Loneliness

The Better I Get, the Lonelier I Feel

It sounds contradictory.

You might expect to feel less lonely when you start getting better.

But it can be exactly the opposite.

When you are really ill, there is not much thought left for anything except what is happening in your body.

You need to go to the bathroom and you do not have the strength to get there.

That is where you are.

There is no energy for a social life. But there is no energy to miss it either.

People, dinners, trips, conversations and the things that once filled your life become very far away.

Not as a conscious choice.

There is simply no room for them.

You can live like that for a long time.

Then something starts to change.

When Your Mind Starts to Have More Energy

Your body is still tired.

It has been inactive for a long time.

Your strength and stamina have not returned yet.

But your mind starts working better.

And with that comes something you may not have been prepared for.

You start noticing how lonely you are.

The loneliness does not necessarily have to be new.

What is new is that you finally have enough energy to feel it.

When you were at your most ill, that capacity was not there.

Now there is beginning to be room for something beyond your body.

And the world starts coming back.

With it comes the emptiness left by what is no longer there.

When Your Mind and Body Are in Different Places

It can be a strange time.

Your mind starts wanting things again.

Your body still cannot manage very much.

After a long period of illness and little movement, you cannot simply get up and continue where life stopped.

Your body needs time to come back too.

That creates a gap.

You may start wanting to do things long before you are actually able to do them.

And that is exactly where loneliness can become very clear.

Not when you are at your most ill.

But when you have become well enough to start missing things.

Getting Used to Being Alone

You get used to many things when you are ill for a long time.

Even being alone.

The days pass.

Your social life becomes smaller.

What once would have felt strange becomes normal.

So when your mind starts working better, you almost have to discover your own life again.

A strange realisation may come:

I have been alone for a long time.

And then another:

Now I can feel it.

It is a different kind of loneliness from the one that exists in the middle of the worst illness.

Now there is more presence.

More awareness.

More desire.

And therefore more ability to feel what is missing.

When You Start Wanting Things Again

There is something difficult about wanting things before you have the energy for them.

You may want to see people.

Do something spontaneous.

Get out of the house.

Laugh about something completely unimportant.

Have someone to talk to about things that have nothing to do with your body.

But wanting something does not automatically give your body more strength.

It takes time to rebuild a life that has been small for a long time.

And that time can be lonely.

Your Social Life Needs to Come Back Too

After a long period of illness, it is not only your body that needs to find its way back.

A social life that has been gone for a long time does not automatically appear outside your door when your energy starts returning.

You have to find your place in it again.

Maybe in a different way than before.

Because illness can change what you want to spend your energy on.

You may no longer need lots of people or a completely full life.

It may be someone you actually want to talk to.

Someone you can laugh with.

Someone you can be quiet with.

Something outside your body that starts to feel like your own life again.

The Better I Get, the Lonelier I Feel

That sentence may sound wrong.

But there is something important in it.

When you are at your most ill, loneliness can be there without you having the strength to experience it.

When your mind starts working better, you get back more than the ability to think.

You get back the ability to miss things.

To long for things.

To notice the emptiness.

And so you can find yourself sitting there, actually a little better than before, while feeling more lonely.

Not because the loneliness has necessarily become greater.

But because you have started coming back.