Feeling Alone In The World...

Which is possibly more powerful than just sexual attraction.

That Emily Dickenson "Are you nobody? OH MY GOD, I'm nobody too! Don't tell, they'd banish us you know!" thing.

i felt lonely in the summer when i was living in a hostel, i had less contact with people, but looking back i think i also needed more contact because i was going through a rough patch. so, part of it was real and part imagined

since then i have been extremely busy, met some new people, and it has swung the other way, now im finding it difficutl to fit everything in. (although weirdly i am feeling a little sorry for myself and lonely today, but i may just be run down a little!)

i think a lot is to do with being busy, the less busy you are the more you have to fit around other peoples schedules, which means yuo are kind of reliant on them.

I could just say bugger it and find someone but I'm still not at a stage where I could give anyone else what they deserve and so I must soldier on for a bit but with the faith that once I've worked through all this I will be able to have a non-dysfunctional, non-obsessive, non-codependent relationship in which I do not lose myself.

It would still be nice to get some cuddles and snuggles sometimes though.

I think the feeling of disconnection with the world is fairly common, especially in cities, where there isn't much of a communal feeling. I see my neighbours, but I hardly say a word to them, there is always someone different working in the sandwich shop, see the same people waiting at the station etc. There is no interaction, it's like everyone exists in their own bubble.

And finally, loneliness in the romantic sense, yeah, I've been feeling that way a little lately.

But anyway, yeah, I always feel alone, actually moreso when I'm with people. It's actually easier to deal with the loneliness when I'm actually alone, because when I'm with people it's too confusing and depressing to have that feeling.

Ever since I was a child, I've gotten this deep feeling of homesickness randomly. But it wasn't really for any home that I knew. It could be with anybody, with friends, with family. And it could be anywhere, at home, at a restaurant, in bed listening to music. Just a moment where everything is drained of familiarity and that "What the hell am I doing here?" feeling would come over me. It's worse than loneliness, it's a retreat from everything, both people and inanimate objects. A feeling that I don't really have a home to be sick for. That everything and everybody is so incredibly ugly and strange that I'll never be used to it. It only ever lasts a few seconds, but it's so intense that for those few seconds I'm as close to the deepest blackest despair imaginable as anyone will ever be.

When I tried to explain this to my family as a child, they joked that I was just feeling a beacon from my real home planet. And that's what it felt like sometimes.

I don't know. I hope this isn't incoherent. I hope I'm not the only one.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. Though it does relate to loneliness in a way.

But this isn't a depressed teenager thing. This has been happening ever since I can remember, even when I was a supposedly well-adjusted kindergartner.

A sense of loss, really, this loneliness is. It's not like someone has died and you have to deal with it, it's more like you've had your sense of community, of belonging, of everything, just ripped right out of you and you'll never ever get it back.

I don't want to feel like this. I want to listen to the New Order boxset and dance around the living room. Up down, turn around, please don't let me hit the ground...

I also feel really alone when I see a group of really close friends walk down the street, sometimes. Usually when it is other guys. And they are talking. And seem so happy. Or just whenever I realize that their are some things that others got a lot time ago, that I'll never be able to have...

I also feel alone when i remember how I am different from evryone I know, and not just because I think I am in some sort of adolescent manner (which teenager doesn't feel that he or she is "different" ?), but becase there are things I've experienced that no one else I actively know of in my real life has, which has made me different. I am looking for different things, a different rainbow or what do you want to call it?...all the rest of the world is running the other way, I am willingly walking away from It. I don't want what everyone else wants, or at least I don't want to want it, but how am I supposed to get what I want? This is not a negative feeling of aloneness per say, it's just a silencing solitariness that I cannot explain. Somtimes it can be peaceful, but more often it is disturbing and it makes me want to scream loudly in the face of everyone else I know and shake and wake them up that, that..

Finally, there are times when I wish I was all alone in the world - not in the mundane way either. I can go for days without speaking to people, that's no trouble. I mean this: sometimes I strangely desire for there to be an apocalypse, and for me to be the only sole survivor lft upon earth, in total, Eternal Silence. I know such a situation would probably drive most people mad, having the entire planet to themselves. But I think it would almost be liberating to the point of inspiring some sort of transcendental independence, or at least an epiphany of self-sufficient-satisfation. If not such an apocalypse, I at least imagine myself leaving, running, escaping, hiding, into this pure state of solitude: entering an empty field full of long stalks of windy corn, which extends for miles and miles without another human being or wild beast in sight, or stepping into a dark cave or overarching desert nd realizin that I will not be disturbed and not have to see another human face again, not for the rest of time and I'll be forced to confront only my self, hear my own inner voice. That's Freedom - that sort of solitude, endless self-imposed Silence. Peace.

actually mark s it is cooler if you say "Deja Vu for The Future, baby? Me too" and then put on Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes."

