I: Mm. What, what do you think makes it worse? What do you think makes loneliness worse?

R: I think lack of realising that loneliness is so destructive, I don’t think people realise that, it’s like there’s a lot of emphasis on elderly people, being lonely, and I, I can see that because the thought of not talking to someone, just is horrifying, you know,

I: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I think a lot of people think it’s just, just the elderly that suffer from it, but it’s not. It’s, someone who can seem like the most bubbliest person in the world can be also the loneliest person in the world. I think people stereotype people into categories too easily,

I: Mm.

R: And I think that’s detrimental to anyone’s mental health in whatever they’re going through. People just go, “Oh, loneliness, you just need a fellow,” or “Loneliness, oh get a dog,” or, it’s just people minimalise it so that it’s, loneliness leads to so much more than just being lonely. It can lead to depression, it can lead to anxiety, it can lead to isolation. It can lead to all sorts of things that people don’t necessarily think would start from loneliness. And that’s sad really.

Well I often feel quite strange when I hear about that because they always say it’s the older people that feel lonely, it’s the older generation. So it’s like people that are pensioners or older. They never talk about the younger generation. So they never talk about people my generation, people in their 40s and 50s that might be lonely. The media just never, never discusses them… I think because society expects people at that age to be married, have children, and have their lives sorted so to speak, so they don’t think about people that might be gay, they don’t think about people that might be single, they don’t think about people that might be transexual, they just think about the mainstream. So that’s 2.4 children, you know the family unit. And I really struggle with that sometimes, and then sometimes that makes me feel guilty about being lonely or feel weird about being lonely, because I think I shouldn’t be lonely at my age, I should have lots of friends, I should have a partner. And then I think “what’s wrong with me? Why do I not have these things?”

But I do recognise that there isn’t a lot out there, I mean there’s a lot out there for people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts for example, which could be linked from being lonely etc, not having support networks. I think there’s a lot of helplines out there, but I don’t, and there’s befriending services for certain groups. You know, if you’re older, if you’re, you know, a young person who is new to the area. If you’re an asylum seeker, those things but I don’t think there is or maybe it’s not so socially accepted to be mid-thirties and accept and admit that you’re lonely or you’re struggling.

You know, I know that there’s lots of changes now in how we view men for example, and men accessing support services and recognising that actually, we’ve always known that men don’t access health services for example and there’s lots more recognition to that but it, there isn’t stuff that just talks about actually it’s okay to say that you’re lonely.