Free Death?

It is easy to believe – especially right now – that it wouldn’t matter if you died. Nobody would care. I don’t know you and I don’t know what is going on in your life (I would like to) but I have been suicidal and believed those things, and I have talked to hundreds and hundreds of people who also believe those things. Pain lies. Depression lies. Most of all, despair lies. The idea that your death would not matter and it wouldn’t hurt anyone – that your suicide would be pain free for all concerned – it isn’t true. Maybe you want to believe it is true because you don’t want to hurt any of the people you love. Maybe you hurt so badly you can’t see past the pain to the truth. But you are wrong. There are no ‘pain free’ ways to die. There are especially no pain free ways to kill yourself. Not just the physical messy agony of suicide itself, which is never like it is in the movies, but also the emotional pain you are passing to the people who are about you and even the people who ‘only’ know you.

The pain can go away. I know you don’t believe me; I didn’t believe it either. I was sure – 100% definite – that life would never get better, that the pain would never go away, that I would never feel okay again, let alone happy. I felt alone and isolated and like there was nobody to talk to who could possibly understand. I was wrong. About all of it. There are people who understand and who will support you and while right now you don’t think support can help and you don’t see how talking can make a difference, there is something about NOT feeling alone and isolated that eases the pain just enough to be able to breathe for a minute. To be able to think. To give yourself a chance.

You Need to Talk to Someone

There is no replacement for professional medical treatment. If you are suicidal then you need real medical help – but you also need to talk to people you can be honest with, people you can say out loud “I hurt so much I want to die” to. It is hard, almost impossible, to say those things to people who know and care about you in real life. They get scared and hurt and suddenly you are not only dealing with your own pain, you are dealing with theirs as well. For people who already have more pain than they can bear, that is not an option.

Talking doesn’t magically make the pain go away. I am not going to sit here and lie to you that it might. I understand that it is hard to see the point – the POINT is that you want to make the pain stop and if talking won’t do that then it can feel like a waste of the precious little energy you have left. What talking does – in a peer to peer setting – is make you feel less alone. Knowing that people understand and care, that even strangers who are in pain themselves care about you enough to listen and support you, can make you feel less isolated, remind you that you do not have to deal with this alone. 

Talk to us. Write down how you feel. Engage with people who understand – as much as anyone can understand – how you feel. The pain won’t go away overnight but it CAN go away and you deserve to have support while you deal with it. So instead of clicking off here and going back to Google in search of ways to die, stick around here. Join our community and find ways to make the pain go away that don’t involve killing yourself – ways to make the pain go away that give you your life back. 

Do you feel like you really just hate yourself? Check this out. 

Having a hard time thinking about getting from today until tomorrow? Try this one. 

Social media is very much a 21st century phenomenon:

Facebook has nearly 3 billion Facebook users across the world

Twitter has almost 350 million

Instagram has a billion users

Snapchat has more than 200 million

and the newest frontrunner, Tiktok, already has a billion users

It doesn’t seem that the rise of social media is going to stop any time soon. Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit and even LinkedIn are all social media and surely we’re all using at least one of these platforms. But could social media be killing us?

‘Facebook Depresses Me and I Feel Like a Failure’

Social media has been hailed by many as an incredible invention, allowing friends and family to more easily keep in touch, even over vast distances, and it is impossible to argue that the platforms don’t allow that. But when ‘writing a status’ or posting a meme replaces real conversation, the result is rarely improved relationships. Where, in the past, we might have felt the need to call or at least email someone to connect with them – to maintain a relationship – we are now able to hit ‘like’ and feel we have done our part to engage.

Not only that, but in a world where ‘image is everything’, it seems more and more that Facebook and Instagram are used by many as a ‘showcase’ of perfectly posed and edited selfies and carefully curated life moments designed to make their existence seem as exciting and amazing as possible. Even those who don’t design their feeds to present a particular ‘image’ naturally share the ‘good parts’ of their lives – events with friends and family, births and marriages, travel and trips. It is far too easy to compare our reality with someone else’s highlight reel and end up feeling inadequate, boring and alone.

When it seems like everyone else is having fun, has dozens of friends and has their life “together” it is hardly surprising that we look at our own life and feel it is lacking – or that we are lacking.

A common theme on our forums and in our chat room is that people feel like a failure compared to their friends and family – that ‘everyone else’ is happy and normal and doing all kinds of exciting things that they are not. This can lead to depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts.

Are Social Media Friends Really Friends?

The American Association of Pediatrics issued a report in 2011 with one of the first mentions of the phenomenon ‘Facebook Depression”. Our young people have grown up in a world where it is commonplace to have hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ and popularity is no longer measured by who wants to sit with you at lunch.

With friendship being measured by numbers and approval coming in the form of likes or retweets, it is easy to see how social media can become damaging and even dangerous, especially for people suffering from depression.

When you feel like you can’t turn to any of your hundreds of friends for support, help or advice it can feel like the whole world literally does not care about you. The line between ‘someone you know’ and real friends has become so blurred for teenagers and even young adults in their 20s due to social media, that having a core of three or four friends in ‘real life’ who will listen, support and give practical help is considered by many a social failure.

Add to this the fact that reaching out to people on social media for help or advice can often lead to virtual strangers, masquerading on your feed as ‘friends’ ignoring you or, worse, going out of their way to pull you down or call you out for ‘drama’, and the world can feel like a very lonely, isolating place.

Social media depression is a vicious cycle – people whose depression is related to or worsened by social media reach out for support via those channels and are all too often met with a lack of understanding and even cruelty. For people who are vulnerable and already having suicidal thoughts, social media could, quite literally, kill them.