For the rest of you I strongly suggest reading The Stranger by Albert Camus, I did when I felt like this and it did wonders.

Ok, since I'm on a UPR (Unbelievably Pretentious Roll) here, I'd just like to add this short diatribe (oxymoron?):

Ok, I know that some may well accuse me of injecting a particular religious philosophy into the explanation that I'm about to give, but I don't choose to slant it in any given direction, even though it can be most easily dismissed as...what's that technical term?..."New Age Gobbledygook." Its just that I think some Truths are universal, beyond the claim of any one religion, since they belong to all of them, in their original forms. Everyone is naturally inclined towards feelings lonely in life at one point or another because, because...well, Since God or the One split Itself off into Many, the Many have since wanted to reuinte themselves with It, so the feeling of Separateness (or disconnecion) is not only necessary in order to ensure the eventual germination of the seed of reunion wih the One (or God-Hunger), but also unavoidable: it cannot and will not be terminated until the microcosmic one once again reunites with the One. So, until the very concept of "you" dies, you are not going to stop feeling lonely at times (but then, Time also will cease to exist), but that's the way it's meant to be, to make certain that indeed, you do die, right?

Loneliness is something that sneaks up. The irony of my usual solution for loneliness - keeping your experience of those far away close to your heart even if you haven't seen some friends for years - probably kept me at a distance from someone who could have used a little contact in the case I'm dwelling on today.

But just as quickly, the feeling passes.

Then why the long faces? Chin up. No solution to this problem aside from your own. Go forth and meet the challenge of being a human being. Bull by the horns. Simple as that. Maybe I should have suggested Myth of Sisyphus but that doesn't address the problem of alienation as directly.

On another note, I think you are all meant for each other, seeing as how everyone here is dead alienated everywhere EXCEPT hmm ILX?

*weeps*

You have to be true to the despair inside of you instead of trying to tidily sweep it under a rug - or else it, and you, won't ever go anywhere. Pretending to be happy (and pretending to be achieving intimacy, or what have you) whereas you really are not, forcing a smile upon your face, can cause greater unhappiness in the long run. Problems regardin isolation have to be worked out slowly, in the long run...first you have to get to know your own self - or Self - better, before you ever try to connect with other people - and wouldn't you agree that most of Mersault's problems arose from the fact that he was a stranger to not only the world but also himself, after ALL ?

And then I turned New Order up even louder and walked home and decided that Bernard Sumner really is the expression of my inner soul. Except not in a bad, scary way, like when I went mad and life turned into a bad episode of Ally McBeal except with Bernard Sumner in the place of that singer that she was hallucinating.

but of course, most of everything i've posted in the last three hours and thirty three minutes can be met with a resounding "DUH??????" so its enough, i give up, i've already forsaken punctuation, so now i am just going to reign and go to sleep *sigh* (did i mention how not being understood makes me feel alone as well? also i wince at hearing the words "best" and "friend" these days, especially TOGETHER)

I felt a sort of solidarity when I read The Stranger/L' Etranger/The Outsider because I realized there were actually lots of people like me (see also THIS THREAD) and that alienation was not a problem I had any right to complain about. I mean who am I to go bitch when there's millions of people all over the world who feel the same disconnectedness from other people and/or inability to mourn appropriately at funerals?

The challenge to live day to day and realize that the constant disappointment and alienation are probably never going to go away is, to me, the very foundation of 'Struggling with the Absurd' IE it's ridiculous to go on living this way, but it's also ridiculous to even imagine that anything will improve if I kill myself.

Also Sorry Vic, you really are fm space and there's nothing we can do.

What does it feel like?
I'm okay with it .

What causes it?
The fact that each of us is ultimately "alone," in a sense. The truth that it is too much to expect of any single person to substitute an existence for yourself.

Is it actual physical loneliness, or is it some more vague and general sense of alienation?
Physical companionship is very necessary, to confirm memories and to prove that one can have an effect on other's lives. On a material level, alienation is a logical byproduct of industrialization.

I think these views are not as bleak as they may sound. It is hard enough to ever really get to know oneself, let alone any single other person, let alone to search for someone to provide you with the fulfillment of a specific need of yours. When I let go of this and try to see people on their own terms as much as possible I feel less alone. I enjoy all of you and when I read about all of your personal experiences here, I do not consider myself "alone."

If it's a book, then it has to do with what I'm talking about here at least.

Man, I read that feature abt north dakota in yesterday's guardian, and I thought it sounded like the sort of place i want to live, b/c I feel so fukcing alone w/all this. As people get older, how the FUKC do they stand it?

