Alone? Or Lonely?

In the ‘Home Alone’ movie that was released in the 90s, the protagonist, Kevin is seen be enjoying his stay at home alone. He is shown to be experiencing lots of adventures and fun when he is inadvertently left alone at home by his family. Unfortunately in real life, this ‘Home Alone’ stay is usually not adventurous or fun-filled for most of the people, who need to stay home alone for several reasons. On the contrary, their life is extremely challenging and overwhelming on several occasions.

None of us usually takes an active decision of living our lives alone. We are often forced to do so due to certain circumstances beyond our control.
For instance; individuals who have lost their respective spouses, often find themselves living alone, especially after a certain age. Singles, who have never been married, may need to stay alone. Many elderly couples, whose children have relocated to a foreign country, or have shifted to another city, are forced to stay alone.  
Thus, as we see, most of the people staying alone have never decided to do so willingly. They often find themselves staying alone one fine day, and then they have no choice but to resign to circumstances.

Staying alone, as I have mentioned earlier, can be extremely challenging and overwhelming at times. However, in most instances it is still manageable. The real issue arises when this ‘alone’ existence steadily transitions into a ‘lonely’ existence. 
Once a person starts feeling lonely it brings a host of problems along with it. Feelings of loneliness often lead to several psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, and in some extreme cases suicide. The link between loneliness and health issues has also been well documented by several researches.

Being alone can be regarded as a physical state. On the other hand, being lonely can be regarded as an emotional state. There is definitely a strong link between being alone and experiencing loneliness. However, to experience loneliness one need not necessarily have to stay alone. Loneliness, being at an emotional level, can experienced even in the midst of people. Most of us must be familiar with people who are staying with their entire families but still complain of loneliness. 

Let us look at some the reasons for these feelings of loneliness:

One major reason is the feeling of not being ‘heard’. Other people around the person are so busy with their own lives that he often starts feeling as if he has no one with whom he can have a meaningful conversation. As a result, he is even unable to share his grievances or problems with others. This leads to bottling up and, in turn, may lead to many psychological problems.

Some people tend to feel ignored or side-lined. If this continues for a longer duration it leads to alienation, and may create intense feelings of loneliness.

Another reason may be that some people, especially senior citizens, start thinking that they have become useless and have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the outside world. Very often these thoughts come out of their own insecurities, but in a few cases they may be actually made to feel useless or incapable by people surrounding them.

Physical disabilities or terminal illnesses may also trigger off feelings of loneliness. As time passes it starts getting extremely difficult for caretakers and significant others to devote enough time, and this this in turn may make these people start feeling lonely.

People who relocate to a new city or country often feel left out and may even find it difficult to develop meaningful social relationships, especially during the initial phase of their stay. This may lead to feelings of loneliness.

In some homes witnessing a lot of marital conflicts and fights, the children often start feeling neglected. The parents, due to their constant bickering have no quality time to devote to the children. As a result the children are very likely to experience loneliness.

The above mentioned reasons are in no way exhaustive. I have tried to mention the most important and commonly observed reasons.

As I mentioned earlier, once a person starts experiencing loneliness, psychological problems are not far away. Thus, if one wishes to work on his loneliness, taking psychological counselling sessions is the best and safest solutions.

However, there are a lot of things we can do on our own before the, “I am alone” thought turns into an, “I am lonely” feeling. The suggestions are equally applicable for people not alone but still prone to experiencing loneliness.

Be at peace with your own self: Many people are not at all comfortable in their own company. As soon as they are left to themselves, they start feeling uneasy or restless or anxious. They have a lot of negative and disturbing thoughts entering their mind. As a result of this they either try to keep themselves continuously busy or else they constantly keep looking for some socializations. This puts unnecessary pressure and often leads to burnout. If circumstances force such people to live their lives alone, they are bound to experience a lot of psychological turmoil, and intense loneliness is definitely going to be the outcome.
Thus, one needs to be comfortable in his own company. Just for 10 minutes if we try to sit at one place, in seclusion, without any meaningful activities to be done, we will be able to see how comfortable we are in our own company. If at the end of this 10 minutes period you are still completely relaxed and peaceful, and ready to extend this 10 minutes period, this is definitely a positive sign.

Have a routine: Many people, especially senior citizens, keep so much of vacant time in their daily lives that it often leads to boredom. They tend to do things in a haphazard manner.  Instead, it might really help if they try to organize their waking periods each day. I personally know of many senior citizens who have benefitted by following a daily routine or regime.  
Having a routine of doing things keeps us looking forward to the next activity that we are supposed to do, thereby, keeping us alert, motivated and feeling fresh.

Seek out social engagements: Even if we are staying alone in the house does not mean that we have to remain alone throughout the day. This is especially applicable to all those senior citizens staying alone. There are several ways in which we can seek people out. One simplest way is to be a member of a group or club or association (for example; a laughter club, a book readers club, senior citizen groups, etc). Another way in which senior citizens can connect with people is by going for morning walks, or evening walks, or sitting in a garden at a particular time of the day. This way there is a chance that you will slowly get acquainted with a lot of people and may develop friendships and long-term association with many of them. For people who have a religious bend, spending some time in a temple or joining a satsang may also help them find new social connections.

