Messages to others who are lonely

Here, people who have experienced loneliness share their messages to other people who are feeling lonely. They said:
  • Loneliness doesn’t last forever.
  • If you feel lonely, talk about it.
  • There are things you can do to help.

Loneliness doesn’t last forever.

Many people wanted to reassure others that although you might be experiencing loneliness now, it won’t last forever. It is only a matter of time before you find a place where you feel that you belong.

Evie says loneliness doesn’t last and you will find somewhere you belong.

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I would like to say that, first of all, if you’re feeling lonely, you’re not going to feel that way forever. That there are people in the world who are exactly like you and you probably just haven’t found them yet. And that I know it can be extremely, extremely tiring to have to search for those people, but it will be worth it, and you will find a place that you feel at home in and that you feel like you belong.

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Emma says loneliness is not your fault and isn’t a long-term thing.

Gender Male

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Okay, would you like to share any messages with other people that might be feeling lonely?

I think mostly that it isn’t a deficiency in them, it’s just a thing that happens to people. I think the flip side of humans being social creatures that really benefit from positive social experiences is that loneliness is sort of a constant hazard but it’s almost never a long term. Well I think it’s usually not a long term form of existence and it’s not your fault if you’re experiencing it.

Who do you think it is?

I’m not sure if there is anyone we can point the blame at but yes, if there was anyone it would be society. I think we all have a responsibility to try and stop other people from feeling lonely and that’s something that I really enjoyed when I was feeling better towards the end of my time at university and so I think there is a degree of shared responsibility of are you not looking out for other people and I think people in positions of power need to think about are they making whatever it is they have power over an environment that exacerbates loneliness or that helps it.

So individualistic culture that we have?

Yes, I think that’s something the worse is loneliness and if you run a space that’s a school or a café or what, you have some responsibility to make sure that’s a place people can feel comfortable and able to talk to other people and I think if you spend time in that space, you have some responsibility to look out for other people. I think it’s not my problem, attitude has a lot of responsibility for loneliness.

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If you feel lonely, talk about it.

Another message was that people should talk about feeling lonely and not suffer loneliness in silence. Although it may seem hard to admit to being lonely, loneliness is a normal part of life that can affect anybody. It it is important to reach out as there are support services that may be able to help.

Emily says loneliness can be helpful.

Age at interview 58

Gender Male

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Are there any messages that you’d like to send out to people that might be experiencing loneliness?

Just that it’s okay. Like feeling lonely is not the end of the world, like it will feel like the end of the world, but sometimes it’s quite, not necessarily nice to feel lonely, but it’s not the worst thing to feel lonely, like it can be a helpful thing to experience, like it will help you as a person eventually. Like, like it might not currently, it might not feel like it, but in a few years after you’ve experienced loneliness you will kind of be almost grateful for the experience.

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Martin says it’s important to acknowledge you are lonely in order to find ways to fix it.

Gender Male

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I’d say try and, try and acknowledge it for what it is and even if it’s a bit uncomfortable to even admit to yourself if that’s what it is, you know, just try and take those steps to do something that’s within your comfort zone but is gonna take you out of that, you know, you don’t have to go and join a club or anything or you can do it on your own terms but, you know, there’s always things that you can do just to take some baby steps out of it whether it is joining a group on social media or it might be, you know, joining an actual club or maybe it’s just, I don’t know go for a walk and bumping into somebody or maybe getting, getting a dog, you get a dog and so long as you can look after the dog if you’ve got money for stuff or you might meet other dog owners, you might even join a dog owners club or something but it’s like just try and take those baby steps out of it. And yeah don’t be ashamed to admit it and if you’ve got good friends and family around you, you know, just, you know acknowledge it with them because yeah it will be uncomfortable but ultimately you’ll be in a better place.

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There are things you can do to help.

People told us about the ways they had found to feel less lonely. This could include finding new activities or having a pet.

Chris says staying active can help reduce loneliness and there are also many services that might be able to help.

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I would say stay strong, believe in yourself. It’s not your fault, and try not to stay silent, make sure you talk about your feelings to somebody. Make sure you seek help. Obviously, I go through therapy and it’s been an absolute godsend to me, so I would say there’s things out there to help you, there’s services out there to help you, there’s things like the Samaritans, which I’ve used in the past before. So use those networks, if you feel really lonely, use those networks. And also get out, don’t sit indoors thinking about it all the time. Get out and do something, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s going for a walk, listening to music, just get out and do something.

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Jonathan encourages people to step out of their comfort zone.

Gender Male

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You don’t have to be lonely. I’d say that to somebody who’s in a level of chronically lonely that it’s a bit like depression in as much as it kind of appears inescapable, but it’s not. But it does require a little bit of energy, a little bit of a kick, kicking yourself up the backside in order to do something about it. Because unfortunately in life, nothing ever comes without putting in at least a fragment of effort. So I’d say that if you’re lonely, the help is out there, you just have to open the door to find it.

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Sharmin encourages people to reach out to others even if it’s through social media.

Gender Female

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I: Okay so do you have any messages that you want to say to other people that might be feeling lonely?

I’d just say that they’re not alone, there are other people, although we feel lonely there are other people who feel lonely as well and you can reach out to people and I think social media is a really good way to sort of reach out like I’ve tried it, I’ve said, you know, I’m feeling really alone and then loads loads of people have sort of responded to me and that’s a real positive

I: Is that in specific pages or in just your page or?

Yeah so I used a hashtag yesterday not alone or something and they’ve got like this hashtag like mental health hashtag and then suddenly all these people strangers started responding ‘Oh hi if you need to talk to me send me a DM’ or ‘Don’t worry you’re not alone’ and that really made me feel like okay actually there’s other people out there who are sort of going through the same thing as me, so I suppose, yeah.

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See ‘Overcoming loneliness‘ for more.

Overcoming loneliness

People talked to us about their experiences of overcoming loneliness. Many people didn’t want to make use of services for loneliness because of stigma. Instead,...