The seven dangers of loneliness.
My wild and free youth was only wild.
When I was 20, I chose the life I thought I wanted, not the life I wanted. I lost myself looking for pretty girls, fast money, and all the pleasure you can buy with it.
It wasn’t enough. It never is. But you don’t realize it until you end up alone, hugging a toilet, vomiting blood because you have a stomach full of ulcers from living the lifestyle that was supposed to make you happy.
Despite that, you don’t change. — And that’s the most painful thing of all.
You know you’re doing shit to yourself, and you go on and on and on and on because you just want it to stop hurting.
Everyone sees it, everyone witnesses your self-destruction, but no one does anything. You’re like a comet: an incandescent fireball that burns anyone who gets close, and people know it. A rocket that everyone expects to see explode in a thousand colors.
During those years, I learned a lot about sadness, especially loneliness.
Here is a list of them.
- Loneliness is like thirst; if you don’t take care of it, you end up drinking anything. For example, alcohol. And it’s funny because alcohol not only doesn’t quench your thirst, it dehydrates you (makes the problem worse). The same thing happens when you want to satisfy your loneliness; you do it with the first thing you find: sects, drugs, and social networks. The funny thing about all this is that, like alcohol, it doesn’t quench your thirst (you don’t feel less lonely) but dehydrates you (you feel more and more lonely).
- Loneliness makes you dependent. All my relationships in those years of desperation and madness were toxic, both friendships and romantic. For fear of losing friends, I consented to be abused. For fear of losing a girlfriend, I let them spend my money. Also, I was jealous and possessive of people who mistreated me, as crazy as this may sound.
- Loneliness leads directly to addiction. After smoking for almost 20 years and drinking for nearly 15, I realized I was using alcohol and tobacco to feel the withdrawal symptoms. When I needed alcohol or nicotine, I felt like the voice of withdrawal inside me, and oddly enough, that voice made me feel less lonely. That’s why it’s so hard to get out of addiction because you are not leaving a substance; you are leaving an old friend, a friend who relieves you even if it destroys you.
- Loneliness turns you into an antisocial person. When you become lonely because of the lousy life you lead, instead of looking for the culprit in front of the mirror, you think your friends, ex, parents, and society are to blame. And you become a cynic who also criticizes the good people and labels them self-righteous. And anyone who does not fit into your victimhood becomes the enemy, and you throw them out of your life, which makes you even more lonely if possible.
- Loneliness = loss of self-esteem. The more you withdraw into your world and distance yourself from others, the worse you feel. And there comes a point where you start to feel disgusted with yourself. And you think you deserve to be mistreated because you’re a piece of shit. You confuse love with contempt. I sought out abusive relationships because I believed I deserved them. That no one could love me because I was a disgusting being. And as unsettling as you find it, those kinds of toxic relationships — being used — can become just another vice, and you end up hooked on them.
- Loneliness ≠ future. Loneliness takes away your hope, like a bully takes away your snack at recess. When you want to react, you have run out of dreams, and to stop dreaming is to stop having hope, and to stop having hope is to start dying.
- Loneliness messes up your life and your affections. Your days lack structure; you begin to sleep late and get up in the middle of the afternoon. You overeat or too little, but you certainly don’t eat what you should. You get anxiety attacks in open places and start suffering from social phobia. Your life becomes a roller coaster, where everything goes quickly, but you don’t go anywhere. And that’s like swimming in the middle of the sea in circles: in the end, you get exhausted and drown.
Takeaway
In my case, loneliness was started by what the Greeks called Philautía, or excessive love for oneself (egoism).
The solution was what the Greeks call hypomoné, which means to remain in faith, constancy, perseverance, and fidelity.
Or simpler,
Hypomoné = fidelity to oneself.
So, if you feel lonely, seek help, be true to yourself, and don’t betray yourself. And don’t forget that loneliness can only be cured by relating to another. The rest of the solutions, like substance abuse or excessive use of social networks, do not help but enlarge the problem.
A virtual hug
AG
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