The Loneliness of November
It’s a dreary November day. Leaves are finally falling. The air is misty, with rain that seems suspended in midair. Clouds are thick as I await election results with bated breath.
The weather outside got me thinking about loneliness.
The last couple of weeks, after the kids came and went from fall break, have brought some unexpected moments of alone time. And frankly, they were a little sadder than I anticipated.
I remember when I was in school, late fall was often when the homesickness kicked in, whether from my perspective as a student or my current perspective as a parent.
Loneliness is an emotion that, depending on how it's measured, affects somewhere between 25% and 50% of people in the United States.
(And personally, I think that number may be underrepresented, especially given how I feel right now.)
And it isn't just an unpleasant feeling. Loneliness is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, and depression.
A former U.S. Surgeon General cited research suggesting that loneliness increases the risk of premature death by about 25%. More broadly, a lack of social connection has been compared to the health risks of smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
Say what?!?
There are several theories about why loneliness has such a profound effect on our health. One suggests that loneliness triggers a specific immune response, essentially preparing the body for potential physical injury. When this response becomes chronic, the resulting inflammation has been linked to many of the physical and emotional conditions I mentioned above.
And that's not all.
Lonely individuals can become more hypervigilant to potential threats.
They pay more attention to images of social rejection;
identify negative emotional expressions more quickly;
and are more likely to interpret ambiguous facial expressions as negative.
Add poor sleep.
Increased cortisol.
Well, that completely explains why last week I felt like a loser and imagined that everyone in my life was laughing at my expense while also feeling exhausted and feverish.
These past couple of weeks haven't been my first encounter with solitude. When I think about loneliness, one particular period of my life jumps to the forefront.
You would think it would be college or perhaps the desolate winter of a medical school surgery rotation.
Surprisingly, it's much earlier. January of my sixth-grade year.
In fact, if someone asked me to identify the hardest period of my life, I would skip over intern year, premature twins, and even the death of my dad.
No, I would pick the year I was eleven.
We had moved on October 31st of the previous year. I considered the timing of the move an omen of the impending misery that was to come. And then, in what I can only describe as a spectacularly bad piece of planning, after spending just three weeks at my new junior high, I was pulled out of school to join my family on a month-long trip to India.
When I returned in January, I was starting all over again.
Except this time, everyone else had already settled in.
Friendships had formed. Groups had been established. I knew no one. Outside, the weather was bleak and gray. Inside, I was dealing with jet lag, waking up at 2 a.m. every night, unable to fall back asleep.
I can still vividly remember looking out the window of the bedroom I shared with my sister, crying. I would open my mouth to scream, but no sound would come out. Instead, there was this painful, silent whoosh of emotion. I would stand there for hours, wanting to escape.
Was this depression? I honestly don't know.
Even now, I can feel that grief. Not just in my heart, but in my bones.
It's hard to explain the intensity of that sadness when I look back. I was eleven years old. I had a family, a home, and people around me. But I felt completely alone. And at that age, I didn't have the perspective to understand that this was temporary. It felt as though this was simply how life was going to be.
The emotions I remember feeling seem too big to belong to an eleven-year-old.
But that brings up another point.
I think sometimes, as adults, we forget this. We look back at childhood problems through the lens of everything we've experienced since. We compare an eleven-year-old's loneliness to the challenges of adulthood and assume that, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't really that bad.
After all, there are bigger problems in the world. And certainly, life would bring me plenty of them.
But we shouldn't discount a child's feelings simply because their problems seem smaller to us. An eleven-year-old doesn't have the perspective of a forty- or fifty-year-old.
Their world is smaller, but their feelings aren't. The loneliness, sadness, and heartbreak can be just as overwhelming. Those little bodies carry some pretty big emotions.
Thankfully, things slowly got better over the next few months.
First, the sun came out. My jet lag eventually settled down. I made a friend or two. Life became a little less miserable.
I can't say I stopped feeling lonely that year, but I did learn something about loneliness that research has since helped explain.
Being surrounded by people doesn't necessarily make you feel less lonely.
Think about how often you've found yourself in a room full of people and still felt completely out of place. You can have family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances all around you and still feel disconnected.
Because connection is what matters. Not simply being included, but feeling that you belong. Feeling understood. Feeling that someone actually sees you.
And this is where the distinction between being alone and feeling lonely becomes important.
Research suggests that loneliness isn't simply a measure of how many people are in your life. It's also about how you perceive your relationships and whether they provide the connection you need.
There are people sitting by themselves in their living rooms who feel perfectly content, while others surrounded by family can feel profoundly lonely.
Sometimes, addressing loneliness means going out, meeting people, and making an effort to build relationships. But often, the answer isn't necessarily more people or better social skills.
It may mean examining how we view our relationships, whether we're recognizing the connections we already have, and whether we're allowing ourselves to be vulnerable enough to create new ones.
I suppose that's what I've been reminded of these past few weeks.
There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.
And there is also a difference between having people in your life and feeling connected to them.
I wish I could go back and tell my eleven-year-old self that January wouldn't last forever. That the sun would come out, that she would make friends, and that one day she'd look back on this time as a distant memory.
But maybe that's the other thing about loneliness.
Sometimes, when we're in the middle of it, it's almost impossible to imagine that things will feel different.
So, as the days get shorter and the weather gets drearier, perhaps it's worth checking in on the people around us. Not just asking how they're doing, but making sure they feel seen, included, and connected.
And maybe, if we're the ones feeling a little lonely, we should remember that being alone today doesn't mean we'll always feel alone.
Even in November. On election night. While the rain struggles to reach the ground.
Comments