My 50 shades of loneliness and why I'm not going to change a thing about it

Loneliness with writing this newsletter, mothering, marriage, and my phone. MY F*CKING PHONE. + discovering solitude and safety through my loneliness

emotional lonely cat.

We live in a lonely society.

I was one of those members of said society recently.

For nearly two years, my newsletter chugged along at a slower speed. Then one day after I hit publish on a particular one, I was flooded with more comments, emails, texts than I had ever received. From people I knew. From people I did not know. From people located around the world. I was blown away. It makes me cringe to admit but the whole ordeal made me feel pretty important. Who doesn’t want to feel like a big deal?! It felt fantastic.

The day it published, I was in a Legoland hotel room. The previous day my son and I spent the afternoon at the theme park, on a special trip, just me and him, a mother-son bonding. The morning of checkout, my son begged not to go get breakfast so he can bury his head in his newly purchased Lego set and complete it. I didn’t put up a fight because I thought it was the perfect opportunity for me to bury my head as well. So there I was, in bed, sandwiched between my 6-year-old and a mural of a Lego Wizard staring at me as I hunched over my laptop. I spent that morning reading people’s comments, digesting them, and responding back.

Don’t worry, I didn’t completely ignore my son because I fed him the breakfast of champions — a juice box and a cookie leftover from the previous night. We didn’t go outside, we literally barely moved our bodies, and we figuratively crawled into our parallel holes — his in little plastic pieces, mine in front of a blue light — until it was checkout time. While I was physically with my son, 1 foot away from him, we were alone, together. There was no bonding happening in room 73.

this wizard has seen some things. (photo cred: highlightsalongtheway.com)

If it wasn’t for the hotel’s rules to kick us out at checkout time, I don’t know how long we would have been stuck in our vortex. Thank god for that. Us trolls left our dungeon and became human again by enjoying a couple hours on rides and rollercoasters and went home.

But my zombieness didn’t end there. For weeks after, I was off in the digital realm, “connecting” with people and writers. I continued to gain more traction with each newsletter. I was running on a high. I spent more time on the app, more time interacting with other writers and readers, reading more, sharing more. I was stuck in the Substack algorithm. Chris Best, CEO of the company said: “We are not against algorithms […] as long as we can use them to serve the human ends that we care about. For readers, that means letting you decide what you read as the best version of yourself—helping you take back your mind.”

Excuse me, sir. This mind has been hijacked.

The only thing I wanted to do was ride the wave, enjoy the thrill of this new writing milestone. I had spent so much energy and effort on my newsletter over the past two years and it was getting the traction I had always dreamed of.

I was engulfed by the thrill of talking to people, many of them are fellow writers who get me! I kept telling myself this is DIFFERENT than the evils of Instagram and other traditional social media platforms. Those other online spaces are the culprits for why our young society is lonely, and depressed, and anxious, and failing. Not this one, right? Because we engage in more meaningful ways! This is good because it’s longform content, a far cry from the quick hits of shorts and reels and digital “snacks” with little meaning. Instead, on this writer platform, we speak to each other with great thought, deeper connection. etc. etc. etc. blah. blah.

Maybe there’s some truth to it.

But, based on my experience, as far as the addictiveness goes, it just turned out to be a different shade of lipstick on the pig.

It’s “connection” with the quotation marks. For the most part, I don’t know the people I interact with on this platform. So, in trying to deepen this weird online connection with folks I don’t actually know, I was detached from my own real life. From my kids, from my husband, from the many people I interact with daily. I kept wondering what notifications were waiting for me instead of wondering how my relationships with my kids and husband were working out for me.

step 1: pick up phone. again. step 2: open app and obsessively look at tiny bell notifications

It wasn’t good.

No. It was bad. It didn’t help I was already going through depressive turmoil on top of it. Writing seemed like the only thing that made me happy. Meanwhile, the disconnection from the people I cared about deepened the more I picked up my phone. I waited, yearned for another hit of online validation. I’d check my phone right when I woke up. Right before bed. And a hundred times in between. What number will I find on a little bell at the top of my screen? This number would tell me how many more comments, shares, likes — and somehow this equals my worth? That little number would tell me I was surrounded by people who validated my work.

