THE LATEST available figures on people who are experiencing loneliness in Australia puts the total at about 16% of the population.
One recent study this year shows that one in three have experienced severe loneliness at some stage.
Songwriters have for many years have penned songs depicting loneliness. Even as early as 1949, Hank Williams wrote of a night when time crawled by to the whine of a midnight train. (“I’m so lonesome I could cry”).
This song was inspired by his tumultuous relationship with his first wife.
Even Elvis Presley was crooning a popular song, remembered by many even today, Are You Lonesome Tonight.
Loneliness has been around for many years, and it seems like a human condition that we can’t seem to shake.
In many towns across Australia, there are those who are lonely, hungry and desperate for conditions to change. Some are at fault for the situation they’re in, but many are not, with circumstances dictating their current situation.
Loneliness does not discriminate. People of all genders and ages experience it, both wealthy and poor.
It leads to poor health outcomes, with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare considering loneliness as a “subjective unpleasant or a distressing feeling of a lack of connection to other people”.
Those bad Covid years seemed to exacerbate the situation that many were in, while many believe that government edicts made matters worse. The cost may never be known.
But how can we overcome loneliness in tough times?
Many young Australians experience feelings of loneliness and isolation. Many older folk wonder social media is to blame, or chat rooms, or the general lack of person-to-person contact that has alienated this group from their peers.
Loneliness is described as that negative feeling that arises when our social needs are not met by the quality and quantity of our current social relationships.
It can often be the result of life changes, living alone, changes to your living arrangements, having financial problems or the death of a loved one.
All these things can have a bearing on one’s view of the world at that point in time.
So how do you cope with it – some can’t, and see only one way to end their misery and this course of action can be unexpected and devastating for those family members and friends left behind who were not aware of the person’s plight
It’s often remarked that loneliness and social isolation can bring on health risks like obesity, depression, weight loss, anxiety and depression.
Many may not be aware of some problems which can have a huge negative effect on newly single people.
Many couples may cease visiting, now that there is only one person to talk to, fearing that conversations could be strained.
There is ongoing discussion where the matters of older folk are being addressed, for example discrimination of those “oldies” in the workforce who are looked down upon by those who are younger.
Yet, as we know, the stored knowledge of these older folk is so valuable to society that it should only be ignored at others’ peril.
On the other hand, it seems that some older people are using that extra time to mix with other folk socially, by going out, seeing plays, helping organisations to help others, playing games and mixing in with sporting activities.
For instance; weekly activities can include card games, where not only cards are played, but conversations are had about many different topics.
At a recent card game, somehow, conversation got around to toilet paper and how this had changed over the past 80 years.
How that lovely soft “toilet tissue” had gone the way of so many other goods that we buy. Sizes reduced, paper so thin that 3 ply looks like 1 ply. But so soft that it is just “tearable” to use efficiently.
But it just shows how conversations can progress. Those poor souls that literally carried the can for us all back in the day, once a week, replacing the old can with a new shiny bright black one.
If you are lonely, reach out, there is help and comfort out there, don’t be alone, play cards. You never know what might happen, if you don’t try.
