Loneliness is strange because you can experience it in a full house.

You can have contacts in your phone.

People can know your name.

You can go to work every day.

You can be married.

You can have children.

You can sit in church surrounded by people.

And still feel as though nobody really knows where you are emotionally.

Being around people and feeling connected are not the same thing

Sometimes loneliness comes from physical isolation.

Other times it comes from not feeling understood.

Adult friendships change.

People migrate.

People get married.

People become busy raising children.

Relationships end.

Families fall out.

You move somewhere new.

Or you simply realise that most of your conversations have become:

“Everything good?”

“Yeah man.”

And that is it.

Loneliness can make reaching out harder

The longer you feel disconnected, the easier it can become to assume nobody wants to hear from you.

You may think:

“Dem busy.”

“Mi don't want bother anybody.”

“If dem wanted talk to me, dem would call.”

Sometimes those thoughts are accurate.

Sometimes they are loneliness making decisions on everybody else's behalf.

Make connection smaller

You do not have to suddenly become social.

Try one low-pressure action.

Send somebody:

“Yow, yuh cross mi mind. How things?”

Sit somewhere around people for a while.

Call a relative you have not spoken with recently.

Ask somebody if they want to get something to eat.

Tell one trusted person:

“Mi been feeling kinda isolated lately.”

Connection does not always begin with a deep conversation.

Sometimes it begins with company.

Build more than one bridge

One person cannot meet every emotional need.

It may help to have different kinds of connection.

Somebody you laugh with.

Somebody you can talk seriously with.

Somebody connected to your faith.

Somebody who shares an interest.

Somebody you can simply sit beside.

Community is often built from several small relationships rather than one perfect friendship.

If loneliness is becoming despair

If isolation is becoming severe, you are withdrawing from everyone, or loneliness is contributing to persistent hopelessness or thoughts of harming yourself, seek immediate support from someone you trust and appropriate professional or emergency services available to you.

You do not have to solve loneliness alone.

That would be a cruel little contradiction.