An odd sort of loneliness.

Ambient Occlusion

Hello,
I'm not a particularly sociable person. That's not to say that I don't get on with people, I generally do with relative ease provided that I know them to some degree. However, I do like to spend most of my time alone. I tire of my friends and feel that, for the most part, seeing them during the week during school is enough. Often I'm not bothered seeing them otherwise. Similarly I'm not bothered engaging in relationships, simply because I do not particularly care. (Also there's the degree of unfamiliarity). This nonchalance extends to every facet of my life really. Even the things I like to do, I am not bothered doing. There's a clear lack of motivation yet it seems absolutely incurable. Having said that, when I do commit myself to do something, I do it well and accept nothing less than excellence.

Despite this care-free attitude towards life and people I feel lonely. Despite my lack of want to spend time with others, I often feel so lonely that it can be quite painful. This is especially true at night. In fact, over the last few years, I've taken up the habit of always having background music whenever I'm on my own. Where I once enjoyed silence I now feel eternally lonely without it. I would not like having someone in the same room as me for example when I'm doing homework yet I like them to be nearby. I just don't get it...

This is the most bonkers part of it. Early as a child I always considered the idea that I've recently learned the name of: "Solipsism". For those of you that don't know, that's the belief that only you are certain to exist while all others who are external to your consciousness cannot be assured to exist. To be honest I believed that I thought the idea was farcical. Now I'm not so sure. Has it shaped these feelings? I don't know but it has been on my mind a lot these past few years. The weirdest part though, is my need to even write this post. If I do truly believe that, then why am I posting this? Why do I continue to write even when I have considered that?

I believe in God yet fear annihilation. It simply boggles me. What's more, I fear being left alone. I fear that someday my family will be gone and I shall be left alone. That I shall never see them again because they are gone for good. This frightens me even more than the thought of being gone myself. On top of that, I feel the compulsion as a result to do something with my life that will be remembered later on, despite my solipsism. I am generally a rational and scientifically-minded person but these conflicting ideas have truly depressed me.

I am grand at the moment and to be honest have been for quite a while. I feel a bit lonely now but that's okay, it's not too bad. The worst of the whole lot thought is that because of all this I feel that I have a poor quality of life when I clearly have a very good life. I fear that these issues are nothing compared to those that most people would seem to have and that I shouldn't complain about them. I feel that (despite, again, my ambiguously solipsist ideas) I should be guilty for even writing this, that I don't need help, but I want it.

Does anyone have any advice? It would be appreciated. Thank you.

Roisy7

OK I'll give this a bash.

What you're feeling to a large extent is quite normal, in that everyone feels at some point that they are alone. I would hazard a guess that there isn't a person alive who hasn't feared death or annihilation at some point. Part of the human condition really, to be born is to begin dying and you can't live unless you die.

As for the solipsist stuff... If I've learned anything it's that most philosophical ideologies are nice ideas but have pretty much zero relation to real life. To reduce it down to flippancy; it's all well and good to say you suspect everyone's a figment of your imagination, but it won't hold water with your landlord when it comes to rent day!

However, I'm not dismissing the idea completely out of hand. I used to feel that way too; do you have brothers and sisters OP, out of curiousity? I was an only child so spent a lot of time on my own, which is probably where I got that kind of thinking from. I think getting older, making really good friends, appreciating my parents as people and falling in love knocked it out tbh.

I hope you don't consider me to be patronising but you do remind me a lot of myself when I was younger, and it was life experience that changed me and helped me to a great extent. I still have to have music or TV on at all times, can't bear silence, but I don't analyse that too deeply. My dad is the same so I see it as just a quirk!

OP I know we can't give medical advice but I think if you continue feeling this way maybe you should talk to someone like a guidance counsellor (I presume you're in school since you said homework). Don't push away your friends either.

I wish you the very best of luck. Life gets easier when you get older; less existential and more about survival!