Lonely

Recently, I have found that I am almost able to curb my anxiety – at least compared to how it has been in the past. Often I am able to see it coming and use some of the tools that I have acquired to cope with it. I now find it easier to meet people and explain what’s going on with me. Generally speaking, I am able to make the decision to do what I want, and not care about what other people think. Positive steps.

Despite this positivity, I am seemingly  unable to shake my “low mood”. It remains a constant, bubbling away in the background, before forcing it’s way to the front and clouding my brain. I cannot shift it. I cannot cope with it. I have the cause, but not the cure.

I am lonely.

Not just “wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to watch the football with” lonely. It is “not a single person in the entire world understands what I’m going through” lonely.

The feeling of loneliness is easy to identify with. We have all sat at home on a Saturday night, wishing somebody was around to grab a pint with, or play a game of pool or playstation. I know I have. I can intellectualise that, I am sat in a room alone, so obviously I am going to feel lonely. What I can’t intellectualise is being surrounded by people and feeling completely alone. It doesn’t make sense. Especially when those people also have depression or anxiety. Surely they share what I am experiencing?

People care, they want to talk to me, they want to help. But they can’t. The feeling is all encompassing. Like a virus it has spread and now occupies every cell in my body. I have been sucked into a black hole.

I am unable to identify with anybody, bereft of a kindred spirit. I have no empathy. No sense of experience shared. No bond. Physically I am present, but not mentally. I am disconnected. Nobody “gets it”.

Who wants to exist in a world from which they are disconnected? I don’t know how to plug back in. More medication? More therapy? Major changes to my life? I have no answers, because I am trying to solve the problem on my own.

I will continue to reach out. I will continue to share. I hope it helps.