Real Talk: Feeling Lonely
https://au.reachout.com/articles/real-talk-feeling-lonely

Jack: Hi, this is Jack from www.reachout.com. This podcast is all about loneliness. Everyone gets lonely from time to time, but it's not always easy to talk about. We took to the streets to hear from some young guys about the last time they felt alone and how they handled it.

Interviewer:  Have you ever felt alone?

Speaker 1: I definitely felt very alone. 
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. 
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. I think everyone can feel alone at certain times. 
Speaker 4: Ummm… yeah, not at the moment, but I have at some point.

Speaker 1: Ummm... when my girlfriend broke up with me. Ummm... she cheated on me and I guess I was pretty angry but at the same time really upset. I think I feel things more than my other mates. So, ummm... it was pretty, it was pretty tough. I didn't really know what to do. Ummm, at the same time I hated her and at the same, missed her, so I guess I felt really alone.

Speaker 2: I moved away from home, I was from the country, so I moved to Sydney. So that was really hard. 

Speaker 3: Not many people sort of understand what I had to sort of go through in terms of rehab and stuff like that in trying to get back to playing footy. So people can sort of be as supportive as they can, like say, “oh that's bad luck, hope you get better soon” and stuff like that, but it's a sort of a lonely … rehab’s, a lonely sort of place.

Speaker 4: I would say a great example of that was when I came back from overseas at the start of the year. Having to come back and deal with the harsh reality of uni and work and all those types of things and I think there was a period where I felt very out of place and I guess, alone. 

Interviewer: When you felt alone, what did you do about it?

Speaker 5: I went to a counselor and then a psychologist. That took a long time to admit that like it was probably getting too much, I guess. 

Speaker 1: My mom was probably the biggest support going through it, so relied a lot on her to sort of keep me on track. 

Speaker 4: At first, I just kind of involved myself in my study and then I started playing a lot of sport and that's how I broke down barriers between age groups because I felt like sports was a really good way. 

Speaker 2: Definitely struggled, but I felt really lucky, I had a good family support network, but sometimes it wasn't necessarily what I wanted, what I needed to reach out to. 

Speaker 3: Well initially, nothing, which if anything compounded it. But I think after, you know, a week or two of sort of keeping to myself and not doing much, I started to get back in touch with my friends and catching up and that sort of snowballs into settling back into normal life and you sort of realize that you've got your friends around you.

Speaker 6: Yeah, like a counselor sort of person. I was able to talk to them, ummm, about it, which was definitely helpful for me and to just not have to put it all on, you know, one of my friends. 

Speaker 5: But I needed to process a lot of this stuff for myself so I actually just kinda turned to the ocean. I would often go down the coast and spend a lot of time surfing. And that was a really great way for me to process things and yeah, work through my own thoughts. 

Speaker 7: Ummm, in that it was obviously something people understood and they'll go, oh yeah, you know, I've been through that or I understand that.

Speaker 1: Ummm, I had one mate, the guy I lived with at the time, but I didn't really go into much detail. I'd be like, “Hey man, like it really sucks”. I wouldn't even use the words I wanted to use. I'd use like pre planned words that would be seen as cool enough to talk about. I'd be like, “fuck, that sucks that she broke up with me. Like super devo.” And he'd be like, “yeah man. Like fuck it. Just like, just go get another chick.” But deep down I just wanted to sort of cry on his shoulder and rather than hear, there's plenty of fish at the sea. I kind of just wanted someone to hear me more than get words spoken to me.

Speaker 5: Like everyone has their own personal experience I think. But ultimately like, you know, everyone goes, everyone has struggles and it's not, it's not a weakness to go and talk to someone, talk to friends and talk to family and you know, that'll pass like everything, everything passes in the end. Like it's not, what's happening right now isn't going to happen, you know, you're not going to feel this way forever, no matter what it is. Even if it's, if you're really happy, it's not going to last forever. If you're really sad, it's not gonna last forever. So it's just like, just kind of dealing with that. And that's kind of probably the biggest thing that I've learned.

Jack: For info and advice on tough times and loneliness, head to www.reachout.com if things are getting pretty bad and you want to speak to a professional, give Lifeline a ring on 13 11 14.