Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash
This week, I am taking a break from my posts about server-side rendering to share something non-technical I wrote recently while dealing with some intense emotions1. We do not get to choose when the symptoms of grief spend time with us, yet I am starting to see them as a gift rather than a burden. An opportunity to look deeper and peel away the intensity to see what lies beneath. This was one of those occasions. I hope that by sharing, I challenge the stigma that men face when publicly acknowledging their emotional and mental fragility and health.
One of my greatest revelations regarding loneliness has been that it requires much more than the mere presence, love, and companionship of others to be rid of it. It is such a strange prison in which to be cradled. A seemingly permanent margin between the self and everything else, yet with no obvious keeper maintaining it. A state of mind that the mind seems incapable of altering by will alone. I suspect it is a conceit, a curtain drawn on deeper emotions, much as boredom is a non-thing that we label to avoid labelling the thing, or things that are otherwise concealed.
So what is it? What does loneliness hide? A feeling of not being wanted, or worse, being unwanted? A fear of rejection? Of failure? Of accepting a failure that already happened? Grief? Is it just grief disguised as desire? Like listening to music, searching for that perfect song to fit the moment, but never quite finding it? Perhaps it is an intangible ghost of where one believes safety lies, or where it once lay.
And just as the feeling has taken me, in a moment it vanishes, lying in wait till the next time. An unease and uncertainty return. But what was ever easy and when was it ever certain?
Thank you for reading my ramblings. I am not some sort of expert, I am working things out as I go and doing what feels right for my own well-being. What you need may be different, so if you are feeling not quite right, please talk to someone. Therapy can be amazing. I myself started by chatting and ultimately breaking down in front of my doctor, but you don't have to be as melodramatic with medical professionals as I was in that moment.
You are not alone. You are not wasting anyone's time. Seek help. It is there.
If that all seems too daunting, there are online resources available to you, just a click away. Here are a few.
- SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)
- Open Source Mental Illness
- CheckPoint
- This was originally posted to a personal social media profile; it has been edited for this blog [↩]
Beautifully written Jeff.
Thank you <3