The loneliness epidemic

Welcome back to another episode of how to twenty-something where today I’m going to be talking to you about the loneliness epidemic and how you can create your own antidote to the loneliness you might be experiencing

What’s crazy is that we live in a world that has evolved to make connection easier, yet we are more alone than ever

Twenty-somethings have the highest reports of feeling lonely and disconnected which comes to no surprise to me since this is a time in our life where most of us are completely uprooted from the environments we previously knew

And our loneliness is a long term side effect from a global shutdown for basically a year, robbing us of some very crucial soft skills like making connections in new environments

These feelings of loneliness are brought on by life transitions and we all know that A LOT of transitions happen throughout your twenties

We’ve moved out on our own, possibly don’t know anyone in our new city, and haven’t been taught the tools to establish connection

We’ve left every sense of connection and community behind, which is good on the one hand that it forces you to grow and expand your network, but bad because you haven’t developed those tools to do so

It’s why I created my find my friends workshop in the fall

Which, by the way, if you want to stay up to date on my next workshop, receive insider information on the podcast episode of the week, and a life hack every month then you should join my email list

In fact, my next workshop is coming up on January 22nd, it’s a Wednesday, THIS WEDNESDAY at 7:30pm on zoom and it’s called make you next move where I’m going to walk you through the five foundational steps required to find your next job that is a good fit for you

And no, one of those steps is not about updating your resume

All you have to do is head to the show notes or to jessdiamondcoaching.com/move and put in your name and email to receive the zoom link and yes, replays will be provided so you can apply these steps for every future job search you’ll encounter

But back on topic to the loneliness epidemic

No one is immune

Even if you live with your best friend or life partner, you can still experience loneliness as I’ll explain soon enough

I want to say this epidemic began with the pandemic, but the truth is, we’ve been experiencing the side effects of our loneliness for quite some time

The pandemic just exacerbated how isolating life can feel, especially when you are forced to be by yourself for an unnaturally extended period of time

Fast forward to nearly five years later, and we are still feeling the effects of our times in isolation and honestly, it’s going to be a while before we fully recover from our time in 2020, if we ever recover

I know this all sounds depressing, but loneliness is a silent killer and we’re in January right now which means y’all are probably not doing too well mentally and socially

I mean I hope that’s not true, I hope that winter time blues or January blues as I like to call them, is not hitting you this year, but the reality is is that the days are short and cold and we gravitate towards staying inside, or hibernating if you will

Which is fine, it’s part of the seasonal progression of the year, but what I don’t want for you is for this to become your new norm or habit or for you to get consumed by your isolation

So i’m going to help you identify your own signs of loneliness, give examples as to where it might show up in your life, and most importantly what you can do about it

To begin, the most common signs of loneliness include a lack of close friends or people you can confide in

This is what hit me the most with my loneliness when I went through my friendship breakup almost 2 years ago and lost touch with almost everyone else in that group as a result

My therapist at the time had to help me see that the people in that group weren’t even my close friends, that I really didn’t have close friends in my city that I could turn to in a time of need, sadness, or celebration

No one came to check in on me when i fully disappeared for three entire months and I remember I kept thinking, if I just packed up and moved away no one would know, no one would miss me

And that absolutely sucks

You see, I was already lonely, before the friendship breakup happened, but I was disguising my loneliness with a social life

Which maybe you’re thinking that makes no sense, if you have a social life then you clearly have people and aren’t lonely

But loneliness goes far beyond your social calendar 

These people that i was friendly with were the party people, we would all be together when we were out, but rarely ever were we hanging out outside of the group and developing that stronger connection that is needed in life that comes from one on one time

So yeah, on the outside, I was thriving, I even remember my uncle and cousin coming up to me at a family thing a few months after I moved to Charlotte and made comments that it looked like I was really living life

And I thought I was, which is what makes it so much worse when something bad happens in your life and you realize that the relationships you had built were superficial

I understand after the fact that everyone is dealing with their own lives and might get so caught up in what’s happening for them that they just as well might feel the same way about you not checking in on them

But even still, having those close relationships means having someone check in on you even when they have their own shit happening at the same time

