Although I am blessed to have a big group of family and friends, there have been times that I have felt lonely. For a long time but not as much recently, this was because I didn’t have the confidence to ask people to do stuff with me due to fear of rejection. Another reason has been life changes. During my year out a few years ago, I sometimes missed the social life I had had as a student the year before because my schedule was different from a lot of my friends and a lot of my daily conversations would mostly be with 4 – 11 year olds! More recently though, I have been to less social things where I would meet new people because I was tired of saying the same thing over and over again about what’s happening with my course to different people.

During seasons of loneliness, my mind goes foggy and I struggle to think of what will bring me joy again. I often lose the sense of reality during these times too, forgetting that there is so much more going on in the world than my problems. In general, no sense is either in my head or shown in my actions. Once I have been feeling this way for quite a while, it is often hard to motivate myself to engage with the outside world, preferring the security of my home comforts. Once I have realised how toxic is, one of the ways I try to break out of this is getting outside. Sometimes a short walk is enough but other times I wander around for ages if I would be going back to an empty space or when I’m at my lowest, I need longer to process my thoughts on my own before talking to other people about it. I also try and look outwith my negative thoughts by either looking in my diary for exciting things to look forward to, watching or reading the news or chatting to other people about their lives.

I started writing this a few weeks ago but was unsure about posting it as I felt some shame in sharing these feelings perhaps because it sometimes seems that loneliness is mainly associated with certain groups of people that I don’t fit into. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to share my experiences of loneliness to confront my embarrassment about it. I would also say that we can all do our own little bit to make people’s lives less lonely. It doesn’t always have to be meeting up with someone but maybe just sending someone a message or a card or just generally looking out for people who might be lonely.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. As always, feel free to get in touch with any questions/feedback/comments, I always love to hear it. Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Until next time

Kathryn