Being alone with our thoughts can bring about peaceful moments in-between those moments where we feel isolated and alone. Solitude can be graceful and with the right tools, it’s something we can overcome.

As long as people enjoy and want to be in their own company, they’ll never have a problem with being alone. The problem many of us have is that we hate spending time by ourselves. Some of us don’t like our own company.

Learning to like who we are and liking our own company stems from childhood. If we don’t have the right tools as children, it will take longer to achieve that goal.

Society has a problem with people being on their own. We're almost social outcasts if we dine alone. People assume when we’re on our own, it's because we don’t have any friends, rather than we love our own company and don’t mind being on our own. There is a stigma attached to being on our own.

In my own case, growing up with physical problems made it easier for me to relate to myself. I would continually internalise my thoughts so never felt on my own.

Struggling to fit in around my physical problems, particularly in school, made it easier for me to associate with myself.  I would often welcome the solitude. I thrived on being alone. It has helped me overcome a lot.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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6 comments on “Feeling alone”

  1. I was a loner growing up. I didn't really have friends to hang out with because of my medical condition.

    I learned to entertain myself and now to this day enjoy being alone.

  2. I grew up feeling very alone since I basically grew up being treated as poor white trash and on top of that, I ended up having to wear glasses!

    I ended up retreating to an inner world where no one was welcome nor invited. I actually used to imagine a world with no people at all and I would have the whole world to myself. I've felt lonely all my life and since being a small child, I disconnected from the real world.

    Even now, I still feel cut off from the human race not knowing what it's like to be connected to others. There are times when being alone is really okay with me, but other times where I would really like to rejoin the human race.

    I'm just hoping and praying that there will be a day when I will feel worthy of it!

  3. I'm quite happy being alone.

    For me it's downtime from the stresses of every day life and I believe it's okay to enjoy ones own company.

    The problems arise when that person isn't happy being alone.

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