Loneliness

Hi everyone. This is my first post and I feel a bit scared to openly share my struggles. But I’m glad I found this app where people can talk about their pain and no one will judge.

I’m turning 24 soon, and for as long as I can remember I have always felt lonely. No matter how much I try to get close to someone or make friends, in the end I still end up feeling like the “extra” person in everyone’s life. I don’t mean that I want to be number one in someone’s life, but people my age already have their close friends, their own groups, and it’s becoming harder and harder to find new friends with whom I can build an emotional bond.

Sometimes when I meet someone and start to feel a connection, I get overwhelmed with fear that this person will leave me or won’t be interested in friendship with me. I understand that these are my own problems, my doubts and fears from past experiences, and that this person is not responsible for them. But when I sense even a little bit of coldness from someone, I start to distance myself and close up again. I’m afraid to say openly that I feel scared, because I think they won’t understand, or worse — they will see me as clingy. But that’s not the case. I just know that I take people very close to my heart, and that makes me scared, so I don’t let anyone fully in. And I get angry at myself for this.

I’ve been working on myself my whole life, and I know my self-esteem plays a big role here — whether I’m important to myself first of all. I always tried to live by the motto “we are born alone, we die alone,” trying to accept loneliness, believing that there’s no escape from it. But lately, the feeling of loneliness overwhelms me more and more, and I just don’t know what to do in those moments. I try to breathe deeply, to distract myself, but it doesn’t work.

I don’t want to live like this my whole life. I really, really tried many times to make friends. I gave all of myself in every friendship just so they would stay with me. But I’m so tired. Tired of all these attempts to meet people, tired of this never-ending feeling of loneliness. It’s a vicious circle. I know it all depends on me, that I should keep trying to find my people and push away my fears and doubts. I understand this. But it still hurts, and I don’t know why. And when I say I have no friends, it looks like something is wrong with me — otherwise, why wouldn’t I have friends? That feeling of shame comes up.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read my words. It already means a lot just to be heard.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I want to believe that there are people out there who feel the same — and that maybe one day, we can find each other.