I have felt lonely for so much of my life. During school I felt like I did not fit in with anyone. I hated school because it seemed like everyone had it so easy being around other people. Everyone had their own groups of friends that they sat with during classes and at break. I never had that. I felt like I was always the one that was just there but had no meaning or impact during the day. All I wanted during school was one friend who I could talk to all the time and enjoyed the things I did and wanted to spend time with me. Everyone I knew had that one friend who they would constantly spend time with and do everything with, but I felt like I never even had anyone I could talk to during school.
The only year I remember having a friend I spent time with and felt like they like spending time with me was my first year of high school. However, in year 8 when I started struggling and being able to do less, they slowly started to talk to me less until eventually I was alone and spent lunchtimes on my own. Since then I have felt because of my condition I am going to be alone forever. I never made any proper friends during school after that because whenever I tried to talk to new people, they would never be bothered to talk to me after. I tried so many different ways of talking to new people and making friends, but a lot of the time I would just get ignored. Eventually I gave up and just accepted that because I was different and disabled, I was not going to make a friend ever.
I am always so jealous seeing other people with their friends. I always thought ‘they do not understand how lucky they are being able to have someone they can talk to and rely on all the time’. Not only do I have no one I can hang out with but I have to worry about spending too much time doing any activity because if I am doing something for too long I would struggle to move around at all for the next week. When the first lockdown was announced, and people started to complain about not being able to go and see their friends I was got very agitated. I have lived that way for almost 10 years of my life and there are other people who have never been able to go out and spend time with other people and you’re complaining about having to be inside for 2 months.
I have felt lonely for as long as I can remember. It has made it hard for me not to think that the reason people do not want to be around me is because I am disabled, and because I will bring more bother with me. I rarely go out with my family anymore because all I think is that they have to do so much to help me that I may as well stay at home and let them have a fun day without having to worry about making sure I am okay. Because of my disability, I have always felt as thought I am always going to live alone and never have a best friend or girlfriend or anything like that. I have a lot of problems that I need help with, which is why I can see why people would not want to be with me, but it does make me feel alone.
I feel so lonely that when I get a message from anyone it fills me with joy and happiness. I am sure there are people who feel just as if not lonelier than me and it really has an effect on how you think. I feel now that there is no point getting to know new people because whenever I have tried, I get shutdown or blanked later on. It makes you feel worthless and that you add nothing to anyone’s life. It makes you feel useless and a hinderance. If there is one thing that makes me feel joy now it is when I receive a message out of the blue from someone, whether it is a family member or someone random.
I do not think people realise how much one simple message can benefit someone who feels lonely. It makes those who are lonely feel so much happier when they see someone else try to talk to them, and who knows you may have similar interests and get on with one another. I think people who already have a friend group are not interested in initiating a conversating with someone new and that is why people do bother getting to know one another anymore.
Boredom does not help the feeling of loneliness. Over the lockdowns I have realised just how lonely I am because it has been filled with boredom and so I have been thinking a lot. Being bored for such long periods in a day really made me realise how lonely I am. I go on to Instagram and see all these people saying how much they miss their friends and look forward to spending time with them again. During all the time I have been bored I realised how sad and lonely my life truly is because not only is no one probably missing spending time with me I also have no one I can message and chat with on a daily basis.
Eventually I decided to start messaging people I haven’t talked to for a long time if at all, but almost every time I did not get a response, or we had one conversation and the next time I sent a message I was blanked. It made it hard not to think that I had no effect on other people and that I was just bothering them. Sometimes I feel as though I have no purpose in life and that there is no point.