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Author Topic: Suffering from loneliness  (Read 152785 times)

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Re: Suffering from loneliness
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2023, 10:26:03 AM »
I'm in much the same boat.  These times are rough for many because of the already mentioned issues in the above posts.  You may feel alone but you are not alone.  There are many of us going through what you are.  The only thing I'll add is that God will use this time so that we become dependent on Him and Him alone.  This is actually a gift from God.  He wants to pull us away from love of worldly things and worldly people so we can depend on Him and make Him the center of our lives.  Develop a better relationship with Him through your Guardian Angel (who will always be there so you're never alone even if you feel you are), and through a greater devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.  

Re: Suffering from loneliness
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2023, 05:06:12 PM »
This may not seem like Christian behavior, but every once in a while when I suffer from loneliness I force myself to go out among people , and then I quickly realize why I prefer to be alone...

Treasure your solitude. One day you will long for it.


Re: Suffering from loneliness
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2023, 05:28:36 PM »
Please keep me in your prayers.
Firstly, I will pray for you. I would like you to know that you are never alone. For one you always have Christ. Speak to him, whisper to him your worry’s. This world is temporary, what matters most is the attainment of heaven in the next. If you are alone in the sense that you have family/friends but feel isolated insofar that you are the only Catholic, then remember the words of our Lord: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake:  12 Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. ” Matthew 6

If your loneliness stems from truly being alone, then on the one hand you can either use the solitude and quiet of being alone to increase prayer and to be able to hear the voice of the Lord more clearly by drowning out the distractions of the world. Or you can seek company after Sunday Masses, perhaps a rosary group even. I’m sure you can find even a mobile rosary group (I could potentially add you to mine if you are interested.) 
Also do not forget: You have Cathinfo. If you ever need to speak with someone I’m sure everyone here including myself would be more than happy to speak with you. 

You are never alone when you have God. 
Fear not, for I am with thee: turn not aside, for I am thy God: I have strengthened thee, and have helped thee, and the right hand of my just one hath upheld thee.” Isaiah 41: 10

Re: Suffering from loneliness
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2023, 05:31:22 PM »
:pray:

Re: Suffering from loneliness
« Reply #14 on: March 15, 2023, 06:44:17 PM »
I'm pretty much truly alone. I'm 44 years old, no wife or family of my own. My dad and 2 siblings live 300 miles away so I don't get to interact with them very often. I don't really have any good friends. I have a few buddies that I'm able to do stuff with a couple of times a month, but that's it. They're all married and have kids so they don't have time to spend with me. Unless I need to go to the store or something, I'm pretty much home, by myself. Once summer gets here it'll be nice because at least I'll be able to go fishing after work and on weekends.

Another problem is that I'm a high functioning autistic person. Most people probably wouldn't notice anything odd about me once they get to know me, but it definitely makes this area of life very hard. It's extremely difficult to meet people as my social norms are backward. I need to already know someone before I want to talk to them. I usually do this by interacting with them in some kind of activity and I learn whether or not they're someone I want to know better which makes me want to talk to them and gives me something to talk to them about. If someone's a complete stranger, I have no idea what to talk to them about. For me, unless I'm talking to someone I already care about in some way, the purpose of talking is the exchange of information. If I don't know someone, I don't know if they know anything I need to ask them about, nor do I know if I know something I should inform them about which makes talking pointless. 

I remember someone suggesting I should ask someone what kind of work they do as a conversation starter. For most people, this is probably a good opener, but the way my brain works, it's not. If this person is a stranger, why do I want to know where they work? How will that information be useful for anything in and of itself? Interrupting someone to ask them for a useless, meaningless bit of information is just . . . . . . . . I can't even describe how wrong and stressful that is. My church doesn't have any kind of social activities so there's no viable way for me to meet anyone.

Now if it's a person I know and care about in some way, it's completely different. I just need to find a way to get to know something about them before actually trying to converse with them.

Someone above mentioned prayer and while I do pray (probably not as often as I should), it doesn't help at all. If anything, it makes me feel worse as it will lead me to believe that God may help and when nothing changes or even gets worse, I obviously feel worse than before. Praying feels like calling someone you consider a friend who never answers their phone anymore. You leave them a voicemail and they never call you back.