Lessons Learned in Solitude During This Socially-Distant Time

In the last eight months, I’ve had to come to terms with the reality I find myself in. Not only is a global pandemic causing face-to-face interaction to be sparse, but it happened at the worst possible time for me personally — on the wrong end of a myriad of terminated relationships — both romantic and friendship in nature. Because of that, I’ve had to spend the better part of the last eight months mostly alone.

Loneliness has been a prevalent issue during this time. There are two types of loneliness: the first being one brought on by physical isolation and a lack of relationships in the vicinity. The second, is described by Carl Jung:

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
- Carl Jung

Up to this point in my life, I have never experienced the first type of loneliness — the one that stems from physical isolation and a lack of relationships. I’ve always had people around me in community. But 2020 is the year that anything can happen, and this was surely on fate’s to-do list.

Throughout my childhood and teen years I spent my time getting involved in various activities in school from filmmaking, to theatre, to being on the varsity badminton team. I was always surrounded by a community and felt at ease in it.

I then moved to an entirely different country for university and made some good friends in my first year. A few but better than none, I thought.

Then tensions rose and I parted ways with several of those friends. I was left with only a few distant friendships in the vicinity — the majority of my friends being half-way across the globe.

Two weeks later, our university went online due to the uptick in infection rates across the country. I moved into an apartment and ended up living alone, after being kicked-out of on-campus housing.

It ended up being the perfect storm:

• I was living alone

• I was coming off of several failed relationships

• I ended a few notable friendships

• I was 8,000 miles away from home

• My two best friends were on two different continents

• I was in the country with the most active coronavirus transmission — resulting in online university for over nine months now

• I had a history of depression and anxiety

In the months of February to May, I made a few bold decisions to end relationships that I had developed in my first year of college. I knew that the people I surrounded myself with either did not bring out the best of me or the relationship itself had grown too toxic to continue further.

The cutoff list was extensive and come the end of May, I had cutoff ten friends from my life.

I now found myself in the middle of a stay-at-home order with little to no close-friends by my side that I could physically see. And other than the few distant friendships or mere acquaintances I know from my college, that has remained so even until now.

I do have very close-friends, but they are all in different countries, each going through their own chapter of life. The situation in every country is different, so it almost seems redundant to begin sympathizing with that. The majority of my friends are in my home-country — Thailand, where my family is as well.

And here I find myself, eight-thousand miles away in the United States––the country with undoubtedly the worse coronavirus response and highest active transmission in the world — knowing that many of my friends in the east are back to living a normal life without the virus. Online learning has been hard, but not harder than the physical isolation due to a lack of friendships in this country.

I made a bold choice to live alone and I’ve had to accept and take responsibility for the decision I made. While everyone is in quarantine with a roommate or two, I find myself all-alone. Making friends and forming relationships during this time is near-to-impossible.

However, I wasn’t going to let this defeat me. I always like to look the bright side and make meaning out of my experiences––it’s one of my greatest strengths.

So here are the four things I learned that gave me comfort in my solitude during the pandemic:

1. Those afraid of and uncomfortable with the idea of being alone are just afraid of themselves and addressing the wounds and pain they carry along with them.

Often times we believe we are scared of being alone. But underneath all of that we are just afraid to address things that need to be addressed — such as unresolved trauma, conflicts, self-confidence or intimacy issues.

For me I did not want to address my self-confidence issue or my issue with healthy attachments in relationships, so I just did everything I could to always surround myself with people.

During this time, that all came out into the open. There was no avoiding it or distractions available — I had to face it all. And facing it left me with a few strong realizations.

I found that being able to do things alone and independent of others was not a sign of weakness, but rather, a sign of resilience and self-love and appreciation. People don’t seem to be able to do things alone anymore. I found solo trips to be fun — whether it was a day trip to a large park outside the city or just walking down a few blocks to a lake.

I learned to get comfortable in my own skin — both figuratively and literally.

I realized that — due to the speed and intensity of life pre-pandemic — there was so much conflict and trauma that I had not dealt with, and simply repressed. This was the time to realize and come to terms with all that.

2. Constantly ruminating on what others think of you gets you nowhere.

How do I look? Is what I’m wearing okay? I’m the only one alone — what’s everyone thinking?

When I found myself alone with no one by my side, I felt scrutinized by everyone for being alone. Everyone was walking by with a few people by their side — but not me.

Whenever there was someone with me in the past, I didn’t feel pressure or judged, but when I was alone during this time, I felt judged and like there was a spotlight on me. There was even a week when I didn’t go outside when the sun was up —I went on night walks instead — for fear of being judged by others.

But I had to look back and ask myself what I gained from doing that?

Everyone was probably too worried about themselves and their own wounds to bat an eye as to what I was doing or how I was looking. I was judging myself harder than anyone else was.

“Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe
they should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use other people to abuse themselves as well.” 
― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

3. Stating your purpose and goal in the present moment reorients you and reminds you of what is truly important.

I had to constantly remind myself of why I was doing what I was doing.

Why was I in the United States? It wasn’t to form these amazing relationships — although that would be nice — it was to get my bachelor’s degree. I had to remind myself what was my number one priority and to focus my energy and time on that.

Forming relationships in either friendship or romance — albeit very important — was not at the top of the priority list of my purpose — but I was making it go to the top. Asking myself my purpose and goal allowed me to quickly correct the hierarchy of needs that I set forth for myself.

When things get tough, you need to remind yourself of WHY you are doing what you are doing. Then everything else just fades away, and you are only left with what is truly important.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

Almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
- Steve Jobs

4. Chasing shadows and calling out ghosts at rest is a blatant act of self-sabotage.

When you find yourself alone, there is not much you can do other than call out past memories that still haunt you.

I would’ve been doing so well for a week — with no depressive symptoms — and then one Friday night, I would just randomly call out a ghost from a past relationship and interact with it for an hour. I would mentally spiral, cry, and then head to bed. I would wake up the next day feeling horrible. But it didn’t have to happen that way. I didn’t have to call out the ghost that was dormant.

There is a difference between addressing problems and dealing with past trauma, and just blatantly self-sabotaging yourself when you’re having a good time. The former is done intentionally and controlled to be productive and is emotionally healthy.

Quarantining is hard — but quarantining alone is even harder. It’s something that takes a bit of practice but eventually it’s possible to get the hang of it. My hope at the end of all of this is that I can look back and say I used my time in quarantine to grow and become a better, more-mature person. And I think learning these tough lessons was a fundamental step towards that process.

Until the day we can all take off our masks.

Until the day when we can be in a big crowd celebrating life together again.

Until the day when we can hug each other again.

Until then, I will have to continue bearing this uncomfortable situation and work to turn it into a seed that will sprout the day I take off my mask for the last time.