Travel: For those people who are free of any physical or health constraints, traveling to new places is a very good way to spend quality time in one’s own company. Travelling helps one explore a variety of landscapes, cultures and climates. This is also a very good idea to beat the blues.

Develop hobbies or some interesting activities: I am sure each one of us must have heard of this suggestion at least a hundred times. However, it really an important suggestion and so needs to be mentioned. Developing hobbies is a really good way to keep loneliness away. Many of us must have had a lot of things that we enjoyed as a child. However, as we got busy with our lives we might have either forgotten about these things or else we might have kept it on the backburner. If we start pursuing a few of these things, it will definitely help us relax and spend some quality time alone. It is helpful to have a variety of hobbies and activities, since pursing the same activity every day may also bring in monotony and then may not be as effective.

Meditate: This is another idea that is being suggested by almost all experts. However, this is again an extremely useful and effective technique and so definitely deserves to be put forth. Meditation helps us really relax. It helps increase our mental and emotional strength. It is also a very good way to be comfortable with your own self.  There are various methods of meditation being practiced. Most of them are effective and have their own benefits. However, if you wish to practice a particular method of meditation, it is safe to learn it systematically from an expert.

Work for some social cause: If we work for some social cause, the satisfaction and happiness that we derive is invaluable. The cause need to be something really big. As long as someone is benefitting out of it, the cause is definitely meaningful. For example, if teaching is something that you have always liked, you can think of joining some associations like, Teach India. You may also create a group of underprivileged students and teach them. If you feel you are good at storytelling, you can conduct storytelling sessions in some orphanages or in some children’s hospitals wards. Joining some clubs such as the Rotary or Lions Club is also a good way to contribute to the society.

Introspect: We constantly tend to look for circumstances outside us to blame for. It is an easier way out and definitely keeps our self-pride protected. However, if we are actually looking to change our lives, it is necessary that we also start looking within us. Are there some of my personality traits that tend to keep people away from me? Is my behaviour or my temper responsible for making people wary of me? How do I make my personality more interesting to other people? These are some important questions we need to ask ourselves.

Enjoy those small moments in life: Don’t give up on the small enjoyments of life. Just because you are staying alone does not mean that you need to spend your life in misery. How about gifting yourselves with occasional restaurant treats? Can you try preparing some of your favourite recipes for your weekend dinner? Visiting malls and buying some interesting stuff for ourselves is also a good idea. This could be clothes, some high-end cell phone, and so on. You can come up with lot many activities that you can plan for yourself. The idea is to keep your life exciting and refreshing.

Get friendly with technologies: This is especially for the senior citizens. There are many senior citizens I know of, who are reluctant to get familiar with technology and gadgets. YouTube, various music apps, social media, etc. are really good and effective ways of recreation and also to keep you connected with the outside world. Many senior citizens now have their own WhatsaApp or Facebook groups of school or college friends. They also keep on organizing regular get-togethers. This is such a wonderful way to unwind. 

The above suggestions come out of my own observations and my interaction with my clients. If each one of us decides to be creative we will definitely be able to come up with many more effective ideas to help keep loneliness at bay.

Thus, as we can see. The picture is not so grim. We definitely have a lot of control over our lives and we can definitely chose to just stay alone and not start experiencing loneliness. The main problem is that when we are in the middle of a lot of loving people, when we are really enjoying our lives to the fullest, we start feeling as if we are invincible. We feel as if this is going to be the reality of our lives forever. This is a folly. Life is known to shift gears very quickly. Thus, one moment we are sitting on the other side of the fence, thinking how unfortunate someone is to be living alone, the next moment we may have crossed sides and now find ourselves staying alone. Keeping this possibility in mind, all of us need to make it a point to keep ourselves available for those people out there who are living all by themselves and fending off for themselves. Some people are really desperate to hear a few simple questions such as: How are you doing? How is your health? Is there anything I can do for you? If we fail to ask even such simple questions to these people who are staying alone and perhaps feeling extremely lonely, it is definitely very disappointing. Very often we hear people say, “I am so busy with my work that I have no tie for anything else”. This may be true in case of a few people but in most cases their Facebook updates are in conflict with this statement. Their Facebook updates are full of pictures of their weekend parties or picnics. We need to be a bit more sensitive here. All that some people ask for is just a few quality moments. As human beings they definitely deserve these moments.      

So it is necessary to prepare ourselves for this inevitability. We need to have our plans and strategies in place. This way, if we have to really live alone one day, we might be able to successfully halt the process of our alone existence from shifting into a lonely existence.      

Amit Joshi 
Consulting Psychologist

You can mail me at info@mentalhealthguidance.in