What is it?
A feeling of being alone in the world, together with all the negative emotions that accompany this feeling. It is different from solitude which is self-imposed and as a result can have much more serious effects. About one in five of all US households are single occupants (though not all of these will be lonely of course) and many other individuals are lonely even if they are surrounded by people. In this context loneliness could be said to be a combination of an individual’s environment and personal expectations. Young people living at home are often lonely, especially if they have no boyfriend or girlfriend at a time when most of their friends have one. Older people are much better at being alone than are younger ones and it appears that loneliness is something we learn to cope with as we get older.
What causes it?
The most obvious cause of loneliness is literally being alone, but it doesn’t have to be physical-it can be emotional or psychological aloneness. We can all be lonely from time to time, even within a family. Many married couples who appear happy to the outside world live lonely lives side by side under the same roof. Their bodies are physically close to one another but their hearts and minds are miles apart.
There are at least two main types of loneliness. In the first, the individual feels alone and passive, and sleeps, eats and cries most of the time. People suffering from this often see themselves as unlovable and unable to alter their lives. The second category contains the large group of adults who feel lonely for some reason and then read, listen to music, disappear to the greenhouse, study or whatever to fill their lonely hours. This then becomes a vicious circle because those around them imagine they don’t want company, and their feeling of isolation and loneliness increases. Of course, not all pursuits such as these are signs of loneliness-they can be an oasis in a busy life-but if someone spends most of his or her time alone this should alert friends and family that all may not be well.
But it is not just adults who get lonely. Babies and young children are often very lonely-right from the day they are born. Many a baby is left in its cot awake for hours staring at the ceiling, but however many toys there are to play with the average baby craves human company and input. By and large it is probably fair to say that we leave our children too much in our culture, when they really want to be around their parents and particularly their mother when they are very young. I believe that babies should be with their mothers (or whoever is their primary care-giver) most of the time in the first year of life so as to prevent the learning of loneliness. Babies can be carried around in a sling or put in a carrycot in the kitchen or living room so that they can observe family life and be part of it.
Loneliness also paves the way for fear and other negative emotions. A busy mind wards off worries, especially unnecessary ones.
Grieving, for example after the death of a spouse or a parent, often involves a feeling of loneliness among the other emotions-all perfectly normal-and it can take up to two years to fully recover. Similarly, after a divorce many people feel desperately alone, possibly for the first time in their lives. This is especially true of the person who is left without the children (usually the man). This is a time when loneliness can lead to true depression and even to suicide as the world seems hardly worth living in.
The ‘normal’, healthy person can be alone without being lonely and can balance a need for and enjoyment of others with a need for and enjoyment of solitude, if only from time to time. Such people don’t feel the world is a bad place, or inferior or vulnerable, when they are ‘alone’-simply that they can’t and don’t want to be with others all of the time. Many people need to reach their forties or even older before they can claim that they have achieved this delicate balance.
*192/72/5*
