What is loneliness?

In chatting to folk, it has occured to me that I don't really understand what loneliness is, nor do I think I get it.

I understand boredom, and wanting to do things with people - I get bored all the time - but how is that different to loneliness, or is loneliness and boredom just the same thing?

For me, loneliness is wanting to be with people but not being able to. Like a feeling of being alone but not wanting to be alone.

Diagnoses:
PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain

Is there something special about just people in that regard?

Like, yes, I want to be with people so as to have fun and not be bored, but if I was doing something else that was fun and absorbing my attention it wouldn't matter if I was alone.

I don't see the difference between wanting to hang out with people and wanting to play a new computer game, they just seem different activities that provide variation and fun.

There is something special about it. It is possible to still be lonely while around people. I've felt that. It's hard to explain. I think there's a part of actually engaging with the group that is the trick. Like I can be playing my favorite video game with other people in the room and still feel lonely. But if we are engaging and playing together or running a dungeon or something, it's different.

Does that make sense?

Diagnoses:
PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain

Loneliness and boredom are not the same thing. Boredom can be fixed with reading a book or doing something you like. It may or may not involve others.
Loneliness becomes a pain deep inside when there is no connection with any other person. Loneliness feels emotional cancer eating away at you. Loneliness aches and even hides in the shadows at times but never goes away.

I think of what you, possum, and childofchaos are describing as isolation rather than loneliness.
Perhaps that's just a semantic difference.

I am unable to fully connect with people, and I suspect no one can with anyone, and that feels bad, but it doesn't seem to be exactly what people mean when they say they are lonely. For example, most people try to 'cure loneliness' by meeting people - but if the issue is that one cannot form connections with people then this would be a pointless attempt at a solution.

So, I seek company not to end the bad feeling of isolation, which cannot be ended, but simply to alleviate boredom, which could also equally be ended by finding solo activities.

Does that make sense?

Google defines loneliness as feeling sad and unhappy about being socially isolated. So isolation is a part of it, but loneliness is the feeling that comes from it. I can feel isolated, but that doesn't feel the same way. It's hard to explain. Isolation is more desperate in a way while loneliness is more of a depressed feeling.

Diagnoses:
PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain

I would say isolated refers to the fact of being separated from others, and doesnt really progress to how one may feel about it, good or bad.

Pygmalion, you just kinda assumed that no one ever really connects with anyone else - i think thats a flaw in your reasoning here. And ending your argument with "doesnt that make sense?" - this isnt a math proof. I cant tell you how many times ive used that line with my therapists ("doesnt that make sense?") only to be shot down.

Get out there and connect!!! "use it before you lose it" is a real thing.

You may think of it as isolation Pygmalion. I don't not believe that pure isolation would cause emotional pain. I could go to a beach and be alone and that would not cause this pain.

For me loneliness is an emotion that brings me pain. Isolation is being alone. Boredom is something else all together. Connection is as foreign to me as it seems to you but I am told it is possible.

I don't need google to define my emotions or the pain I feel.

PS Unaluna said what I so messily tried to explain.

I don't know if you meant that as rude, but that is how it sounded. I don't understand emotions and have trouble identifying them. Looking them up helps me. Just because you don't need to doesn't mean someone else doesn't. Think before you speak.

Diagnoses:
PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain

I did google isolation - you guys are confusing me! It helped clarify for me that its not necessarily? a feeling.

But yeah, loneliness vs isolation - not interchangeable, imo. Each have waves of meaning that dont overlap. Maybe some meanings do. Its a good essay question!

Ya, isolation is technically a state of being. Not a feeling. Sometimes people use feeling isolated as the same as feeling lonely imo even tho they aren't the same. That's what I meant in my earlier post when I said one was more desperate and one was more depressed.

Diagnoses:
PTSD with Dissociative Symptoms, Borderline Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain

I did say, 'fully connect' not just connect. I mean, I'm connecting with you right now - but this is not 'full' connection, which would require something like total knowledge and acceptance of another being - which cannot have. I think that's why everyone feels, to at least some degree, alone and isolated - because we literally are all trapped inside our skulls. We do not really know each other in the full sense.

As for using and losing, well that's true - I haven't friends for a couple of decades - but I don't really miss anything except the boredom element.

I'm still quite confused as to what loneliness is.

If I am physically/vocally separate from others I am isolated - but this needn't be a negative experience and isn't the same as loneliness.

If I am bored and want company for fun and enjoyable socialising, then this is a negative experience but not loneliness, and could, theoretically, be solved by activities not involving others.

If I am lonely, then I supposedly feel something negative, but this is not because I want to do something with other people nor because I am isolated from others - it is something to do with missing 'connection'.

But what is this 'connection'? That they know you or about you - then that is just knowledge. That they like you? Is that what loneliness is - not being socially active with people who know you and like you?

Connection might be defined as being "held in mind."

My baby's a mystery to me.

This thread talks about how it might start for a person.

I think you and i ARE connecting. In many ways i am quite isolated, but i find IRL interactions to be pretty painful, even with friends i have known for decades. So online has been great for me.

I distracted myself there. But im not lonely because i know these IRL friends hold me in mind?

Ah, yes, well if we are defining connection as being held in mind, then sure - I connect with hundreds every day, even if only briefly

I'm not sure it would make a difference to me if anyone held me in mind for longer than it took us to enjoy the conversation or play the game or whatever ... Maybe that's why I don't think I feel or understand loneliness. Perhaps loneliness, then, is just the felt absence of the belief that some other person is holding you in mind when not in direct engagement with them.

Hence the song,


"Nobody loves me,
Everybody hates me,
I'm gonna eat some worms -

Big ones, little ones,
Even itty bitty ones,
I'm gonna eat some worms!"

Nothing like the classics!

Btw, i love your avatar - i had that poster in college.

Ha, ha ... Great song
And thanks for liking the avatar ... I have a thing for mythology, though that avatar got picked mostly because it was the nicest looking from the selection this website offered me. I especially like the Pygmalion story for obvious reasons)

Solitude vs. Loneliness: Being Alone in Our Connected World

and...

Here’s Why You’re Confusing Solitude With Loneliness

I am sorry childofchaos. I did not understand. It was not meant to be rude or to hurt any-one. Thankyou for letting me know. Please accept my sincere apology.

There are only a few sub-groups of people who can thrive without a need for emotional connections with others. Maybe only one sub-group.

So let me ask you a few questions:

How do you feel about the police?

What do you do to alleviate boredom?

How do others characterize you in terms of your emotions? Expressive or aloof? Compassionate or uncaring?

Suppose I were to steal from you the object of your affection. What would you do to get it back?