Like I can say for a fact that I do have my handful of people who I remember to check in on even when I’m having a rough season of life and vice versa

So if you find yourself only hanging out in groups and never one on one with someone then I’m afraid you’re falling into the same trap I laid out for myself

The loneliness trap

For me, it really became evident before the official friendship break up even happened

I had realized that I stopped getting the invite from my then best friend  to hang out with everyone and while you might think it’s not on him to extend the invite, in a way it was

Because he was the one coordinating these gatherings and up until that point he was inviting me to everything

But anyways, once I finally had had enough of this unexpected isolation I confronted him and then that same day it happened again

I called my mom in tears saying that I felt all alone

That loneliness progressed into my depressive episode and it was all a result of not having close relationships 

We’re humans we absolutely have to have close relationships I don’t care how shy or introverted you are, it is in our nature to thrive on connection and a sense of belonging

Loneliness impacts every single part of your life because the way you feel emotionally determines how you behave which determines how you relate to others and the experiences you create for yourself

And if you’re new to a city or workplace or school then it’s going to come up for you and you need to know how to fight back against this epidemic, or in other words, build up your immunity to loneliness and build up your community of people

And no that does not mean getting to know yourself and being okay with being by yourself, but rather going out in the world and trying to find your people

Which, if you’re already down bad in your state of loneliness, then that is going to be easier said than done

Because from an emotional standpoint, when you are persistently lonely, you often feel misunderstood by others and that no one truly relates to what you’re experiencing or struggling

This was me when I lost my job back in 2020, I felt like the black sheep of all the twenty-somethings and that not a single person knew what I was going through

Granted, my situation was quite unique where I worked from home for 1 full day, didn’t qualify for any stimulus checks or even for unemployment and everyone in my immediate environment all had their jobs still and were fine, where the only thing that changed from them was their work environment

So yeah i felt all alone on my little island of unemployment, thinking no one else in the entire world could even possibly relate to what I was experiencing and the struggles I was enduring

I would say I was even embarrassed to have lost my job even though it was entirely out of my control, but I felt like I was failing at adulting and all of my friends were succeeding, so as I result I was getting left behind and felt alone

There was no one to tell me that it’s common to lose your job in your twenties or that no one really feels like they are succeeding during this decade and that there is always some part of your life where you’re going to feel behind

And maybe at the ripe age of 23 it’s not common to lose your job just yet, maybe pre-pandemic that wasn’t really thing in general

All I know is that my family members who were just a bit older than me hadn’t experienced layoffs or furloughs

In my world, it was easy to land a job after graduating and it was easy to change jobs if you didn’t like what you were experiencing, so when I struggled to land my job, immediately hated the one I got, and then lost it 7 months later, you can bet your ass that I felt all alone in my life and that I was doing something wrong

So yeah, the loneliness epidemic is based off of two key things: your experiences and your community

And if you feel isolated in either one then you are going to shut down, you’re not going to say very kind things to yourself or want to be around other people, and then your circumstances will plummet even further until you muster up the courage to create your antidote

Many people are reluctant to admit where and when they feel lonely, which is funny because by not discussing it you’re perpetuating this suffering of loneliness by further convincing yourself that you are the only one going through your current experience

It’s why I felt called to make an episode on this topic

Like I said, your state of loneliness can be in any area of your life and is signified by a lack of meaningful connections and feelings of being misunderstood

This feeling of loneliness will also let you believe that everyone is judging you so you’re going to want to avoid social settings to avoid the potential feeling of being judged only again exacerbating the idea that you are all alone

But here’s a secret, it’s all in your head, well mostly

Your brain is protecting you from potential hurt that maybe you have endured in the past, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen again 

I’m not saying it won’t happen again, because it could, but if you continue to hide out from people and experiences then you’re only going to feel worse about yourself and be caught in the endless cycle of shying away and feeling down

So let’s shift gears into how you can create your own antidote

I mean hopefully by now you’re able to feel a little more seen and heard about what you’re currently feeling, but that’s not enough

Now it’s time to take action

And maybe you’re thinking, but what can I do

Well the obvious answer is go make friends, meet people, do things you enjoy that also involve other people 

