Loneliness is on the rise.
People do all sorts of things when feeling lonely. Even absurd or strange things.
What specific situations or experiences in your life make you feel so lonely?
Jane Park was a lonely millionaire. The news reported that she offered men an annual allowance of p1.4 million pesos to date her.
Psychologists long recognized that loneliness is one main problem of humanity. Rates of suicide rise as a result of it.
Medical and psychological research do show its damaging effects on our physical, mental, and relational health.
Persons who develop psychopathology are observed to be overwhelmingly lonely and socially isolated.
You benefit when you get to the “roots” of your feelings of loneliness.
Some people feel lonely due to shame over past experiences. Unforgotten, unprocessed pain from the past.
Others feel lonely because of feeling not being fully accepted or approved by significant people in their lives.
Still others experience loneliness out of recurring losses or disappointments that they go through.
Loneliness is on the rise.
Recent Covid pandemic social situations increase loneliness and mental health disorders by over 70%.
Psychotherapist and author, Dr. Jacqueline Olds, explains the seeming “inevitability” of loneliness in our existence.
She writes,
“A full life free from loneliness is almost unimaginable. It would have to be a life in which no one that we cared about was ever lost or absent.”
Research by neuroscientists JOSEPH LeDoux and Antonio Damaso suggested that humans have an “emotional brain.”
It encodes memories of trauma. And many times not only lasting a lifetime. But that can bypass your normal thinking brain.
Psychotherapy then is looking closely at yourself when feeling lonely. It’s underlying emotional and cognitive roots that fuel or drive it. And taking action based on what’s discovered.
When feeling lonely, you can use your higher functions. Your abilities. Your reasoning. Your reflection. Your directing your awareness.
All this to temper, balance, and provide perspective. Quite especially when overwhelming loneliness kicks in.
Loneliness doesn’t have to be on the rise. Something can be done to stop or manage it better.
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