“Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there”
(Jess Whedon)
At a time when we are confronted with terrorism, global warming, Brexit, Donald Trump and COVID 19, the one thing we seem to fear most is loneliness.
Britain has been voted the loneliness capital of Europe, and it’s not our ageing population we have to thank. In 2010, the Mental Health Foundation found loneliness is a greater concern among young people. The 18-to-34-year-olds surveyed were more likely to feel lonely often, to worry about feeling alone and to feel depressed because of loneliness than the over-55s. According to a 2014 national survey 48 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds said they often felt lonely compared to the overall average of 34 percent. Young Londoners were roughly twice as likely to be lonely than the national average.
In my work each week, I am struck by our fear as individuals of loneliness. And our attempts to try and defend against this inevitable psychological state. Subconsciously, prior to my training I was defending against loneliness through recruiting other unsatisfying companions, such as over-working, over-eating, over-staying my welcome in dissatisfying relationships and overly booking my social calendar to avoid the dreaded loneliness. The irony being that these only served to perpetuate the very thing I was afraid of, feeling lonely.
Loneliness is depicted as being one of the most profound and disturbing of human experiences and also laden with shame in our culture. The consequence – we don’t talk about it, we retreat, find compensatory ways to defend against it and feel even lonelier. In response to the shame, if the expectation that we are placing on ourselves is to not feel something that is an inevitable part of our existence, is breathing prohibited too?
Additionally, within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time and space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another or lonelier. In a world consumed by novel modes of socialising, we have less and less society, less community and more individualism. We are living in an accelerating contradiction, connected yet so disconnected. A further consequence of living in this online global village, is the intrusion it places on face to face contact. We have already caught up with one another by reading each others’ feeds or tweets, and cannot help logon in each other’s company, or spend our time snapping photos and posting them, missing out on a real connection, and feel lonely when with others too.
We know intuitively that loneliness and being alone are not the same thing. Solitude can be really pleasurable, if we can bear our aloneness. And is isolation the same as feeling lonely?
Isolation comes from the Latin term insula, suggesting the physical separation and distance from others. Psychodynamic writers such as Freud, help us understand that if being alone and separate from others as a child was an unbearable experience, then in adulthood, these acute feelings will be re-ignited, hence the attempts to defend against them as they feel intolerable. We need support and encouragement as children to separate from the adults around us, to know that we are little individuals in our own right, loved and cherished for who we are. In the absence of this, we try and be the same as the other, change who we are to suit others needs, shelve our own needs and prioritise others. These processes can result in a deep sense of loneliness, as ultimately we are abandoning ourselves through prioritising the needs of others through fear of separation or isolation.
Loneliness, derives from an Anglo-Saxon word Ana, meaning alone. Existential philosophers are concerned with how we make meaning of our lives and concerns itself with questions such as “who am I” or “why do I exist”, what is the purpose and meaning of life? Therefore, the existential philosopher would not see loneliness as something to be defended against, yet on the contrary to be embraced. Loneliness for the existential philosopher is not something we lack, it is who we are and where we can find meaning, creativity and our true sense of self. The true self can be found in the crisis of loneliness and despair, for the existential philosopher, yet this requires a leap of faith into “the swampland of the soul” as James Hollis, Jungian psychologist describes it. By doing this, you break the hold of the fear that has a debilitating power over much of your life.
By facing loneliness and offering comfort to yourself, you access an inner companion that is you. In doing this, you relinquish the need to enlist other companions or defences that limit your life and your sense of yourself, such as those mentioned previously. Your biggest most reliable, trustworthy companion is right in front of you – you. Through walking through the tunnel of loneliness, we develop a deeper sense of who we are, discover our creativity, learn to comfort our own needs in the absence of others and can make choices in our life based on what we want, rather than through fear or avoidance. At the end of the tunnel of loneliness is the bridge of solitude, Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely. It is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself. Solitude is desirable, a state of being alone where you provide yourself wonderful and sufficient company.
Getting to the bridge of solitude can be a tough, complex and painful process, confronting personal demons along the way, and can require extra support, depending on your personal experiences. The theory about how to get there can feel simple, and is in no way intended to imply that it is easy. And the result is a view of a life that is yours, making choices because you want something, rather than being afraid of something else, being secure in your sense of who you are, a friend to yourself when you need one, and opens the door to new possibilities as you embark on a new relationship with yourself.
You are the one you have been waiting for
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If you would like to make an enquiry or book an appointment please contact Dr Claire Stubbs on withyouinmindpa@gmail.com