I wish you strength for dealing with the world regarding your son. Obviously, I know little to nothing about his exact situation, but for fukcs sake, a doctor once told my mum that *I* was autistic, so remember that just because someone doesn't conform to someone else's narrow definition of mentally "normal" doesn't make them hopeless. But I wish you strength and him understanding.

remembering what you love.

Norman, I hope things get better for you.

In all seriousness, there is a difference between feeling alone and being lonely. The way I see it, being lonely is basically "i'm sad and all by myself; if only the really nifty people that i just know are out there were here with me" Feeling absolutely and horribly alone in the world is more like what the opposite of what Kate said--a feeling that there is no one else in the world with whom you might even potentially connect. It's the existential angst of Mersault, the feeling that no one else is, or ever has been, thinking and feeling what you are thinking and feeling of "oh shit, i'm responsible for my entire life and no one else can justify me or validate me," it's getting in touch with your inner codependancy.

The irony in Miller's suggestion that we all go out and read The Stranger to combat this, is that that would be using Meursault's (fictional) realization and acceptance of his being alone in the world to reassure ourselves and avoid the need to deal with it ourselves. Not sure how Camus would have felt about that...

...but that's ot. New thread anyone?

Better than me whinging on and on about some dumb boy and wishing I was a lesbian.

i don't know why i'm posting this besides out of sheer unwillingness to just go ahead and run away from everything. and i guess hope that some other woman on ilx has got some kind of experience that she'd share that might help, anon or not.

try talking to someone you know has been there. take it slow and be kind to yourself. maybe the person on the other end of the phone is just as lost and lonely but expresses it differently. i'm oversensitive too and the only thing thats helped has been recognizing this fact and remembering that everyone is at times. we just take different roads in reacting.

good luck.

You're totally right, though -- it's awful to wind up in a position where you feel like you either have to cave completely to people or else cut them entirely out of your life. Half the time those things are difficult to the point where they're hardly even options. I dunno: sometimes I think it helps if -- instead of actually arguing the topic of disagreement with them -- you just tell them what it's doing to the relationship itself. Like, whoever's right or wrong, the effect is turning out to be that you feel like you can't even be happy with this stuff in your life, and it makes you feel like you might have to cut certain people/situations out of your life. And maybe if that gets explained, people will back off from the actual problem and the right/wrong of it and be more worried about not making you miserable.

Is the problem the situation itself or how it makes you feel? If the latter, have you dealt with it in explicit terms with all parties involved?

Are you sure that what you think is the issue is really the issue?

Is it possible to work harder on the problem?

the problem is both the situation itself and how it makes me feel.

i am 100% sure.

yes but it requires assistance of others.

yes, belgian ones.

did you answer this one? have you explained why it makes you feel this way?

but is there a reason that it's particularly not ok for you and if so is there a way to communicate that? if not, or perhaps better strategically, and extending nabisco, is there a way to communicate to the people involved that the not-ok-ness is a problem for them because it would be a problem for anyone else in the world. is there a less-interested third party (who is important to the other people involved?) who could communicate that?

*I realize this is not any kind of solution. Except maybe a bad one.

One thing I do a lot is involve myself in a lot of inward-focusing hobbies; reading, videogames, television, movies, even singing to a large degree is inward for me because I don't have to do it to make money or anything. Have you considered writing down your frustations in short-story form and shopping them around or self-publishing them? Or maybe restarting a blog and writing under a psuedonym about this stuff or maybe something completely different, like another Spice Rack-esque humor site? I think it's a lot easier to let go of stuff/people you can't control once you start immersing yourself in stuff you can exert more control over.

I'd like to say that shopping doesn't count, here, but I'm afraid that while it may not be the wisest course, it's an awfully fun one.

dan's first para OTM hence why I am still @ current job (well +$$) and why I am so bad at trying to help with any aspect of this

luna also basically OTM

After that, the issue can still be intractable -- hell, you can still secretly resent one another over it -- but you've shifted the main issue somewhere else, which is how you're going to be able to have anything to do with one another at all. And maybe from that perspective they'll be willing to compromise a bit more. They can even compromise but maintain that they're just "humoring" you about your crazy irrational ideas, or whatever -- but if that means they bend and act nice, that might be a whole lot better than having to nix the whole thing.

thank you everyone for humoring me and talking to me, by the way.

would it work to to state that you accept that fact because in a limited sense they are becoming the boss of you, but that they are undergoing an analogous process in which they have to start making similar compromises?

re Dan's point, I may be overstepping bounds here, not that I haven't already, but I imagine that you're basically the opposite personality from him, and maybe you have to accept that this is when you have to start changing that a little bit?

