A Storytelling Perspective On Loneliness
“Feeling lonely” may mean you’re telling a negative story about “being alone.”
I become extremely frustrated when I read posts in online groups: “I feel so lonely.” Or, “I don’t have anyone to share experiences.”
Or, “I’ve just moved and I have trouble making friends.” Or, “My grown children never call me. I’m thinking of moving to be closer to them.”
Well-meaning readers send advice tips like:
“Look for other people like yourself.”
“Join a group where you’ll be likely to make friends.”
“Get involved in a church or a volunteer work opportunity.”
These well-meaning tips seem to miss the point. Getting over loneliness and making friends — especially when you’ve just moved to a new community — requires telling ourselves a whole new story.
Recognize the pervasiveness and power of the loneliness story.
Many of us were taught an unrealistic story: “I need to have friends. Something’s wrong with me if I don’t.”
Or conversely, “I deserve to have friends. My loved ones ought to be more attentive.”
I’ve moved a lot, in geography as well as careers. When you make changes, you often lose a lot of your connections. You need to make new ones. I’ve learned the best way to do this is to embrace the maxim “Friends are like bank loans. They come easily when you don’t need them.”
Here are 3 ways to address this challenge.
(1) Reframe your “being alone” story to an “embrace your solitude” story.
A lot of people are brought up to believe that “social” is normal and “being alone” is weird. In his classic book, Solitude: A Return to the Self, British psychiatrist Anthony Storr challenged this notion. Freud talked about love and work, he said; some people lean more toward one than the other.
Storr even suggested that reduced friendships in later life might have developed through evolution, to spare others the pain of saying good-bye.
