Thread: Lonely
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del677 Offline
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Join Date: December 28th 2016

Re: Lonely - May 14th 2017, 06:31 AM

I've been there! Surrounded by hundreds of people and so alone -- because I didn't know how to connect with any of them.

That made me anxious to be there, like I just wanted to hide, which was hard. I found one way to hide was to just keep walking. Walking made me invisible. Well, I didn't have to talk to anyone if I was busy going somewhere.

Anyway. Depression. Anxiety. Eventually needed medication for it.

I keep myself well now by going to support groups, see a counselor, engage in activities where I'll be with people. And, I studied topics that help me connect with other people and have conversations with them:

Body Language
Facial Expressions
Small Talk
Question Bank - have a few canned questions to ask people. Mine are: Time: past, present, future. "What did you do <today yesterday, last weekend>"
"What are you doing?"
"Do you have any plans for <this afternoon, this evening, tomorrow, this weekend?>"

Ice Breakers: "Hi, my name is <>. What's your name?"

Robot Phrases: "Hi, how are you?"
"Fine. How are you?"
"Fine."

that's an example of a script that people just go through for no apparent reason but it's expected. also an example of reciprocation, where you answer the question, and then reciprocate by asking the same back.

Took me a while to learn that but it soon became automatic once it was pointed out to me.

And the final topic which helped quite a lot in the long run was meditation. you can also do yoga, tai-chi, qi-gong, even golfing is somewhat focusing one's mind and relaxing. I suggest try the Headspace app. After a couple months anxiety decreases, making it easier to socialize.

I tend to get easily overwhelmed by too many people or too much stimulation, so I need some quiet time to unwind. I need balance. I'm still trying to figure out where to go to meet people, since loud places people usually go for that kind of thing just aren't for me, and quiet places like a library well people don't talk much.
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