on my own-sum

LegacyUser

Hi,

I'm at a pretty lonely/isolated part of my life at the moment. The last 3 years of work have lead to me losing all my friends and social life, not because I'm anti social or anything, its just the way things worked out. I was working, my friends were in college. Now the loneliness of the approaching bank holiday weekend is really, really getting to me. I'm desperatly trying to think of things to do during the weekend. I need to restart my social life but I'm finding it difficult to think of ways to restart it. That’s why I'm here.

I also must tell you I suffer from anxiety. I was so anxious last week about this ongoing, never-ending loneliness, that I was sick all weekend and the first half of this week. I was suffering from nausea, trembling, sweating, panic attacks, sadness etc etc, awful feeling. My doctor told me I was not suffering from depression, rather the over anxious personality that I have was causing me distress over the loneliness I have in my life at the moment. I was with a councilor today and he said I need a change of lifestyle. My job leaves me with a lot of time off (which I taught would be good) but it means I'm home a lot more than I like, plus its a pretty lonely job as I'm working as an IT field engineer. Although its a lonely job, I do get to meet new people but nothing comes of it. Today I was chatting with a lovely looking girl on a clients site, I've no problem talking to people but its hard to make anything out of it as I'm under pressure to do the job and get out of the site

I've been asking people's advice on this and they recommend joining clubs like hill walking clubs but I'm 23 so I don't know if I'm too young for this, but going away for a weekend with a small group of people to the hills of Scotland or Wales does sound attractive. I'm into motorsport, flying, cars.. but really I'm looking to make friends and have a bit of fun along the way. I don’t know about joining a gym as I've been in them before but there's not much socialising going on, just people jogging with their headphones on! I'm sort of into tennis or squash

Any help appreciated,

oh, I'm located in North Dublin

Beruthiel

Boards has all kinds of things to do, why not join in?
take it from me, it's great fun!


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=153

tba

i think you should talk to someone you know over the weekend maybe visit for a day or two, being with people you are comfortable with will make you feel less depressed/anxious.

Zhane

i have the same problem as you, except im 17 and i only see what little friends i have in school as they dont live in town. for the last few years iv just been feeling down and depressed(for diffrent reasons, im not going to say what) and i started not to go out with me mates, so therefor lost them. Im not very sporty so i cant join any sports clubs any advice for me too would be welcome

munkeehaven

it's a universal feeling believe it or not. i know it's a horrible thing to have to go out and make an effort to talk to new people and make new connections...i'm a bit of an anxious person myself, and that means that i make my life seem a million times more complicated than it really is ...(or maybe it just is) but at least you know that you arent the only one..i mean, i have friends but i still feel lonely..you know how that saying goes ''loneliness in the crowd'', for me it's just because of where i live, the people here are so clanny and boring.once i get my l.c results, i'm taking off.....you should try to contact your old friends, they could be meaning to contact you but are just too shy or hesistant, make the first move, just say ''feck it'', because it's only one lifetime....

Gurgle

Friends never really go away.
Call some of them, arrange a night out. If they have plans already, they'll probably invite you along. Most of my best friends I don't hear from for months at a time, due to work/family/college taking up all of my time. Then when you do get in touch, its like you saw them yesterday.
As for clubs - martial arts are good clubs for meeting people as there is a lot of interaction with sparring and all that. Take up kung-fu.

qwertyphobia

"If you don't do something new, how do you expect things to change"

a quote I read somewhere once which I think sums it up. get out there and try things and see what happens. Go away on the hill walking weekend so what if it turns out to be not much fun it's still probably better then sitting on your own over the weekend and feeling more miresible.

keep doing new things till you find things you like, throught this you will meet people you then share a common interest in

Webmonkey

Zhane wrote:

i have the same problem as you, except im 17 and i only see what little friends i have in school as they dont live in town. for the last few years iv just been feeling down and depressed(for diffrent reasons, im not going to say what) and i started not to go out with me mates, so therefor lost them. Im not very sporty so i cant join any sports clubs any advice for me too would be welcome

I'm really in the same postion as you only i got 3 more friends, but we lost the rest of the gang cause we didn't go out. I really don't like going out that much. I don't like sports either, But what i do love is skateboarding, we have a good time. It is really a good sport to do if you don't like sports...theres always a challange ahead and it gets your mind off other things. Your not from around kerry by any chance?

jesus_thats_gre

Its easy for me to say this but you really gotta take a step back and look at things from a different perspective...

The friends you used to spend time are still your friends regadless whether you have spent much time with them recently... When you are in a situation that you are in your confidence tends to take knock too, especially in situations that you used to be confident in. So when you think about calling an old friend you start to become unsure whether they will want to spend time with you still and end up not calling them because its easier than getting hurt...

I think that you gotta start putting some pride on the line to get out of this rut.. Lets face it, thats all it is...

Sarky

Gurgle wrote:

Friends never really go away.
Call some of them, arrange a night out. If they have plans already, they'll probably invite you along. Most of my best friends I don't hear from for months at a time, due to work/family/college taking up all of my time. Then when you do get in touch, its like you saw them yesterday.
As for clubs - martial arts are good clubs for meeting people as there is a lot of interaction with sparring and all that. Take up kung-fu.

Sound advice. I hadn't even spoken with my old friends from college since graduation last year. I finally got round to emailing a couple, and we're now trying to organise a get together as soon as we can, like the last year of silence never happened.

Martial arts clubs are great, too. You meet good people, and who knows, it might help with the anxiety.

And it wouldn't be right without me mentioning gaming clubs, either.