Like we all met up together again, and like I felt so out of place, because they had obviously been achieving things. Like doing master’s degrees, like, like progressing in their career… And then they asked me what I’d been doing, and it was just like, ‘Oh, actually nothing’.

Yeah. I think it does. Like to me, that means you can be around people and still feel lonely, because you’re just… I don’t know. Like I’ve definitely felt that feeling, where I’ve been with people and felt lonelier than when I was on my own. I don’t really know why. I guess, if you can’t relate to people, or like you don’t really feel a part of their group, then it can definitely feel lonelier to be around people.

Could you give me an example of that? Last time that happened, and how it felt?

So, I can just think about an example that I’ve told you. Like when I met up with my uni friends, I felt so out of… Like just so distanced from what they were up to in their lives, that I just felt lonelier, because I just felt so separate from them. So, then that’s when I like.. We just didn’t see each other again, I think because I just felt lonelier with them.

And also, kind of like recently, realised I was non-binary, and I think loneliness kind of taps on the same nerve because I don’t really know any other non-binary people. And I think that’s just kind of like difficult because you feel very much alone and you’re very much aware that the experiences you’re having and the feelings you’re having aren’t the same as the people around you. And as much as they try and are as supportive as they can be, I don’t think that they will ever be able to fully understand. And you know, you kind of feel like if you’re trying to communicate something to them about like, something difficult about being like gay or non-binary, they can try to understand but they won’t fully know, and I think that is a form of loneliness as well.

I think it’s very similar to other kinds of loneliness. I remember one of the worst moments of my life was when I was at… I think it was a New Year’s Eve party and I was stood in a room packed with people in someone’s living room, packed with people. All dancing and talking together and I stood there, and I realised nobody cared if I was there or not. Nobody would notice if I walked out of that house and went home. Nobody really wanted me there and that was one of the worst feelings of my whole entire life. And I feel like it’s almost exactly the same as if I was home.

I: So, nobody wanted you there or did nobody care whether you were there or not?

I guess I see them as the same thing.I guess it’s kind of ironic because obviously I was invited to this party by someone. But I wasn’t… I didn’t really speak to anyone else who went to that party. I didn’t really… I kind of knew them because they were in the same school, but I wasn’t really friends with any of them and I guess maybe more so, I don’t think that they cared if I was there or not. I don’t think that anyone, you know, in that room would have looked at me and gone, I wish they weren’t here. Um, but I think it’s more so that they didn’t see me there. Um, I… yeah, they didn’t care, I guess.

But so it felt a bit lonely in as much as I didn’t really have anyone to talk to. There’s support groups out there, and there still is an absolutely fantastic one in [city] under the name of [name], who provide complementary therapies and generally just somebody to talk to if absolutely necessary. But when you’re new to diagnosis, at least back when I was – I think it’s much better now – but when I was you basically got a whole bunch of pamphlets thrown at you and told you have MS, and told we’ll see you in six months for a check-up. And that kind of leaves you in a place that’s a bit of a limbo in as much as OK, I’ve got to read through all this and you just get information overload.

You know, you’ve just been told this dramatic piece of information that’s genuinely going to alter the rest of your life, and you don’t really have anyone that can fully appreciate what you’re going through. So I can speak to my dad, I can speak to my mum, I have a good relationship, I can speak to my wife. But at the same time they were dealing with the fact that I was diagnosed with MS. So my mother, being a nurse and nursing people with MS, she used to work in end-of-life care, so her view of MS is I’m going to be dead in six months. So she wasn’t a particularly great one to talk to because she got all emotional over it, while I’m not being emotional over it; I’m an incredibly factual person, I deal with things as they come, I don’t worry about things that I can’t change, so my MS doesn’t really worry me until I have to worry about it.

And my father is… Well he’s my father, he’s a man, he’s in his sixties, so he’s constantly in denial of everything that’s in front of him. He was under the anticipation that I would be dead before he’s dead, just because the only people he’s known with MS have had primary, severe primary progressive MS, and so all he’s seen with MS is death. From his perspective. So getting through to the pair of them made me feel more lonely because I was having to explain the basics of it to them rather than what I was feeling about it. I had to comfort them instead of them comforting me, which was a surprise in the process.