Existential Loneliness. Types Of Loneliness

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Existential loneliness is a kind of longing, strong mental anxiety combined with sadness and boredom, which a person experiences constantly or at certain periods of life.

Let's take a closer look - what is this state, how is it experienced, what are the reasons for its occurrence?

Loneliness is of two types - external and internal. External loneliness is a simpler state, as a rule it is tied to internal processes.

What are the causes of loneliness?

First of all, this is a rejection of himself as a person (a person feels that he is completely different, therefore, he is ashamed of himself and his characteristics, because otherwise no one will accept him in this society, those around him, like himself inside his consciousness, will reject him - “I I know that this person will definitely reject me. It cannot be otherwise! "); projective evaluative critical thinking in relation to others ("All people are stupid, bad, dissatisfying, uninteresting, etc."). Two situations may arise here - when a person is of little interest even to himself, or, on the contrary, he is too interested in himself (accordingly, those around him are very “faded” in comparison with him).

Another option is a painful childhood story directly related to relationships with early attachment objects (mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather) who rejected, criticized and did not accept the child into their “group” (“Here we are adults, smart and interesting, and you sit in your corner and do not interfere in adult conversations ). As a consequence, this behavior will reproduce in adulthood with other people, even with those with whom the person has not yet entered into a relationship. The thing is that certain changes have already taken place within the consciousness of the personality due to previous childhood relationships, she was rejected and returned “to the corner”, so she tries not to face her shame and disappointment in people.

At the root of the problem is a deep distrust of people, a lack of faith in the sincerity and conscientiousness of others, and, in general, the inability to trust (this is not about trusting material values or, for example, a machine; in the context - trust of deep feelings of a person, which are very important for him) …

In addition, here we may encounter a tendency to idealization - relatively speaking, all people with whom I will interact should be 90-60-90, that is, certain frames are allocated. If a person "knocks out" of the set boundaries, he cannot survive this frustration - the object of communication is imperfect and does not fit into the set framework of idealization. Over time, the state of frustration becomes intolerable, so a person decides not to bump into anyone, so as not to re-experience painful sensations, not to face the fact that people are imperfect and make mistakes, that they are stupid, uninteresting and think strangely - it is better not to enter contact. In general, any human problem is related to the fact that he cannot survive any experiences that occur in similar situations. What does this mean? A person goes outside and, getting into situations that cause unacceptable feelings for him, decides to isolate himself from the world around him (“Everything … It is impossible to endure … I’d better hide in my house, I will deny and repress, using all possible psychological defenses, so unbearable pain! ").

Thus, speaking of external loneliness, it is important to emphasize that for a person the process of idealization and de-idealization can be truly unbearable due to the occurrence of frustration.

External loneliness corresponds to internal, they always go together. Sometimes there is another situation - a person is in contact with people, but inside he feels lonely (“alone in a crowd or alone together”). How to understand the expression "loneliness in the crowd"? This means that the people around them cannot meet the needs of a person, in fact, this is the next stage of loneliness due to the state of frustration of idealization (that is, the person was able to get in touch and build relationships, but he is still experiencing frustration due to imperfect people).

Such frustration can also be painful, but this is already a significant step in the period of separation and individuation (the process of personality formation), when a person realizes that no one will save him, there are no ideal people around, and indeed you need to come to terms with this whole situation and receive from others what they can give (although this may be the minimum of their own desires).

The earliest manifestation of inner loneliness is associated with objects of attachment. As a rule, if a person constantly feels a painful inner longing for people and is in a state of isolation (regardless of whether there is someone nearby), this indicates, first of all, a longing for the object of affection. Such a deep aching melancholy is inherent in individuals who have some features of the borderline organization of the psyche, or, conversely, "multi-borderline" (the continuum descends from the neurotic closer to the borderline). The manifestation of mental anxiety at this level is directly related to early objects of attachment (mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc.) and the absence of a strong emotional connection (ie, “there was no stable object of attachment”). For example, a child has a mother, but she periodically satisfies him, leaves or does bad deeds, and therefore there is a feeling that today or tomorrow the mother will completely leave. More options - the mother has left, and the child does not understand at all whether she will return; the mother has ceased to feel emotions in relation to the child, is not included in his experiences, does not show attention and care (the child does not understand whether the former mother will return).

Basically, such a boring and painful melancholy occurs in people whose mother was emotionally cold (while the maternal object could be functionally ideal (a good and correct mother in the person of others, etc.), but the very "maternal behavior" (when the mother is experiencing for the baby, thinks about his needs and desires) was not). In this case, the child next to the mother will feel lonely, will not experience complete merging with the mother's object.

As a result, the yearning for eternal merging will constantly push him to find a stable and stable object of attachment, who can be trusted, who will not betray, leave or hurt.

It is almost impossible to deal with the longing for the object of attachment on your own, you need to seek help from a psychotherapist - in the real world it is difficult to find an object of attachment that satisfies all needs (reliability, stability, responsibility, deep emotional contact, etc.), and artificial conditions slightly "raise" psyche, improving her condition and allowing her to find a reliable partner. Why is that? From our traumas, we form further relationships. How does this look like in an example?

A person feels cold towards himself from others, he cannot trust anyone, because betrayal will surely follow trust. As a rule, his line of behavior is to search for people who will reproduce the trauma he has received, unconsciously, but at the same time, a special provocation of situations in which he can prove to himself that after all, the world is arranged the way he sees it. Over time, this will lead to complete isolation from others - living without pain is much easier.

When the separation process is completed, the feeling of loneliness may periodically return to the person, but it will be based on the statement: “Someone was with me once and will always be there. Perhaps this person will not fully satisfy my needs, but he will not abandon me. The feeling of inner stability and reliability forms the very core that makes us stronger and more confident, respectively, the feeling of loneliness experienced will not be so painful.