Amazing how lonely mental health problems are...

[HereSince1628]

3. Yes, it is, yet loneliness seems an equiterminal outcome of different processes.

Last edited Tue Dec 3, 2013, 07:44 AM - Edit history (3)

1) Mental illness, just like other illnesses, is something that is experienced at a very personal level. There is an inherent loneliness that is a component of all illness. The personal experience of it can never be fully shared even if that sharing is desired. That isn't so much pathological as it is the nature of individuality. It can be painful to know that no one 'gets it'.

2) The turning away from activities that facilitate friend making and socializing may be characteristic of some mental illness.

3) The inability to maintain relationships even though they are desired may also be characteristic of some mental illness (I have been assigned such a diagnosis).

4) Focusing on and magnifying intolerance of any attribute of life, including loneliness may be characteristic of some mental illness.

5) Loneliness may emerge from abandonment/isolation by others upon learning of your or my mental illness. That IS NOT a symptom of mental illness but rather the proper role of the emotion of loneliness, brought about by understanding the loss of others from your life. The others' behavior is likely a symptom of his/her/their acculturation into stigmatized beliefs/misunderstanding that lead them to the defensive behavior of shunning the mentally ill.

Sorting all this out into a relevant manageable bit might be a project objective for therapy.