Defeating loneliness

"The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness."
Norman Cousins

I came out of a week spent in bed with a high fever and began my new medication. Parnate this time. It has had an immediate effect on me and I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from every cell in my body. I am sharp at work and addressing things that have been maple syrup to me for months. This has had the addtional benefit of clearing all of those outstanding things that cause 4am anxiety. I have also had the guts to speak to a few key people in my life about things that have been getting me down about the way they have been treating me. I have done it in a non-confrontational way, more like asking for help and I have had a receptive response.

The other strange phenomenon is that I have felt the urge to connect with people. I have made an effort to contact friends that have perservered with me over the past 3 years and make plans to see them. I have been to the theatre, at the Sydney Opera House to see "I am my own wife" and to the Dendy cinema at Circular Quay to see "Unfolding Florence"," 49 Up" and my favourite this year so far, ‘Breakfast on Pluto". My sister is down in Sydney during her uni break from Wagga Wagga. I have booked her and I to go and see "Fat Pig" at the Wharf Theatre at the Rocks next week.

I am undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy at the moment. In the first session we tackled the easiest topic I listed, which was feeling guilty about having been depressed for so long and that I don’t like telling people because they must be sick of me always being this way. When I discussed it further, my therapist used asthma as a subsitution for depression. Blue, why don’t you get over your asthma, you are always sick, just take a few deep breaths and get over it, is it really necessary for you to use that puffer, can’t you see how selfish your asthma is and how much it brings other people down. It sounds pretty trite writing it here but when I substituted depression for asthma, I realised that it is just another illness and one that has been out of my control. Particularly, as I have had such a substantial response this time to a stronger medication, it does make me realise that a large proportion of my depression has a basis in chemical imbalance. The upshot is that I am not going to apologise anymore to myself or anyone else if I don’t feel well.

"In cities no one is quiet but many are lonely; in the country, people are quiet but few are lonely."
Geoffrey Francis Fisher  

This week I tackled the concept of being an outsider. I used to feel that I was inadequate, that I had nothing to say, that I could relate, that I was different. As I have gotten older I realise that I am different, very different from most people. That I am not a typical Sydney-ite who is only interested in superficial and material judgements about people, what they own, who they know, where the go. I don’t drink, take drugs, smoke, drink caffeine (any of these things anymore) which makes me feel even more different if I go out as the night wears on and I get bored. I am not interested in people’s property prices, their residential mortgages, their holiday homes, their wedding stories, how many carats their engagement rings are, their diet secrets, their conservative politics shaped so easily by talk back radio, commercial television and tabloid papers. I don’t give a flying fuck about celebrities, or their partners, or their drug addictions, or their babies, or that the have gained or lost weight. I sound a little bitter ha?

"One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it."
Vincent Van Gogh    

My therapist corrected me, I am not anti-social, I am socially avoidant. It is with a clear head that I now know why I feel less lonely on my own than I do in a crowd of dopey doras and flibberty gibbits. I do want to have meaningful connections with people. People who think about the meaning of this life, or lack thereof, that can make me laugh in spite of it all, or broaden my mind, challenge my beliefs. People who are passionate about the things that turn me on: art, cinema, music, literature, food, architecture, writing, teaching, religion, politics, social justice and the environment. They must be out there but in Sydney they are slim pickings. He suggested I join a group of people who have these types of interests. The thought sickens me, so contrived but I promised to try and do things differently. As he said, people are not going to be beating a path to my door to become my friend. I may have to widen my net (other than just my diary and the wonderful people I have met through here). If I want to defeat my loneliness I have to do something differently.