In my real life, the tangible validation wasn’t the same. The hugs and cuddles with my kids weren’t the same. The kisses with my husband were different. Loneliness creeps in weird ways when you are physically around those you love but, emotionally, everything you do with them is slightly off. It’s like wearing a damp sweater. It’s not the greatest, it’s bearable but you’d rather take it off. Maybe the dry emotionally available and cozy sweater is stuck at the dry cleaners.

Weird analogies aside, the fact remains that I may have been “seen” by others through my newsletters but I was not seeing myself. I was certainly not seeing my family. My feeling of isolation started to really show itself. That damp sweater stunk of mildew.

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What goes up must come down.

My husband called me out, told me I was looking at my phone a lot. He said I was ignoring them. His reality check stuck around in the back of my head for awhile and I just kept chugging along as a half version of myself.

There were all these people around me — in the digital realm — yet I never felt lonelier. Then when my newsletter numbers started to slow, I was really faced with my loneliness. I slowly crawled out and saw the scraps I left behind in the life and family who needed me. And I needed them.

At this point, when the numbers slowed, I didn’t feel like a failure with my writing. But I sure as hell felt like a failure of a human being. I’m picking up the pieces. I’ve started new habits and hope they stick around for awhile.

But let me tell you something.

I don’t regret my bad moments. I don’t regret being a half human for a bit. It’s just what it was.

Maybe I had to feel lonely to bring myself back into the fold, to remind myself about the beautiful relationships I know in real life — none of them require any sort of notifications to remind me what’s important.

I learn best when I fuck up. I guess you can call me hard headed. Some would call me stubborn. After all, I am a classic Taurus, a bull with a purpose.

I realize more of who I am when I come up from the fog.

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Some of my loneliest moments were when I was in close proximity to people.

I was extremely lonely when I was a new mom, riddled with fear, exhaustion, and postpartum depression. I was always with my baby but I never felt more alone in that first year of motherhood.

I was lonely when I worked 50 hours a week from my home office talking to coworkers virtually for half of those hours.

When I was in deep depressive episodes in the past few years, all I wanted to do was lock myself away from my giant family and scroll on my phone.

Loneliness was the majority of my childhood even though I felt like I could never escape my domineering and angry father. As a kid, I spent a lot of time alone even though I didn’t want to. I spent many nights by myself in bed crying, tears from the corners of my eyes drip into my ears. It made me listen to myself and hear the glaring sounds of loneliness. Loneliness can be loud even though it is painfully silent.

Intellectually, I know that holing yourself up away from people when you’re feeling low is dangerous territory. Studies show that human connection is necessary to our mental wellness but, sometimes, physically being alone is also where I feel safe.

Each time I’ve drowned in loneliness, it served as a pendulum that needed to swing the other way. It’s when I reset.

My loneliness made me get help for my postpartum depression.

My loneliness made me quit a toxic job.

My loneliness makes me realize I have a very bad habit with my phone.

My childhood loneliness made me want to help others now that I’m an adult. We took in two teenagers, family members who needed safe homes. I wanted to provide them with a “normal” home, where they can feel surrounded by people who care for them.

I’m trying to get rid of shame and guilt for being human in today’s society. Yes, we have a loneliness problem and it’s ruining a lot of us. It’s sweeping entire generations, including mine. Our phones, instant access to media, and social media are screwing us up.

Maybe it’s because I’m a geriatric millennial who lived a good chunk of my childhood without social media and digital phones. When I look back, it’s as if the biggest storms have caused me steer the ship in the right direction. I’ve been able to pull myself out of my depths of loneliness. Those low points have shaped me and pulled me closer to human connection again.

It’s also helped me create boundaries for myself. For me, there’s safety in solitude. It’s when I feel home to myself. After high school, when I left my parents house, I was afraid to be alone. I didn’t want to ever feel lonely again. As I’ve grown older, as I’ve filled my life with loving family and friends, I find safety in solitude.

I also find trust in the fact that I will feel lonely again at some point, just another color in my 50 shades of loneliness. Life just works out that way. I will pull myself out of the hole, like trolls leaving the dungeon to become human again.