Loneliness

[Altoona]

How does one cope with loneliness? I have been living on my own for some time. I have given up on dating but find myself lonely especially at night.

 

I am not a person who gets to go out much except with a few friends. Where is the best place to meet people?

[darkpumpkin]

Well there is always joining a club, trying new things. But I find these things don't work for me. I think of what i have and that I'm grateful I have it.

[JoeWho]

Have you tried any of the on-line dating sites? Lots of people talk positively about them today.

 

As for the loneliness well I just try to think about all the things that I can do because I am single. Like going skiing on Saturday and fishing on Sunday. Certainly could not do that if I were in a relationship.

[Shiva 2007]

How about starting to knit or take a class in flower arrangements, it's very therapeutic and you could meet loads of people.

Also, maybe get a pet, my little pup always cheers me up, and is relly the best company in the world, I'm never lonely with her around.

[Altruist]

How does one cope with loneliness? I have been living on my own for some time. I have given up on dating but find myself lonely especially at night...

 

 

Perhaps you could tell us why you have given up on dating. That might help us give you the appropriate advice.

[Altruist]

Btw, welcome to ENA.

[Shiva 2007]

yes welcome Altoona, you will never feel lonely around here.

[Altruist]

yes welcome Altoona, you will never feel lonely around here.

 

Guess who's trying to get 100 posts? (Just kidding).lol

[Shiva 2007]

I guess you are right tronix, I didn't even notice, lol, I have been too busy chatting who was counting but....tronix, just kidding too LOL, maybe I should have this big celebration on my 100th post, let's all figure what we can do on that special day.

[Shiva 2007]

hey does something special happen when one reaches their 100th, not years that is, but their post???? like a big silver medal or something along those lines????

[Altruist]

hey does something special happen when one reaches their 100th, not years that is, but their post???? like a big silver medal or something along those lines????

 

Lol. I wish something along those lines happened- but nope. But you change fro Junior Member to Member (which IMO sounds and looks better).

[IronChef]

This is pretty detailed:

 

link removed

[fredthebread]

How does one cope with loneliness? I have been living on my own for some time. I have given up on dating but find myself lonely especially at night.

 

I am not a person who gets to go out much except with a few friends. Where is the best place to meet people?

 

You should fill in your gender, because my ideas and I am sure most others depend on your gender.

[fredthebread]

Have you tried any of the on-line dating sites? Lots of people talk positively about them today.

 

As for the loneliness well I just try to think about all the things that I can do because I am single. Like going skiing on Saturday and fishing on Sunday. Certainly could not do that if I were in a relationship.

 

 

Dating sites (I have tried a couple) are good if you can pull in the real world. Of course if you are not trying to get into a relationship, they are fine and you can chat away to your hearts content and develop good fun online relationships. But, a lot of people use them thinking they will avoid having to get around personal problems that inhibit them in the real world. So I would suggest you look at why you are lonely and what changes you can make in yourself to change this. For example, I used to be extremely shy, but I worked on my thinking and my view of the world/people and my view of myself. Now I am very social, and have a lot of friends and girlfriends. I may be off the mark, but if you have a view of the world/people that is not profiting you, you may be best to just dump it, despite how true you think it is. We can get locked in our own negative thinking and in my experience sometimes you have to ignore your inner voice and do what we need to do, to improve the quality of our lives. Your inner voice will change eventually!

[fredthebread]

Hi, I got a private message on this so I said I would put the response up here for all to see, as I think therapy by private message is dangerous:

 

 

Quote:

i saw one of your posts where you said you were extremely shy, but changed your views on people/the world and you became more social and made mroe friends.. i was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing more details on that (i.e. what were your old views, what are your new views), and the steps you took to get there? thanks!

 

Well to try and keep it simple!

When I was growing up in my family, there was a culture of putting each other down all the time. This stemmed from my father. When I was about ten, my father kicked my mother out and decided to raise us himself. My father was not liked in the community we grew up in and we got this feedback too. All of this made me automatically assume people would not like me. So I had very poor expectations of social interaction. I also viewed other people as vindictive and nasty, so I had little desire to interact. And because of my low self esteem, I kept going back to my family for validation, which never came. So through a process of trying different therapies and reading psychology and self help books, I came to the conclusion that although I am a flawed person, If I decided on the type of person I wanted to be, i.e. a good person (and what that meant to me) and I genuinely worked towards that then I could forgive myself for my current flaws and stop beating myself up and develop self acceptance. I also realised that other people who were nasty had suffered some hurt themselves and it was just their 'ego' (freud) kicking in to help them feel better about themselves. This allowed me to not get as resentful and fearful of other people but to view an attack on me (who was trying to be good, see above), as a sign of their hurt and not interpret it so much as an attack on my ego (with the attending self esteem issues). This stopped the self hate and suspicion of the world and allowed me to go out into the world and deal with its nastiness in a better way, without getting emotionally beaten up every time. This change in thinking was very effective for me, but my inner voice (basically the voice in your head that represents the view of yourself and your capabilities, that you have internalized from your family) was still the same. So I did two things, I went to see a hypnotherapist to change my inner voice and I stopped going back to my family for validation (which was kind of like trying to give up cigarettes!)

At the end of the day there are probably holes in my philosophy, but there are holes in every philosophy and I think you have to adopt a Macciavellian approach 'the end justifies the means' and figure out whatever works for you, even if you 'know its not true'. I had this problem with my view of other people, I really clung to my belief that they were vindictive. But I kind of decided to ignore myself and repress those thoughts and try the new philosophy and I started to get positive social feedback and when I got negative social feedback, I just viewed them as hurting and realised they did not know my 'try to be good ambition' so it did not hurt me as much. The whole thing snowballed and now I am taking a full part in society and have a good career and I have positive relationship with women even if we do break up. I am still a flawed person, but I am continuing to work on that in parallel and so I can forgive myself.

I will post this on the forum so everyone can see it and comment (see - not so shy )

 

PS: This also helped me get off antidepressants

__________________

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