Ask a therapist > Depression > Why do I feel so lonely? Is it something I can prevent or do I need extra help?

Why do I feel so lonely? Is it something I can prevent or do I need extra help?

So I am a college student and I recently moved into my first apartment. It has been exciting and so much fun being independent. But I am 3 months in now, and I feel lonely. I typically only get really sad at night and really hard on myself.

More about myself, is that I transferred schools with a friend. We decided to live with her family and then her mom decided it wasn’t working out and basically kicked me out. That made me feel sad at first, but soon realized I am bette Dodd not living there. Her mom isn’t very nice after all. But before I transferred, I was on the soccer team at my last school and had many friends. But I also had an incident with a guy that still haunts me to this day. I tried therapy for it to seek closure and I didn’t follow through with my meetings. It be wine too hard for me to bear.
Taking you further back, to middle school me. I started dating this guy in my 8th grade class. After about a year of being together, freshman in high school, we started getting curious. I was set on saving myself for marriage, so I wanted to find any way around not having sex but to also make sure he would be satisfied too. I know that sounds extreme, but I found myself being out in horrible situations at such a young age. I was too scared and really too young to know better or say anything. I also tried watching pornography to make myself seem less gross for participating in these acts but it made my view of sex all wrong. Like it was OK to be used like a doll. So, that’s how I saw myself in the relationship. I finally gave in, and summer before we went to college, we had sex. From then all, that’s all the relationship consisted of….. for a long time I never saw myself as a victim because he was my boyfriend and I also allowed him to do these things to me. He also was young and didn’t know what he was doing, or did he? But I think the relationship I had with this guy caused me to have a wrong look at my self worth. The guy at college must have sensed my vulnerability and took advantage.
But my story does not stop there, the summer after the incident with the guy in college, I had another sexual encounter. I went to a party and I got super intoxicated. It was myself and 5 guys. I went to the party, not looking for sex but yes to drink and just take the edge off. Well that was the first time I had gotten drunk and so I decided to call it early and go to bed. A guy followed me in the room I planned to sleep in, my friend for years, and shut the door. I was of course out of it. I remember him asking me” do you want to” and I said “ I’m honestly drunk and tired “ and he kept insisting and making it seem like it’s not a big deal. That we could have something between us and I actually believed that. So I unenthusiasticly said yeah but I was just so drunk. I knew if I was sober I would have given a hard no. I also know he was drunk, but was he as drunk as me? He drank more often than me so his tolerance was higher. I also woke up in a different bed and torn shirt.

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Asked by Aly
Depression
Trauma
Loneliness
Answered
10/03/2021

Aly, Thank you for your question. I am glad you are here. 

 

First of all, the loneliness you are feeling after a move is completely normal. Moving and adjusting to a different space is stressful for everyone. Three months is not that long of a time to have adjusted to the new place. However, you should start to adjust as time goes on. For the feelings of being down at night, I will list a coping skill that you can use as you battle those feelings:

 

Peace Begins With Me

There is a quick practice that is involved with Kundalini yoga, which involves a breathing exercise that can be done quietly and anywhere that you are. This technique can help you stay centered when you’re feeling overwhelmed or out of control.


Press your thumb into your index finger, then your middle finger, followed by the ring finger, and lastly the pinkie finger.

Practice this a few times. Go slowly. After you get the hang of this, practice saying these words as you touch thumb to index finger- “Peace,” thumb to middle finger, “Begins,” thumb to ring finger, “With,” thumb to pinkie finger, “Me.”

Breathe deeply and fully as you practice this technique.

 

Another coping skill that you can use when dealing with feelings of loneliness and depression is cognitive restructuring. 

 

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive Restructuring is a process of identifying your negative and irrational thoughts. A negative or an irrational thought is called a cognitive distortion. EVERYONE has cognitive distortions; however, if you are a person who has a lot of cognitive distortions, it can contribute to developing a mental disorder such as depression or anxiety.   How can you identify and challenge these cognitive distortions?

 

Step 1: Understand how powerful cognitive distortions are in influencing your mood. For example, it's your birthday. Your friend does not call to wish you a happy birthday. Your thought is, "My friend doesn't care about me the way that I care about them; I called them on their birthday." Your thought makes you FEEL hurt. Your feeling of hurt turns into the behavior of avoiding your friend for the next month. The cognitive distortion of "My friend doesn't care about me the way that I care about them" yielded the chain

of events that led you to feel hurt and to behave by avoiding your friend.  Thoughts are POWERFUL; they start the chain of events to everything. 

 

Step 2: Increase your awareness of your thoughts.  Learn to identify your cognitive distortions. Look for negative emotions and try to pinpoint what thoughts started those feelings. 

 

Step 3: Keep a Thought Record/Thought Log. Break down your experience into a record. For example: The situation was ______________, My thoughts were ________________, My emotions were ________________, My behaviors were ___________________. An alternate thought could've been __________________________.

 

I hope the above tips help.

 

The second thing I wanted to address was the sexual trauma that you have endured throughout your life. It would be beneficial for you to work with a trauma-informed therapist to address these incidences that you describe. I am sorry that this happened to you. Trauma can mimic symptoms of anxiety and depression, among others. Trauma can also restructure the brain and the body essentially keeps score of the trauma. I encourage you to do some research on your own about the effects of trauma on mental health and on physical health. I'd like to discuss this with you further, if you are interested. 

 

I wish you well and trust you will have a wonderful week ahead.

 

Sara Lacaria, LPC
Better Help Therapist

(LPC)