Loneliness Is A Killer

Life is a complicated thing, there are a million things going into your head at once; For most people this is too much handle alone. There are too many accidents, too many regrets, and too many bad days to keep to ourselves. Humans are supposed to communicate with each other and express what they are feeling, this is by design. So when we keep in all of the bad things that we have done to others or that has been done to us, it makes us depressed. This is why it is so important to just communicate with someone about your life and how you feel about it. And when someone confides in you their troubles, it is important that you care because it could help that person immensely.

Recently I have met this girl, she is a really great person and I really enjoy it when I spend time with her. When her and I first started talking she seemed very shy and closed off but the more we talked the more she started to open up to me. I learned that she is actually very funny and smart, but I also learned that she was very lonely. She told me that she doesn’t have very many friends or people to talk to anymore since most of them gone of to college or lost ties with her after high school. For the most part she would just go to work and then go to sleep once she got home. Also she had broken up with her long term boyfriend a while ago, but they had been talking on and off again for quite some time. From what she had said to me about their relationship he really wasn’t treating her right, and every time they would talk he would some how end up making her feel bad. The only reason she keep on talking to him was because she was so lonely and had no one else to talk to. But the story gets better from here I promise.

Over the past couple of months of me talking to her and caring about what she was going through, it really helped her come out of her depression. It was as simple as just listening, and being there to support her. The fact that she knew she could come to me everyday to share what was on her mind made her ten times happier. With my help she was able to confront her ex boyfriend and tell him she didn’t the way he was treating her, because she wasn’t afraid that she would be losing the only person that would talk to her anymore. Her mental health is so much better now that she has me to talk to.

The reason I had the ability to empathize with her so well was because I had also dealt with extreme loneliness before. I have always been the shy quite kid at school, and that has made it hard from me to make friends in the past, specifically in middle school. I would barely say a word a day because I was to anxious to talk to anyone. I would coast through days, weeks, and months without making any effort to make friends at school. My best friend was a couple years older so he made it to the high school before me and it felt like I was stuck at the middle school. He was starting to hang out with high school rather than me, so I lost pretty much all connection with my best friend at that point. The loneliness started to make me really depressed, it was effecting my thoughts, my motivation, and even my sleep. Eventually I had enough and in desperation I made a post on Instagram that I still regret to this day. It was a picture of a pair of vans with no one in them but there was still a persons shadow; This caption was a long detailed message about how lonely and depressed I was at that point, and how I didn’t think I could keep living like that. This was a red flag to my class mates, family members, and even the school. I was put into counseling but that made me feel like I wasn’t normal and made me feel even more out of place.

Finally my brother reached out to me and helped me through my depression. My brother is four years older than me and was moved out of the house at the time. It was awkward talking to him about my feelings at first, but eventually it because easier and it felt like a huge wait was lifted off of my shoulders. We started to hang out a lot more and have become really close friends, I would actually go as far as to call him my best friend. He was able to get me out of the house and try new things like snowboarding; I was never good at it at all, but the fact that I was pushed outside of my comfort zone and made it through alive really helped my confidence and made me feel a lot better. Coming from having nobody to talk to, and then just going to one friend that I trusted I could talk to has helped me in so many ways. I am so thankful that my brother was there for me in that desperate time. He has helped me grow so much as a person, and given me the abilities to have confidence in myself to make it through situations that before I would have thought would be impossible for me. I still have my fair share of anxiety issues and am susceptible to depression slip back into depression from time to time; But with my brother there I know now that he will always have my back.

It is truly extraordinary how much one person can have an impact on your life. It is also extraordinary how much loneliness can impact your life. Have nobody you trust enough to tell what is really bothering you can hurt a lot. It starts to consume the other facets of life, until that is all that is left and everything just looks so much darker. But as soon as you find some you can share that with, the light comes back and it is really remarkable.

Photo by Dan Tum