And do think of it as material for a tell-all book - this is all how my siblings and I deal with our horror-show of a mother.

And yes, if the only person whose behavior you control is yr own, then you might have to exercise that control to be taken seriously. The kicker is that I'm no good at walking away from things either, so by the time I absolutely MUST for my own sanity extract myself, I'm not doing it JUST to be taken seriously and there all kinds of steely resolve in play (some not very helpful in the long run).

The only plus is that the next time someone pushes, you already know how much you can tolerate (and can, therefore, shrug off the minor offenses) or where to draw the line and act BEFORE it takes such a toll on you.

re: 1st paragraph I guess it's really no secret to spill now, these are not people who make "compromises." Because they never have to, so why would they? I wouldn't either if I knew that crying, screaming, yelling, and insulting would get my way, all but one time ever.

xpost Jaq I actually have been trying to do that recently, you're right it does at least help a tiny bit, at least in terms of whether or not I have to put up with something...

xxpost yeah dan, that was pretty funny actually.

I'll talk to her!!!

x-post

I'd say that this isn't necessarily so, and to watch out with you start feeling this way, b/c it can fester into this hopeless/doomed/anxious vibe, that this shit is never gunna change and there's nothing you can do about it.

Never underestimate your ability to handle something or fix a problem. There's always a way to improve a really shitty situ, even if it might take up to a coupla years and some altering or severing of communications with those troublesome parties. Also, even if you can't figure out a way to improve this right now, don't go the catastrophic route and give up, believing that you'll never come up with a way to handle it.

Am i making any sense here? I haven't had to deal with this particular problem yet, shall we say, but I've had a _lot_ of similar momentous problems in the past 3-4 months(alluded to on some of my posts).

Also, I wouldn't completely rule out actually going to talk to someone about this. Even if talking with somebody won't solve the problem, it _definitely_ will give you more skills to handle it mentally & emotionally, and eventually help you cope until you actually solve the problem for yourself.

1) i have been trying very hard to keep as much of the gory details to myself, in order to not make other people uncomfortable (ie other wedding guests or people who also have to deal with this situation later), or in order to not make my friends extremely, extremely angry that i'm even going through with this
2) the other person supposedly on my side's only "coping strategy" developed over a lifetime is to cave to whatever is demanded, occasionally after a temper tantrum, and to not ever confront anyone or ask for any sort of explanation. there are consistently lofty claims made of what will be done to fix the situation because I am "most important" only the next day to be told actually no because it makes others yell (we aren't even talking about major things here)
3) no matter how much power i give up or how much i have compromised things i've wanted to do (hello destroyed spring break! hello ruined valentine's day weekend! hello really uncomfortable graduation! hello ruined ENTIRE WEDDING), there is always something i am doing wrong and another demand that cannot be refused
4) we aren't talking garden variety obnoxious people, we are talking breathtakingly rude behavior which might be acceptable in some circles but if any of my future children ever get called yankees in a derogatory fashion, bipolar puppets, or get screamed at in a restaurant in front of people, i will kill the person who commits this sin. i will not have my children be taught that respect is not something they deserve, and i will not have them belittled or made to feel they are stupid or inadequate.

what it comes down to is that, yes, i am not used to being treated without any respect whatsoever. i have been treated in an adult fashion my entire life. while i don't expect anyone to change their entire persona, i do expect to be treated with some vague respect and not like a 12 year old about to be grounded. and no one has been there to get my back, per se, no matter how many other people who have seen this behavior have told me PRIVATELY that it's all horseshit and horrible behavior.

so, i feel very alienated and isolated.

but, this thread, and emails, have cheered me up a bit. i really needed to just vent, i guess. i figure worse comes to worse, I never have to see these people again.

So, (if it were me) I would call the person out in every group setting possible... When a conflict arises, calmly ask the perrson to justify their comments. Use logical rebuttals to get validation from everyone else present - turn the situation around so that the other person has to defend their behavior/comments. Not only might it make them reluctant to put themselves in that position going forward, but everyone else *should* nod along with you - which isn't exactly backing you up, but maybe a little closer to it?

(All that said without having any idea what the problem is...)

It's rough going, and I'm sorry you have to face it.

(She also misbehaved horribly at my first wedding, throwing herself to the ground in the parking lot in front of the priest and my new father-in-law, refusing to come into the reception. I only heard about that later.)

a) you're pretty great
b) so is the BOT, though maybe he needs to kick a bit more mi11ar ass
c) seriously, if you need anything at all (AT ALL), i think i speak for the dc crew in that we're more than ready
d) JMod will be in effect, yes?

Dave your suggestion is good.