WHAT LEADS TO LONELINESS

A similar question would be what separates us from each other? Or, are we really social animals? Or , do we really need each other? Or, are we really all connected? Or, is anything that separates us bad?

I believe that being (or even feeling) separated from each other leads to loneliness. Also, referring to the questions mentioned above, yes we are social animals and yes we need each other and yes we are all connected and yes anything that separates us is bad.

This separation from others leads to feeling lonely and that is a bad thing. We are much more likely to feel lonely if we do not feel connected to others as we are actually social animals and do actually need each other

If the above is true, why do we end up feeling lonely so frequently? Something must reinforce this for many people. What is this?  Many of people who come to me for help feel lonely.  About 1/3 of them are depressed and yet when their depression is lifted and they are interested in being with others, they are still lonely.  Something causes them to feel isolated and lonely even if they are around people.  Many of them feel anxious and feel alienated from others as they have been encouraged to see other people as the enemy, especially if they have different view points or ideas of what is right and wrong. Encouraging this divisiveness [us against them] serves the needs of greedy people who want us to be preoccupied with a fear of others and blaming them for our problems so that we focus on fear of others and blaming them instead of being aware that the greedy people are not paying taxes, make money by under paying others and are even bribing politicians who then give them tax breaks. This is very stressful and one way we cope with this stress is to believe the lies we are being told and blame other people for our problems… This alienates us from each other and leads to more stress and feeling more isolated and lonely. Once we blame others, we give up any chance of helping ourselves to feel less lonely and feel better about ourselves. Misery loves company [people who blame others] but miserable people are terrible company and do not reduce lonely feelings.

So, what can we do to not feel lonely? In my work with my patients it is very clear that not giving in to feeling stressed and worried and then not needing to blame others, is very helpful. However, it may seem impossible. Why does it seem impossible? It could be because one of the ways that our brain functions efficiently and allowing us to navigate a complex environment involving lots of emotions, reactions, other people and especially people that we are manipulated into feeling are our enemies, is by developing patterns of behaviors, reactions and emotions that are quite automatic and can be very rapidly released with no thinking involved on our part. These reactions are very fast and very automatic. These reactions are ways of coping with stress that likely developed years ago to help us manage stress. We may not need to cope this way any more and yet they are hard to stop as we often are reacting before we are aware of a need to react. Our reactions are rapidly triggered by an event or interaction or memory or smell, etc. It is part of our brain’s effort to protect us from being stressed and overwhelmed by activating the amygdala that can respond in nanoseconds [= a billionth of a second] . At some point in our past it likely was a helpful response but may not be needed any longer and yet it is hard to stop the reaction. I have identified some medications that can reduce our brain’s response to reminders of past stresses and thus give us time to not react and then teach our brain that it does not need to react. This gives us a chance to choose to not react and this will lower our stress level. There are also some cognitive-behavioral therapies such as EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing] that can help us to learn to not react to reminders of stress when they happen.

Another related thing that I have learned from my patients is that we can help ourselves a lot by being aware of the instructions we are giving our brains…like the message that we need to be worried and stressed to cope versus that we do not want to worry and do not want to feel stressed. Something as simple as telling ourselves that we are ready to stop feeling stress and stop worrying can be helpful as our brain will then work with us to have this happen. Really!