What does loneliness feel like?

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I cannot remember the last time I felt lonely. Perhaps I never did. Not even when I was the only resident in my supported house and the carers gave up visiting.

I've been without social contact, mostly in my bedroom alone, for weeks and I never had a problem with that.

What does loneliness actually feel like?

I thought that people with AS are supposed to want social contact, but have a hard time getting it right. I've never been able to socialise properly, but I don't desire human contact at all and I have a communication disorder: I find speaking very exhausting and am often preferring to be non-verbal. Does this mean I might have classic autism as opposed to AS?

Loneliness is something I don't feel either.
I don't have any siblings or pets and spend as much time alone in
my room as possible.
And I know people would ask "don't you get lonely?"
And the answer is no, i just feel tranquil.
I'm glad my parents understand this and let me be alone when I want/need to be.

The feeling of loneliness for me, personally, is not due to physical isolation or living in solitude. I feel alone in the world, due to being so often, misunderstood. I most often feel completely disconnected from everything, and that I will always need to take care of everything, on my own, including; loving myself, because there will probably never be anyone that will ever love me, believe in myself and my abilities, my heart, my conscience, my soul, my character, my good intentions, because I am alone in this world. No one truly understands me. I am called weird girl, and all sorts of other things. I am glad that I am an Aspie. I am proud to be unique and artistic and musical and deeply touched by beautiful things and people. But I am alone in this world. I am on the outside, looking in at life and the world drifting by.

I can't tell you what loneliness feels like. However, I can tell you when I feel alone.

I never feel alone when I am on my own. I feel alone when I am in a group of people and I realise how distant I am from them.

That's me too.

Loneliness is, for me, the longing for sharing with others - mutually-rewarding time spent in conversation, laughs, anecdotes, activities - and the painful lack of cooperation - turning to one another when in need of a second opinion or a hand with a practical matter.

I don't believe NTs are less lonely than us, even the ones with a million friends on Facebook. I think they're a world better than us at hiding it. I was just now watching the official video of Kate Middleton (Duchess of Cambridge and voted most admired woman in the world in 2013) coming out of the hospital and going into the car to take the future King of England home. There's a split second where you see everyone around the baby and she, still with a huge baby bump, running alone down the stairs of the hospital to join the others in the car. No one remembered her and her need for help, the mother who had just given birth to the prince, one of the wealthiest women in the planet and who seemingly has it all.

babybird says exactly how i can feel ... if i were to be in a group i wld prob feel that way .. but never am, but yes even among ppl i can feel desperately lonely, say in a town. luckily i'm talented and when i had local customers most were v good towards me, ie respect, defference etc.

i've a good companion in the dogs i've had, they even get me occasional conversations with women .... which wld never occur otherwise.

i think i was happier before an intermittent six year correspondence with my friend in America, now she's gone i feel lonelier than ever, I've a twinge i wish i'd never started.

I often feel incredibly lonely, i try to mask it. Xmas new year etc I just read study, explore music, countryside. the plus side is that i have heightened awareness, can see things others cannot ie knowledge insight etc

hows it feel ... like a void. no-one ever speaks to you first and of course i cld be dead in this house fr year and i doubt etc etc

no-one ever asks you to do anything or share space, you have to self start on everything. I've another overseas contact that finds it a little 'odd' I find so many things/ subjects fascinating ... it has to be, theres nothing else.

its like yr too used to looking with yr own eyes, speaking only with your own voice, no knowledge of anything else, sick of the feel of your own skin. but i am fickle and theres v v few ppl i wld spend time with.

hows it feel ... no incoming signals from any other human. my wife is a s**t, we live together for convenience.

i've also a theory, that when a human body never makes contact with another it builds up a pernicious charge which i think is unhealthy. maybe thats why in summer if i lay down on the dry earth in some distant place in the countryside it feels as if my pains drain away, its years since i've done this.

I'm prob v low right now as my business is being forced to move location and its life events like this that highlight my isolation. I detest being made to do so, just as in other life events years ago, increasingly my mind is jumbled, I cannot sort and tidy. its also January and after 'the mask' of xmas and new year i can often have problems at this month. My medicine is to be out in the countryside more as this last year due to a dog not at 100% this has tailed off .. its as if the landscape itself 'is my social life'.

never mind, its an afternoon and i always only ever do two things, work or countryside, today Sunday it must certainly be the latter ... destination fun ! !

yet i dither and have a great difficulty with decisions, hence my need for routines.

i know nothing okay .... but i talk to myself quietly around the house, as if supervising and instructing and this helps me; as does trying to think inwardly and asking what it is 'I really want' ....



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Last edited by ablomov on 05 Jan 2014, 1:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.

There you go. that is something I feel. outside of the circle.

Not belonging. Feeling like even if you accept an invite, when you go to this social thing you will have no one to talk to, be bored and feel like crying. I've always felt like this. Even as a child. At birthday parties I felt like I didn't belong. It's watching everyone having fun and being happy and wondering why I don't fit in. Why can't I enjoy being here and make connections with people and have enjoyable conversations with them?

It's wondering how other people manage to have friends. It's seeing photos on facebook of people out with other people and the twinge in your heart when you know you've never had friends like that and how you know you never will. It's wanted to enjoy people's company, but not knowing how to. It is the feeling of being lost in a crowd and no one cares who you are.

This

That and I see couples having fun together and I want to have fun too but can't in that way as I am ostracised by the world and struggle to form connections with people (I can only connect with a rare few and i can only enjoy the company of people i connect with).

I really hate having company when i dont connect with or share a bond with said company though.

~This too

I feel being able to be alone without feeling lonely is one of the advantages of HFA. Also since we are by ourselves so much, we have to like ourselves. I feel this is one part of our make-up that other people don't understand. They seem to think that a person who prefers to spend time alone was mentally/physically abused as a child or maybe we are extremely heart-broken. I also feel that the thought of them being alone with their own thoughts terrifies them.

I have also wondered what people really mean by 'loneliness'. I am alone by myself virtually all the time (I live alone), don't have anything today remotely resembling what most people would mean by having a friend, and unless if I'm working I go for days without communicating with anyone either in real life or online. Even then the contact this is almost entirely limited to is with family (parents, sister for the most part). I have very little desire to try to make any friends too because I know from experience that I am unable to connect with people for any long-term relationship, usually I can sense the failings even in the first meeting with peers. In one sense I would certainly like to be able to have a more socially fulfilling life, but in reality I think I have accepted that this is just how things have to be. I never feel lonely anyway, so doesn't that mean that I simply don't have any need for socialising? That at least makes it easier to keep a positive mind and be content with my solitary life.

loneliness to me is what i feel when i have spent 2 or 3 days in the presence of other people.
i had to attend a funeral for tammy's auntie a few years ago and i could not care less about what was happening.
i had to spend three days with her and her family and i just ran out of charge.

i started to tell people (like chatty people in shops) that i was not interested in what they were saying because i could not be bothered to process their thoughts

i am so seriously separate to whoever i look at, that if i am forced to spend time with them, i am derailed and i wind up thinking that i just have to escape. i do not care if it seems rude. i do not care about anything except for how i will immediately get home without someone in tow.

It's pretty much the feeling of worthlessness. There are moments when I painfully realize that absolutely no one cares about me. I feel there is nothing that people like about me and I'm excluded from the world of "normal people". When I'm at work or school surrounded by people, I still feel in this way.

this post had to be chopped. it made no sense.

Last edited by b9 on 05 Jan 2014, 7:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.