Lonely Lonely: Difference of Being Alone and Being Lonely While being Depressed

“Loneliness is the Poverty of Self, Solitude is the Richness of Self.” — May Sarton

Hey there, Kevin here. So, in my times of depression, the first month is the loneliest ones, while I’m emotionally detached, it is hard to even feel something from others, let alone from yourself. You kind of losing a feeling to feel, and it is pretty shitty because you usually can feel something, and now everything is just feel numb, all the laughs and the giff and the gaffs just felt dry, full of pretending stuff. But you are not, you are actually just feels detached from others, including yourself, from knowing and realizing others emotion towards yourself. Being lonely, and being alone is two separate, really different entity in itself. Let me explain.

Lonely, I am So Lonely.

So, lonely is a feeling of separation from people, you can feel lonely at the crowd, lonely at heart, or even lonely at yourself. It is more of a feeling than being. Loneliness problem is what happened to Norway these days, though they are the happiest country in the world. Many people feeling lonely, even though they have significant others. And for Norway, it is a big problem, because how can you be happy if you are being lonely?

Loneliness can increase your early mortality rate to whopping 26%, heart attack by 29%, and stroke by frighteningly 32%. That is why Norway felt that loneliness in their population is the big problem that needs to be solved, quickly. Loneliness itself can be a feeling of exclusion, and so is feeling isolated. Until now, Norway do their best to solve the problems, from making robots, to chatting with their circles in general. It was generated all by the citizen themselves, and that is a good way to solve loneliness.

Loneliness is a disease in itself, it can lead to many problems mentioned above. One person usually cannot solve the problems other than suck it up and just still feeling lonely. Norway, again, is the happiest country in the world, yet they are crippled by increasing loneliness, not just by teenagers and alike, but also elderly. They are the example of….

Great Journey of Solitude

Yes, they are the prime example of being alone. The citizens of Norway is used to being alone, and they feel the greatest when being alone in the nature. They are very social inside actually, but just in their own circles, and very bad at including strangers into their circles. Why, you ask? Because actually they feel it is rude to talk with strangers and they are pretty afraid of wasting others’ time just to talk with someone they don’t know. Being alone though, in general, is actually what powers up introverted people. They just love being in solitude. Are they anti-social? no. It is just they want to be alone, and that is not a bad thing.

Being alone is good for yourself, your mental health too. Being alone contribute to a healthier brain and just generally good for your energy, because of sometimes, and I said sometimes, it is just tiresome to be in the crowd, let alone being anxious. Anxiety among the Norway people is a contradictory of being lonely, they just used to being alone, that in the crowd, rather than feeling happy, they just being anxious. That is how solitude helped them being sane.

For me, the first month of my depression is actually grueling. Just lonely, emotionally detached, withdrawing from any social situation, but needing some social interaction. It is how contradictory in times of depression, you are tired of having and keeping social interaction, but in the same time, you need it because you want to be understood and just empathized by others. After I’m having a therapy, up until today, I understood something that is crucial: stop pretending to be alone. Lonely is a feeling of exclusion, and separated from the crowd that you naturally in, and being alone is just you, being on your own, whether it is positive or negative.

Being alone is neutral, being lonely is mostly negative. Other things that I learned in my times of depression and therapy is, it is good sometimes to be on solitude, but if that means being alone with someone, that is sometimes better. Being your own with someone makes you reflect on how you perceive solitude, and just being yourself without being dependant on others. Being alone sometimes doesn’t mean you are on your own, you can be with someone as well, but mostly it is about you on your own. You can be in a crowd and feel sufficient and happy, or flat, or mostly positive and knowing self-kindness, that is being alone. Meanwhile, being lonely can be perceived even in the crowdiest, rowdiest of all crowd, you still feel excluded and isolated by the crowd.

It is okay to feel both, and both is an experience that you should feel in order to just, feel, as a human. Being lonely makes you reflect on how you act and just knowing how you are being perceived by others in the crowd. If you feel lonely, then leave, no time to waste on just being lonely in the circle, and may I say, puddle of mud. Being lonely teaches us that even in the times of solitude, we still able to survive and just being ourselves, our self-sufficient self, and that is well, better than most of the feelings.

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” — Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper.

By the way, this is the first time i asked for an idea, and I am really thankful for Annie Johansson, my fellow from Sweden. Tack sa mycket Annie!