What happens if you say to a psychologist: I think that the primary problem is not stress, it's loneliness. How can you be lonely in a room full of a hundred or more people?
Having Asperger's Syndrome (or something that in some respects looks like Asperger's Syndrome), my answer would be along the lines of: Communication! but it's more than that. I suspect that people generally find it difficult to relate to one hundred people at once. That the occasional unfriendliness I encounter is just overload. And that I, also, need to adapt. My first response was to live in a bubble. To shut out the noise.
Or to run away - but that isn't allowed. And I do have conversations. Good, interesting conversations.
Over lunch, generally, I read. Somehow, the books that have landed on my in-tray are challenging: The Street Bible (now called Word on the Street, I believe), by Rob Lacey; One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey (which I've paused, having reached the end of a chapter - it doesn't help that I've seen the film, which doesn't exactly have a happy ending); and, currently: unApologetic, by Francis Spufford ...
1 comment:
Loneliness can occur because we simply have no one to talk to, but sometimes we can feel lonely because we lack a sense of connection. We may feel lonely even though we talk to lots of people because no one else seems to be on our wavelength. Loneliness can be about not feeling understood, not having anyone who cares about the things that matters to us. Sometimes better communications can help us to connect to other people at a deeper level, but that probably involves taking a certain amount of risk.
I'll stop now before it becomes an essay.
Post a Comment