Who Feels Lonely?
Are there times you feel invisible in your family? How often do you feel misunderstood? How often do you think that even if you spoke to someone in your immediate circle, they would not understand you? Do you fear missing out on things (FOMO)?
Are there times you feel invisible in your family? How often do you feel misunderstood? How often do you think that even if you spoke to someone in your immediate circle, they would not understand you? Do you fear missing out on things (FOMO)? Do you experience detachment from the world around you and that the world is indifferent to your thoughts, feelings, and sensibilities? You might be experiencing loneliness.
I work with many young people, and I am increasingly becoming aware of the actual prevalence of loneliness in youth-teens and young adults. It might seem surprising that this age group is the most plugged-in generation to have inhabited the earth. If we only defined loneliness as isolation, one could quickly think that the youth are well attended to because they are always connected-nearly 24/7. Achterbergh, Pitman, Birken, Pearce, Sno and Johnson (2020) distinguish loneliness from social isolation and solitude. They state that social isolation is a measure of the absence of relationships with other people, and solitude is the desire to be alone and is not necessarily a negative experience.
Loneliness is an unpleasant experience related to the concepts of social isolation, alienation, lack of social connectedness, lack of belonging and social capital. More and more surveys are finding that teenagers and young adults today experience loneliness. How can youth who mingle with people in high school or college, playing sports, or at home with family, and easily connect via devices to mates be lonely? It does not add up.
Jo¨rns-Presentati, Napp, Dessauvagie, Stein, Jonker, Breet, Charles, Swart, Lahti, Suliman, Jansen, van den Heuvel, Seedat and GroenI (2021) report the prevalence of depression, anxiety disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, posttraumatic stress and suicidal behaviour in the general adolescent population and selected at-risk groups in 16 sub-Saharan countries. Jo¨rns-Presentati et al. (2021) 's report read alongside the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 2018 survey, leaves me to speculate that loneliness is a factor in the reported mental illness of Sub-Saharan African youth.
The BBC report found that four out of 10 young people aged 16-24 were acutely lonely. The youth in the survey described themselves as: feeling misunderstood (not unexpected in teens), sad, suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out), not having anyone to talk with, and feeling detached from the world. The BBC study concluded that loneliness affects youth mental health, including emotional fallout predisposing them to depression and increased risk of suicide. In addition, poor sleep and consequences of sleep deprivation leading to cognitive impairment, inattention, emotional blunting, decreased productivity. Further, the inability to self-regulate, engendering emotional over-eating, excessive drinking, smoking, or drug misuse behaviours, which may serve as a means to soothe unbearable feelings of isolation. These have medical consequences such as obesity, high cholesterol, known consequences of tobacco use (high blood pressure, cancer risk), possible addiction. Additional medical hazards include problems with the immune system, leading to viral and other infections and inflammatory illness.
If the youth of today surround themselves with lasting social connections, what causes the endemic loneliness? Medical and psychological literature proposes that possible factors influencing youth loneliness in all age groups include losing a loved one or someone with a strong attachment, exclusions from others, detachment, alienation, and isolation from significant people. Many of the youth I have worked with indicate that they experience themselves as invisible in the eyes of people around them. The youth experience a break in significant relationships. People who mattered to them once become estranged, or even more, the youth see their previously caring relationships as indifferent to their differentiating endeavours. Because young people developmentally do not have adequate skills to negotiate these changes, they find them stressful and confusing.
Further, young people have not developed the coping skills of adults to deal with challenging situations like tolerating feelings of isolation. They cannot yet use their higher, rational abilities to regulate their emotions, reactions, and impulses. Young people desire intimacy. Intimacy is the antidote to loneliness and not more socialisation. Cognitively, loneliness supposes that no one else has access to the world I carry around within me. No one else can see the world the way I see it. No one else can feel my life the way I think, on the one hand.