Social Media Depression – Some Tips

• Limit the time you spend on social media and how many times a day you check it. Be strict with yourself and limit yourself to twice a day at the most and only for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time.
• Seek out support with close friends you see in real life or with communities geared toward listening and supporting instead of reaching out on social media to people who barely know you and might hurt you.
• Grab a sheet of paper and define for yourself what you consider a ‘friend’ to be. Be realistic about the differences between your friends and your social media acquaintances. It can be helpful to start thinking of and referring to them  as acquaintances to get this in perspective.
• Fill your time with ‘real world’ activities – working, volunteering and joining clubs and groups can get you away from the computer or phone and thinking about the things you are doing rather than the things other people are doing. Remember that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’.
• Talk to your doctor. This is especially important if you are having thoughts of hurting yourself. Depression is a real illness and it is nothing to feel ashamed of. There is help available and you deserve to feel better.

Remember that you are not alone. The horrible feelings you have are not unusual and they probably happen to even the people you think seem so happy and successful from their social media feed. If you need extra support or someone to talk to, join our community to use our chat rooms and forums.

Can Loneliness Really Kill You?

Research is reported to show that people who have no social supports and who feel alone have as greater increased risk of early death as alcoholic, while  succeeding in making friends can be as good for our health as giving up smoking. Spending too much time alone, particularly if that time is not filled with rewarding distractions, often leads to fatalistic thinking and philosophizing that, in turn, lead to damaging thought patterns. In addition to this, a lack of accountability to people who care about you and your welfare can mean that self destructive urges that are usually curbed by fear of worrying or upsetting loved ones can get completely out of control.

According to a study by Brigham Young University, the subjective feeling of loneliness – that is to say feeling alone whether or not you are, in fact, alone – can increase the chance of death by 26%. It is not just being alone that is a significant risk to ongoing good health; just feeling uncared for, unheard and unsupported can be almost as dangerous as actually being isolated.

Loneliness and  Mental Health

Loneliness is a key theme on our forums – people who feel alone find it harder to combat suicidal urges and deal with mental illness. The mental health charity Mind report that being lonely can add to mental health issues such as depression, loneliness and anxiety. It also suggests that loneliness can contribute to rarer mental health conditions such as schizophrenia.

Loneliness can have a significant impact on our mental health – The University Herald reported that a study by the University of Chicago found loneliness to be linked to disrupted sleep, increases in the stress hormone cortisol and an overall perceived lowering in general well-being. That loneliness can contribute to poor mental health is well documented, but it is important not to ignore the other side of the coin: that poor mental health can be the cause of increased loneliness and isolation, both subjectively and actually.

One of the key symptoms of clinical depression is a feeling of loneliness and sadness. Often this feeling is not objectively true, but depression does not often care for the facts. On top of this already heightened sense of isolation, depression also has the effect of reducing our interest in socializing and participating in activities we once found enjoyable. By withdrawing from these activities, spending less time in social situations, people suffering from mental health conditions often isolate themselves.

As depression, anxiety and eventually suicidal thoughts and impulses take hold of our life, we find it harder to talk to people and engage in negative thought patterns such as:

• My mental health is my problem; people shouldn’t have to deal with my ‘craziness’
• People don’t like me anyway; I should stay on my own so I am not rejected.
• I hurt everyone who cares about me; it is better for everyone if I am alone.
• Even if I go out and socialize I won’t have fun; there isn’t any point in trying.

If any of these thoughts sound familiar – it is likely that your mental health problems are making your feeling of loneliness worse. Tempting as it is to isolate ourselves, telling ourselves that it is saving us from pain in the long run, the truth is that we are creating our own pain through our actions. Knowing this is the first step to fighting this life threatening problem.

Practical Steps for Easing Loneliness

Loneliness, left alone, will only ever get worse. It is not something that will fix itself and not something that gets better without attention and effort. Unfortunately, new friends are unlikely to simply knock on the door.

There are lots of ways that people will suggest you ‘find new friends’ – most of them involve joining a club or group to find like-minded people. This is an excellent idea but the simple fact is that if you were in a place where you felt able to go and join a group of strangers, the chances are that you would not have stopped seeing your own friends and family in the first place. Sites like Meetup.com are an excellent resource for finding friendship and getting out of the house, but they are not necessarily the best ‘first step’ on the road to re-socializing.

The UK National Health Service recommends that people suffering from loneliness ‘learn to love computers’. It is indisputable that the internet makes connecting with people easier and less stressful for many people with social anxiety issues and who need to be able to speak to people on their own terms. Online communities can be an excellent place to start to build up broken down social confidence – on forums and in chat rooms, talking to people without normal social pressures. It is, however, important to remember that these communities are not a replacement for ‘real life’ social interaction. As a starting place they are excellent, but they should be a supplement to other social interaction.

Once your confidence has been rebuilt to some level you can try:

• Finding clubs and groups online – sites like Meetup offer groups with no obligation.
• Joining a church, if you are religiously inclined
• Taking a night class or day college course – most colleges offer short courses that can last as little as one day in all sorts of areas.
• Re-connect with old friends – often a simple apology for having dropped off the face of the planet for a while and an invitation to coffee is enough to start to rebuild a friendship.
• Volunteer for a charity or non-profit – having structure and a shared goal/purpose makes it easier to build friendships and eases social pressure.

Everything Starts with Starting

Making a beginning is the hardest part – but it is also the most important. Nothing changes unless something changes. Doing the brave thing today can make all the difference to your tomorrows. Here at SF we understand the difficulties that loneliness brings and we understand how hard it can be to start.