Find supportive groups, attend events of a common interest, leave your apartment

Those are the surface level antidotes to your cure of feeling lonely

But what they don’t tell you, what might not seem obvious and possibly even counterintuitive

Is admit your loneliness, identify where in your life you feel isolated, left out, or left behind

Figure out where it’s coming from and how you got here and then tell yourself that while yes, your feelings of isolation are totally valid, you’re never fully alone in what you’re experiencing

There are 8 billion people on this planet so there is no way your life or what you’re going through right now is entirely unique

I’m making this episode during christmas time so it’s only fitting to incorporate the famous line that is in so many christmas movies and that is seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing

You don’t have to hear other people’s stories or see something on social media to help you believe in what I’m saying is true for you too

But you do need to believe for yourself that other people have gone through their periods of loneliness and saw it through to the other side, which means that you can too

Another way to think about this is if it’s possible for someone else it’s possible for you too

So it’s time to shift your perspective that your state of loneliness is all that it is.. A state

It’s temporary, it’s situational, it’s not this perpetual never ending cycle that you’re totally, completely, helplessly stuck in

It’s breakable

But you have to want to break it

You have to be able to believe you can break it

And it’s also to say that there’s no preventing it from coming back, loneliness is going to ebb and flow

It’s going to appear in different stages of your life and for different reasons

It’s going to appear even if you’re in a committed long term relationship

I had a client call a few months ago where she explained that she wanted help with making friends, that she moved in with her boyfriend and she sees him with all of his friends and wants that for herself

She doesn’t just want to be friends with the girlfriends of his friends, but to build actual relationships of her own

And it’s because it’s perfectly normal to feel lonely in your relationship in a form where you are longing for friendships outside of your relationship

It doesn’t mean your relationship is bad or broken, in fact I think you absolutely positively need friends outside of your significant other

You need a life separate from that person that you can thrive in on your own

If you do find yourself in a codependent relationship, which is also common, but it is dangerous, then you need to venture out of your comfort zone that involves that person and try something new by yourself

The way I coached this particular client around this topic was by telling her she can bring her boyfriend to these events at first, whatever they may be, but she has to go talk to someone new by herself and her boyfriend can be there for support

That way she knows she has her person to fall back to right there and it’s less scary

Think of your partner as the training wheels to your bike of making friends and trying different experiences

Eventually you’ll get to a point where you’ve built up enough practice and confidence to go on your own

But you do need a little bit of help finding your groove first

Building up your community is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself and it’s dangerous to your overall well-being when you neglect your social life because you decided you were comfortable with what you have right now

Only it’s going to leave you getting caught with your pants down in a few months or years when you finally come to realize you have no one else you can confide in, celebrate with, and have for support

So yes, even if you’re in a long term relationship, you also need a best friend in your city

There are no if ands or buts about it, go out and find your people

Because your loneliness will surface when your environment changes, whether that’s your city, your workplace, even your gym, it’s inevitable

I remember when i first moved to Charlotte, I felt homesick from Orlando when I started my new gym membership

There’s a sense of loss and unfamiliarity that feels so isolating so please know that’s normal, but with time, effort, and conversations that will change

And what was once new and uncomfortable will become familiar and all encompassing 

Because here’s the thing, you’re in your twenties, you’re going to fall into periods of loneliness, you’re going to want to resort to everything you previously knew, you’re going to want everything to stay as it once was

But that’s not how life works, life is a continuous evolution

So please know that when your feelings of loneliness start to creep in, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go out and not hide away

Hiding away is the easy way out that won’t help you even in the slightest in the long run

Reframe from doom scrolling on social media and take action in your life and social calendar, give yourself the opportunity to meet people and find those connections

They don’t come easily, and they don’t come in every person you meet, but when you do find those people, everything changes

No one should feel all alone in life, in what they’re experiencing, or in how they’re existing

Because while you might not be for everyone, you can most definitely find the people you are for

Which I think is the perfect way to wrap up this episode, so if you liked what you heard, if you felt seen or heard or know someone who needs to hear this message then please pass this episode along, send it to a friend or post it on social media and tag me when you do

Otherwise this does conclude another episode of how to twenty-something and as always, I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode