I Was All By Myself

In keeping with the endeavour towards improved self esteem and confidence I have discovered one area of my life I need to work on is my tendency towards loneliness.  It is something that plagued me for as long as I remember.  It's this idea that I don't fit in, that I am an outsider and a fear that the people that really and truly get to know me would not like what they find.  Of course when I struggle with loneliness that also means that I assume I am the only one that feels this way.  I see the relationships of people around me and become jealous of the intimacy and the comfort they feel with each other and it leads me to not only feel the sting of this but to further withdraw into my own shell determining that it's too late for me to find my place in these social circles so I might as well just give up.  I can now see that this would be a self fulfilling prophesy and have attempted in a few small ways to try and break the pattern I have set in my life when sadness and loneliness creep into my sole.  One way that I have attempted to guard against this is by forcing myself to reach out when I'm feeling withdrawn and I discovered as I did this that I am far from alone in my struggle with loneliness.  In fact the people I have talked with have confessed to me their own issues with loneliness as well.  They also feel that ache and discomfort of not feeling understood or that they fit in.  They long to be able to find their place in the world and how they can make their own mark.

I have come to see that underneath this loneliness there is (at least for me) a lack of confidence and an insecurity in who I am.  I undervalue myself and start to worry that the real me just isn't good enough and try to hide behind a fake confidence.  I don't believe anymore that I am the only one that does this.  I think there are lots of people out there that seem confident, respected, loved, admired and even quite popular that feel isolated, disliked, rejected, resented and very much alone inside. 

Just a short time ago I was feeling this ache of loneliness when my husband was on his last bout of night shifts.  For two weeks of every month I am tied to my house.  I put the kids to bed and then I am left to my own devices.  It always starts out nice to have a little bit of time to myself but by the end I usually realize I'm pretty poor company.  I fall into the same patterns of how to resolve these feelings and it is anything but helpful.  I withdraw, I mope, I become extra emotional and can have some pretty elaborate pity parties.  This last set of night shifts hit me extra hard since I'm also having a lot of trouble with SAD (seasonal affective disorder) this year.  My usual "fix" for this has proved to be not only ineffective but also damaging.  Even still the desire to fall into that same pattern was very strong.  I felt like an addict resisting temptation.  Every fiber of my being was crying out for that "drug" even though I knew in my head it would hurt me in the end.  Thankfully I made a better choice.  I sent a message to a few old friends that have been very supportive of me in my struggles.  Unfortunately they live quite a distance from me so it doesn't help with the whole personal contact aspect of loneliness but the message I received from one of these ladies was very helpful.  It made me see that I am not (as I delusional think during difficult times) the only one that feels this ache of the heart and there was something freeing in knowing that I was not alone in feelings of loneliness.  This is my hope in sharing my journey with you.  I hope that those of you out there feeling isolated and alone will see that your experience is not unique.  I hope you can feel a kinship and companionship in your struggle and know others feel this way too.

I have long known that it isn't the job of other people to fill this hole for me.  Sometimes I can feel alone even in a room full of people, so I know that this hurt is something I feel is missing inside of me and totally unrelated to my circumstances.  When I expect someone else to fill this emptiness in my sole is puts a lot of pressure on that relationship.  There is no way one person can meet all of our need for friendship, intimacy and relationship.  My friend expressed that she has come to believe that the lonely tug on her heart is a part of the human experience.  That it is God's way of reminding us that this world is not our home.  That pull is something eternal that nothing in this world can satisfy.  I am inclined to agree.  I feel now that my loneliness is a reminder that there are relationships out there I should be pursuing.  That there are other people feeling lost too that I can reach out to and that my loneliness is a choice.  It is a doubt I have in who I am and who I was created to be.  It is a lack of confidence in myself that needs to be assessed and rejected.  It is a reality check.  I don't believe I will be the fulfillment of the total need for relationship in other people so why do I then expect them to be that cure for me?  Instead of wallowing in self pity and expecting someone to reach out to me and pull me out of despair I have realized that it is my responsibility to reach out to others when I am feeling low.  I have to make the choice to change, the choice to break the pattern, the choice to be more confident, and I hope that my choice to do some of these things will show others out their that they have a choice in their loneliness too.  Not one of us is completely alone.

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