On the other hand, intimacy usually denotes mutual vulnerability, openness, and sharing. It is often present in close and loving relationships with intentional attention and awakening presence to each other. According to John O'Donohue, Irish poet-philosopher, intimacy is experienced in a soulful friendship, anam cara. Soulful friendship awakens the souls. "Once the soul awakens…, you are inflamed with a particular longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfilment" (O'Donohue, 1997, p.28).
How then do young people not find intimacy in the crowd around them? Most young people surrounded themselves with other youth who are just as ill ready to hold space for the others. In cases where they are with other adults, most adults' ability to be present for young people is impaired by stress, fatigue, and emotional preservation. In an ideal setting, youth would benefit from the presence of healthy adults in their life. Moore and Gillette decry the absence of healthy adults in King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. They write, "Young men [youth] today are starving for a blessing from older men [adults], starving for a blessing from the King energy. This is why they cannot, as we say, "get it together" (Moore & Gillette, 1990, p. 61). Even when they wrote the book over thirty decades ago, it is more relevant to endemic loneliness. Moore and Gillette argue that young people need to be seen by an elder. "because if they are, something inside will come together for them." The effect of blessing heals and makes the whole. "That's what happens when we are seen and valued and concretely rewarded for our legitimate talents and abilities" (Moore & Gillette, 1990, p. 61).
What do young people have to do to make meaning of their lives in the absence of adults who see them? I know that no person should need therapy for merely feeling lonely. Loneliness is not a disease. It is a dis-ease that can be lived with without much hassle. However, chronic loneliness can have debilitating consequences, I have indicated above. It is such chronic loneliness that it may require deliberate exploration. Entering counselling or therapy is an option for attending to chronic loneliness. Unattended to loneliness can have lasting health ramifications. A therapist can hold the container for a young person while they negotiate their way through identity building. A therapist could be that souls friend you have been seeking in all the alienating places.
Therapeutic companionship affords you three forms of intimacy experiential, emotional and intellectual intimacy. Emotional intimacy is when people feel safe sharing their feelings, even uncomfortable ones. When people feel comfortable sharing ideas and opinions, even when they disagree, they experience intellectual intimacy. Experiential intimacy is when people bond during a shared activity. In this case, the shared action is the therapeutic process. A therapist listens compassionately and creatively to the words, images, symbols and hidden silences. If you are experiencing chronic loneliness, consider calling a therapist . They might be the anam cara you need to give you a blessing and heal the wound of loneliness.
References
Achterbergh, L., Pitman, A., Birken, M., Pearce, E., Sno, H., & Johnson, S. (2020). The experience of loneliness among young people with depression: a qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature. BMC psychiatry, 20(1), 1-23.
Experiment, B. L. (2018). Who feels lonely? The results of the world's largest loneliness study.
Jörns-Presentati, A., Napp, A. K., Dessauvagie, A. S., Stein, D. J., Jonker, D., Breet, E., ... & Groen, G. (2021). The prevalence of mental health problems in sub-Saharan adolescents: A systematic review. Plos one, 16(5), e0251689.
Moore, R., & Gillette, D. (1990). King, warrior, magician, lover. Harper.
O'Donohue, J. (1997). Anam cara: spiritual wisdom from the Celtic world. Bantam.
Padmanabhanunni, A., & Pretorius, T. (2021). The loneliness–life satisfaction relationship: The parallel and serial mediating role of hopelessness, depression and ego resilience among young adults in South Africa during covid-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 18(7), 3613.
Nsamu is a qualified Music Therapist, based in Boksburg, South Africa.
With a commitment to mental health, Mr Moonga provides services in English and Sesotho, including Counselling, Group Therapy, Individual and Couple Therapy, Music Therapy and Psychotherapy.
Mr Moonga has expertise in Abuse (Emotional / Physical), Abuse (Sexual), Addiction, Adjusting to Change/Life Transitions, Anxiety Disorders, Bereavement and Loss and Career Issues.
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