More and more people feel lonely. Loneliness has an extremely negative effect on the quality of life and can even have health consequences. We help you to recognize loneliness and to overcome it.
Alone is not the same as loneliness
Loneliness is a growing problem in today's society. In the last few decades, the lifestyle of many people has changed and the focus is more on the individual and less on the community. Although independence also brings a lot of good things, it increases the risk of becoming lonely. Loneliness is mainly a painful lack of closeness that persists over a long period of time. This also distinguishes loneliness from being alone, because being alone is more of a spatial separation from other people, while loneliness is an inner pain. Still, being alone is often confused with loneliness.
For many people, being alone is inevitable in order to draw new strength. If you always have other people around you, it steals a lot of energy, which you only recharge if you allow yourself some rest and take time for yourself. To do this, you probably take a distance from your fellow human beings. If, on the other hand, you are lonely, the distance to others is not spatial but emotional. You do not feel you belong and your fellow human beings do not understand you. If this feeling is permanent, it can make you sick, because the human being is actually a social being. This stress can even cause physical pain and lead to various mental illnesses such as depressiLonely people often isolate themselves in their negative feelings. They make themselves, their fellow human beings and their life situation bad, even if this seems incomprehensible to many outsiders. This is mostly due to a deep inner insecurity and a negative self-assessment.
Little self-esteem
In particular, low self-esteem can cause people to become lonely. Due to the loneliness, the self-esteem decreases even more until you have an extremely negative self-image. This leads to the fact that you isolate yourself from those around you because you feel different and misunderstood. If other people react negatively to you, you will feel confirmed again in this way of thinking.
Negative outlook on life
You transfer this attitude to all areas of life. You believe that you have nothing to offer others and are therefore indifferent to those around you. You also find it difficult to accept your body and your personality. A lonely person focuses on the negative things in life and keeps them in mind instead of appreciating the positive things in life.
Fear of rejection
In addition, lonely people make their self-image heavily dependent on others. If others react negatively to you, you take this as a confirmation of your negative feelings and isolate yourself even more. Shy people especially have trouble approaching other people and therefore tend to be lonely. Often lonely people do not dare to speak to other people because of their fear of rejection and expect to be spoken to because they would not be able to cope with a rejection.