My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
'Til then, I walk alone."
Loneliness is one of topics that people who are experiencing it have a hard time discussing. Things such as a breaking-up or the death of someone close (see previous post), though they may be painful in varying measures, seem to be easier to bring up when with others. Some might even find it easier to accept and wrap their minds around these topics as opposed to their loneliness. Perhaps it is because the pain of dissolving a beautiful relationship or losing a loved one are stimuli which result in our sadness; an external occurrence that causes us to feel down. Loneliness, however, is greatly (though not entirely) the result of "nothing". Much of it comes from our own mentality; how we think. And since much of loneliness stems from within us, maybe that is why we feel it should not be revealed to the outside world.
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
'Til then, I walk alone."
Loneliness is one of topics that people who are experiencing it have a hard time discussing. Things such as a breaking-up or the death of someone close (see previous post), though they may be painful in varying measures, seem to be easier to bring up when with others. Some might even find it easier to accept and wrap their minds around these topics as opposed to their loneliness. Perhaps it is because the pain of dissolving a beautiful relationship or losing a loved one are stimuli which result in our sadness; an external occurrence that causes us to feel down. Loneliness, however, is greatly (though not entirely) the result of "nothing". Much of it comes from our own mentality; how we think. And since much of loneliness stems from within us, maybe that is why we feel it should not be revealed to the outside world.
Humans are social creatures and, as such, yearn for contact with other humans. There are whole explanations on the scientific reasons why this is so, but the feeling of loneliness, as anyone who has ever gone through it will tell you, is much different from, say, needing others and others needing you to create a functioning society.
The personal relationships we form with others (ie: family friends), no matter how important we gauge them, "fills" a certain part of our lives; makes our lives complete. Some people whom we may know only as acquaintances may not leave any lasting impressions on our lives and we would feel no different from the day we met them if we never saw them again. Others, the people we get to know and learn to love and choose to be around, will be sorely missed if one day you were to turn around and they weren't there anymore.
The sad part is most people never really know how much they have in a good friend or close family member. When they aren't there anymore, or as much as they used to be, we finally see how much they really mean to us. Loneliness is often described as an emptiness. I'd say that's one of the best ways to describe it. Loneliness leaves our souls riddled with holes once filled by those we thought we'd always have around. Often, people will try to fill these holes with some sort of paling substitute: work, athleticism, sex, hobbies, food, drugs, and alcohol among many other things. But, try as we might to convince ourselves that our substitutes are working, the emptiness remains.
As we grow older, and as our relationships with others grow deeper, we find that we don't need a lot of people to fill the void inn our lives that loneliness may leave. As relationships develop ever deeper and are maintained with utmost care, the people whom we've developed these relationships with make up a large part of our lives and who we are. While these relationships grow, many of the ones which have not been maintained or developed decrease in necessity. This is not to say that these people will not be missed if they are gone. However, people with whom we have established a strong relationship with help us to fill that gap left by the absentee. In the end, we have a few very close friends and family members that take up the majority of our lives, sometimes so much that we actually need to make room for other friends who may play a less significant role but are nonetheless important to us.
But what if you have no one to fill these gaps? What if you've allowed your relationships with your best friends and your family to wane and you have no one else to fill the space being left by your constantly-dwindling, once-steady camaraderie.These are questions I ask myself often.
I've accepted that my feelings of loneliness are, in part, a by-product of my depression. Of course, it's worked at odds against me to magnify the amount of grief it causes me: It seems like whenever I find myself wanting company, it's never there (and my drop in self-esteem is partially to blame for me not making the effort to call people up). Then, in more rarer instances, when I get called by friends or whom ever to a social gathering of whatever sorts, it's usually when I want to be alone. It's crazy and it's one of the things my depression has brought with it that I hate the most.
At the same time, a part of me believes that I am very much directly at fault for my current disposition. At times, I've convinced myself that many of my friends have and/ or are developing interests contrasting my own and that I would not fit well into their new lifestyle. Others are simply too busy with work or with school. Most of them have found their own clique to belong to and, perhaps, I simply am not meant to belong to one. Don't get me wrong, though. I am happy for them if they are happy with themselves and the people whom they associate themselves with on a regular basis. However, I won't lie and say I don't envy them... and by "them" I mean the people who get to spend time with "my" friends.
At the same time, a part of me believes that I am very much directly at fault for my current disposition. At times, I've convinced myself that many of my friends have and/ or are developing interests contrasting my own and that I would not fit well into their new lifestyle. Others are simply too busy with work or with school. Most of them have found their own clique to belong to and, perhaps, I simply am not meant to belong to one. Don't get me wrong, though. I am happy for them if they are happy with themselves and the people whom they associate themselves with on a regular basis. However, I won't lie and say I don't envy them... and by "them" I mean the people who get to spend time with "my" friends.
I regret allowing myself to stray so far from those I love, even if it was a part of how I was coping with my depression at the time. I'd like to "fix" this somehow... I know things can never be how they were, but I'd like to salvage what I can from the friendships I really cherished.I spoke to someone about this and she said I should either join a club to meet people with like interests or I can go to school where there are many people in the same age range as myself in a similar academic situation (for starters). As for the people I used to spend much of my time with, she encouraged me to do the very thing I had been contemplating: reestablish contact with old friends and make an effort to maintain the relationship(s). Well, if that's the professional opinion, I suppose I ought to give it a try.
People we are fond of stray in and out of our lives; we can't establish and maintain strong personal relationships with every person who is kind to us or shares the same interests as us. The strong relationships are like houses: founded by like-interests or situations, built from love, re-enforced by trust and loyalty, tested in the fire and flames of tribulations. We need to maintain these relationships like we'd maintain a home we'd built with our own hands. Unfortunately, it's easy to take these relationships for granted. And when that happens, when the storms rage, the shelter you once thought would always be there may not be standing where you'd built it.
People we are fond of stray in and out of our lives; we can't establish and maintain strong personal relationships with every person who is kind to us or shares the same interests as us. The strong relationships are like houses: founded by like-interests or situations, built from love, re-enforced by trust and loyalty, tested in the fire and flames of tribulations. We need to maintain these relationships like we'd maintain a home we'd built with our own hands. Unfortunately, it's easy to take these relationships for granted. And when that happens, when the storms rage, the shelter you once thought would always be there may not be standing where you'd built it.
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