No matter what I do I feel lonely

[Veronica Sawyer]

Like, objectively I have people in my life who care about me. I have a couple of weekly group social commitments, one in person and one online, and a couple more sporadic ones. I enjoy doing these activities, but as soon as I'm not participating in them I just feel completely alone and isolated. I have a problem where I am like, almost entirely incapable of reaching out to people, even just to say "hi". I've spent years pushing myself to join new social circles, which is already hard enough with depression making me unmotivated and social anxiety making it difficult to interact with new people, and yet nothing manages to shake this feeling of loneliness and that nobody truly cares about me.

I don't know at this point I feel like I'm just a broken person. I know logically that people care about me and that I have friends, but I never *feel* like this is true. Does anyone have similar experiences? Anything that helps?

 

[MissionSucksAssFul]

similar experience? is my entire life enough? xD I always had trouble fitting in and making friends, always questioning whether they hang with me just for amusement and it actually made me alienate the idea of new people in my life! I think as long as you don't get that far you can still find someone who will make you feel loved

 

[Aleksandra]

i think you would need to learn to find comfort in your own company - it's a long road and difficult to even know where to begin. i did this by hard isolating myself but i wouldn't recommend that as it might worsen your depression, but i went with the intention of figuring out what i like about myself and why i would want to spend time with myself. it took 1.5 years. again, please don't do this if you think it might worsen it for you, i don't suffer with depression so:(

 

[Sulyya]

Are the relationships you have ones where you can be totally open? Ones where you can't are valuable but if that's all you have maybe you're missing an outlet?

Like I know lol, I'm not open with anyone irl!

 

[Veronica Sawyer]

i think you would need to learn to find comfort in your own company - it's a long road and difficult to even know where to begin. i did this by hard isolating myself but i wouldn't recommend that as it might worsen your depression, but i went with the intention of figuring out what i like about myself and why i would want to spend time with myself. it took 1.5 years. again, please don't do this if you think it might worsen it for you, i don't suffer with depression so:(

Honestly sometimes I really really want to do this. Like there are times when I'm okay by myself, other days when the anxiety and depression is bad just existing feels unbearable. But maybe eliminating social expectations would be good for me. Doing this feels really difficult though, like yeah it'd be easy to stop seeing friends for a while but family and the people I live with it feels like there's a lot more to consider.

Are the relationships you have ones where you can be totally open? Ones where you can't are valuable but if that's all you have maybe you're missing an outlet?

I think so, I talk about a lot of personal stuff with these people. I don't really have any outlets for talking about mental health stuff other than with a therapist, and only getting to talk once a week feels like not nearly enough. I rarely find it helpful to talk about my issues with other people, over text it tends to get ignored and the like one person I sometimes talk to about my mental health in person it never seems to go very well. So yeah idk maybe that's the issue but I have no idea how to find people who I can be more open with.

 

[enough of this]

Like, objectively I have people in my life who care about me. I have a couple of weekly group social commitments, one in person and one online, and a couple more sporadic ones. I enjoy doing these activities, but as soon as I'm not participating in them I just feel completely alone and isolated. I have a problem where I am like, almost entirely incapable of reaching out to people, even just to say "hi". I've spent years pushing myself to join new social circles, which is already hard enough with depression making me unmotivated and social anxiety making it difficult to interact with new people, and yet nothing manages to shake this feeling of loneliness and that nobody truly cares about me.

I don't know at this point I feel like I'm just a broken person. I know logically that people care about me and that I have friends, but I never *feel* like this is true. Does anyone have similar experiences? Anything that helps?

I feel exactly the same. I have a couple of weekly group experiences, and usually feel okay with those. But outside of those engagements, I feel so lonely. I try to keep myself busy with something, but I've lost interest in practically everything I used to enjoy. So often, I just want to CTB and go home. Whatever is waiting for me there has got to be better than how I feel here. I hope we all find relief from our loneliness.

 

[LonelyTurkey]

I'm in the same boat. I don't feel my families love. The only thing that keeps me hanging on is my love for them and not wanting to make them cry, because in my head, they have to be sad over my death for me to continue to live. It's getting so hard. The weekends are especially hard since I can't go to work. I don't even know what to do anymore. I think about CTB hourly now, not daily. It's almost constant. I never could see myself living too long of a life, now I understand why. This just gets worse and worse.

 

[vitbar]

I have experienced this even during times when I wasn't so isolated. Even now I get lonely soon after socialising.

 

[LonelyTurkey]

I have experienced this even during times when I wasn't so isolated. Even now I get lonely soon after socialising.

It's like I can feel the dark cloud behind me while I socialize, but it doesn't bother me. Once I'm not socializing the cloud consumes me for the remainder of the day.

 

[vitbar]

It's like I can feel the dark cloud behind me while I socialize, but it doesn't bother me. Once I'm not socializing the cloud consumes me for the remainder of the day.

Interesting. For me it depends if I can let go and properly involve myself. If I manage to I forget about all that. If not it comes and goes.

 

[LonelyTurkey]

Interesting. For me it depends if I can let go and properly involve myself. If I manage to I forget about all that. If not it comes and goes.

If I can properly involve myself then I can often forget about this. I guess it's just so uncommon for me to be able to properly involve myself. I'm always on the outside of a conversations trying to get in.