Loneliness - The Silent Painful Universal Phenomenon

She enters a room and is alone, but she is happy. Another girl enters a different room, where there are  a few people in it, but this girl feels absolutely lost, anxious and disconnected with everything around her. 

How can that be? Its a typical, happy, social situation, right?  

Guess Not!
Psychologically these two girls are experiencing very different emotions. One girl is just ‘physically alone’ but the other is experiencing ‘psychological’ and ‘emotional’ signs which are very hazardous to health.

What is about loneliness that drains a person so much? Why is happiness so difficult to attain or rather to sustain?

Loneliness is a complex and rather unpleasant emotional response to being alone- or rather being isolated or in a constant lack of contact between the society and other individuals. There are many different reasons why a person could feel lonely and it could all be a mixture of social, emotional, mental and physical factors.  

“When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.” 

― Fiona Apple

We all have the need to connect with other people but most often; many of us go home alone. Of course there can be many positive people surrounding you throughout the day or you could even be in a lifelong marriage but that deep, pervasive itch of loneliness may still be there.

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” 
― Mother Teresa

Loneliness has been a topic of concern for many years and decades. Just stop and think about it, for a minute; we are constantly, desiring, more positive experiences and that itself is a negative experience.

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” 
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

This is exactly what Alan Watts’s, the philosopher had used to refer to the backward law.- an idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time the less satisfied you become; as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. It has always been of concern to the society, “how to be lead a happy life”, “how to strengthen intimate bonds, etc.      

A lot of research has been conducted about loneliness and has even been described as a ‘social pain’ where it is referred to as a psychological mechanism that is in fact meant to motivate an individual to seek out social connections. If we were to rephrase this it would be the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person's network of social relations is deficient in some important way.

There is a lot to talk about loneliness as it is very often miscontrued to being ‘alone’ or ‘being socially isolated’. When we talk about the feeling of loneliness we refer to the the necessary and achieved levels of social interaction; while the later refers to the lack of contact with people. The whole experience of loneline can be a very subjective experience for a person to go through.

There are severe affects of loneliness on a person’s mental health and well-being. Besides erratic sleep quality, a person suffering from loneliness can fall into deep depression and even be at a risk of suicide. For others, there are possibilities of becoming antisocial, self-destructive, hostile, aggressive, experience social alienation and all of this can leave negative impacts on the memory and learning abilities of th person.

In order to get the appropriate treatment it is important to understand why you or the person is suffering from loneliness. There are many different reasons. Some of them could be:

• New situation loneliness- where a person has either just moved to a new city or started a new job and they don't know anyone.            
• I’m Different loneliness: You perhaps feel very different from the people around you. Sometimes it is very hard to connect with other people especially when you don't share common likings.
• No-sweetheart Loneliness:  You may have a wonderful family and a good set of friends, but if you don't have the intimate attachment of a romantic partner, you could feel lonely. Maybe you do have a partner but you don't feel the deep connection anymore. This can be extremely stressful and a person can be very lonely within.
• No animal loneliness: Pets can sometimes be your best friends and people have a lot of attachment towards them. If there is a situation in life where you cannot have the ‘pet’ or animal’ it can lead to a lot of traumatic feelings and feelings of loneliness.
• Untrustworthy friends Loneliness: Sometimes, life can move in unexpected directions. It can be slow at times and extremely fast. All you can do is just be a passenger. Sometimes you may even doubt your own friends and lose your ability to confide in them. When that happens it can be really hard because it gets lonely.
• Quiet Presence Loneliness: Its odd isn’t it, that someone who is quiet can affect your life so much when they are gone?  Do you remember that person sitting in the corner while you were with your friends at the other table? It could be anyone, right from a family member, a roommate, a neighbour or just about anyone.                        
• No-time-for-me Loneliness: Life is all about meeting new people and making new friends, right? However, sometimes it becomes really tough especially when the opposite person is not open to move from the ‘just friendly’ to ‘friends’ part. It can make you feel very lonely within as you can see all your other friends happy with their friends but you cannot connect with others.