I am Reversing Loneliness
I am changing old patterns and opening up space in my life for a healthier way of living
The road to recovery from anxiety and childhood emotional neglect is not a walk in the park. Although I have made many strides, including fulfilling my long-time dream of becoming a dog mom and finding a healthy and secure relationship, I find I still have many old unhealthy beliefs and behaviors, and maladaptive thought patterns I need to shed as I work on creating the life I want for myself. One of these issues is the tendency to isolate myself in a bid to protect myself from others and the resulting loneliness of these actions. It was a pattern so familiar to me that I did not realize I was in it until several years into therapy. Finally, I am ready to repair this dysfunctional pattern, heal my injured instincts, and reverse loneliness.
“In ‘being good,’ a woman closes her eyes to everything…distorted, or damaging around her, and just “tries to live with it.” Her attempts to accept this abnormal state further injure her instincts to react, point out, change, make impact on what is not right, what is not just…Normalizing the abnormal causes the spirit, which would normally leap to correct the situation, to sink into ennui, complacency, and eventually…into blindness…
What should come naturally comes not at all, or after too much tugging, pulling, rationalizing, fighting with herself. There are many ways to be stuck. The instinct-injured woman usually gives herself away because she has a difficult time asking for help or she has trouble recognizing her own needs. Her natural instincts to fight and flee are drastically slowed or extincted. Recognition of the sensations of satiation, off-taste, suspicion, caution, and the drive to love fully and freely are inhibited or exaggerated.” — Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés
In the past, I recounted one of my most acute moments of feeling alone while growing up. It was when I faced a string of difficult moments without anyone to turn to talk about and get help for my situation. However, I was also faced with many other lonely moments growing up — a pattern I did not see until recently. These were not acute moments of loneliness. They were more like long periods of time when I faced one difficult situation after another alone without the proper amount of support I needed. That made me feel isolated and alone. I was not getting my needs met. These time periods were post-breakup and post-transition periods. Unfortunately, when I think of them, I can come up with many times in 2004, 2012, 2016, etc. The list went on and on. When they are so numerous, they aren’t just small moments of my life anymore. They made up my life.
Although I felt lonely in those times, I was so used to the feeling that I developed learned helplessness over the chronic pain and did not take sufficient measures to mitigate it. My parents created environments where it was difficult for me to reach out to and spend time with my friends, whether it was when I was living with them or when they were setting me up to live far away from them for the first time. They reminded me to stay home and avoid practically everything. While they were looking out for my safety, they were actually cutting me off from developing a fulfilling and healthy social life. I was not developing healthy relationship skills. The backward conditioning I received from them was very strong. I feel like my instincts were damaged and I suffered for a long time before I felt the impulse to fix my situation.
My life changed once I made decisions on my own regarding how I should set up my life. I got more honest about my needs for friendship, connection, companionship, and love. I made it easier for myself to see people important to me and feel like I was part of a community. I immersed myself in environments with emotionally intelligent and healthy people and started having more emotionally nourishing experiences. They showed me different ways of living that didn’t occur in my parents’ household. These people helped me out in tough situations by being there when my family was not. They also appreciated the small moments and found many opportunities to celebrate and cherish life as it went on. My friends and work teams celebrated with me during big moments like birthdays and personal and professional accomplishments.
Having done the work of instinct repair, I was able to change my attitude and ultimately my life. I went from a life of too many moments alone to a life where I was able to comfortably let others in. It was a transition, but I was able to let go of the underlying fears I had as a result of my chronic loneliness. I got over fears of losing my autonomy, being suffocated, and being vulnerable. I was even able to realize my lifelong dream of becoming a dog mom because of the work I did. I thought I would be intimidated by the long commitment and amount of work demanded of being a dog owner. It became not so intimidating for me when I was back in touch with my need for companionship as well as the urge I felt to take care of others and the pleasure I got from doing it. I feel I am on my way to fully repairing my damaged instincts.
“It is fatuous to think that once we solve an issue it stays solved, that once we learn, we always remain conscious ever after. No, life is a great body that grows and diminishes in different areas, at different rates. When we are like the body, doing the work of new growth, wading through la mierda, the shit, just breathing or resting, we are very alive…If we could realize that the work is to keep doing the work, we would be much more fierce and much more peaceful.” — Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés
I have found new role models who are leading lives as I’d like to lead mine. They have full lives with kids, pets, family, and friends nearby to support them. I see them as templates I can follow as I am creating the life I want to have. More importantly, they demonstrate positive and healthy behaviors around tricky situations. I see how they handle these situations, how they advocate for themselves, how they express the impact that others’ actions have on them, how they delineate what they need from others, and how they firmly set boundaries. With their help, I have practiced expressing myself confidently and living more authentically to my true self. I feel I am building the life I want one step at a time.
I feel that taking on a mothering role is a critical step for me. It helps me leave behind the emptiness and old beliefs of my past in order to start the next stage of my life with new values: partnership and motherhood. In creating the life I want, I need to root myself in the right attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. I believe this involves building my confidence and learning to trust myself in relationships. It means I continue developing healthy relationships and expanding my capacity to let others in and allowing them to take up space in my life. It means letting go of anger and forgiving my parents for some of the harm they caused me out of their mistaken beliefs. It means healing the pain of the past. It means making choices that lead to the opposite of loneliness: intimacy, companionship, and community.
“Whether the injuries be to your art, words, lifestyle, thoughts, or ideas, and if you have knitted yourself up into a many-sleeved sweater, cut through the tangle now and get on with it. Beyond desire and wishing, beyond the carefully reasoned methods we love to talk and scheme over, there is a simple door waiting for us to walk through. On the other side are new feet [a new way of life]. Go there. Crawl there if need be. Stop talking and obsessing. Just do it.” — Women Who Run with Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés