Introduction
This is a follow-up to my earlier blog about using LDN. I wrote that piece from the middle of things, focused on the medication and what it changed in my nervous system. What I didn’t fully understand at the time was what had been happening underneath it all.
Only recently did I realize how lonely I had become. Not suddenly, but gradually. And not because I was alone, but because I was surrounded by people while losing access to myself. That loneliness didn’t announce itself. It grew quietly, year by year, until it became part of the background.
In this blog, I want to describe how that happened, what that loneliness actually felt like, and why it had such a deep impact on my mental health. Not in abstract terms, but as lived experience. If you’ve ever felt more alone in company than in solitude, you might recognize something here.
I never felt lonely when I was alone
I never felt lonely when I was alone. I felt lonely when I was with others.
When I was by myself, there was at least no pressure. No need to keep up. No need to respond quickly or say the right thing. I could lie down, stare at the ceiling, sit quietly, or let my thoughts go wherever they went. That didn’t feel good, but it felt honest. I wasn’t pretending to be present when I wasn’t.
The loneliness started when other people were around. That’s when I felt myself slip away. My body would tense up. My head would start racing. I felt numb and anxious at the same time. I was trying to understand what was happening inside me while also trying to follow conversations, timing, reactions, tone. I felt disconnected from what I was saying and from how I was being seen. I was physically there, but internally already on the outside.
After a while, you stop explaining. Not because you don’t want to be honest, but because explaining costs too much and rarely lands. People respond from what they know, from what they think is happening, from what they believe should help. And that often has very little to do with what you’re actually experiencing. You keep sitting there, nodding, listening, while feeling more and more invisible.
A normal morning and a familiar realization
This morning I was making coffee, doing something ordinary, and that familiar realization came back sharply. I had been rereading my earlier blog about LDN and noticed that people are still reading it, still responding. That surprised me. I had already moved on mentally, back into work, daily life, and managing what needs to be managed.
What hit me wasn’t the medication anymore. It was the loneliness underneath it. The kind that sits quietly in the background while you’re doing normal things, until you suddenly realize how long you’ve been carrying it on your own, because no one really knows where you are.
When multiple forms of loss pile up, you don’t experience them separately. You experience them as isolation. As the growing distance between what you’re carrying and what others can see. That’s a very specific kind of loneliness. One that doesn’t come from being alone, but from realizing that you’re no longer fully met.
What it actually means when your inner world disappears
When the illness was at its worst, I didn’t just feel unwell. I felt cut off, from myself. I would start a thought and lose it halfway through. Someone would ask me something simple and I would freeze, knowing I should answer but not being able to find the words in time.
That creates a particular kind of loneliness. You’re sitting with others, hearing their voices, but you’re no longer fully participating in the same reality. You miss parts of conversations. You forget what’s been said. You respond too late. You stop jumping in because you don’t trust yourself to land where you intend to. Slowly, you pull back. Not because you want to be alone, but because staying connected feels unsafe.
Sometimes I felt panic without knowing why. Other times I felt flat and disconnected. I remember realizing, mid-conversation, that I hadn’t followed what was being said for several minutes, even though I had been listening the whole time. In those moments, the loneliness is immediate. You’re right there, but unreachable. And you can’t explain it without losing the thread again.
That’s what losing your inner world does. It isolates you from the inside out.
Why being with people made it harder
Being around people didn’t calm me. It intensified everything. Conversations moved quickly. Reactions were expected instantly. Laughter came easily for others. For me, every response required effort.
I was constantly monitoring myself. Did I miss something? Am I reacting too slowly? Do I look strange if I don’t say anything? That constant self-checking is exhausting. You’re not relaxing into company. You’re managing it. And the more you manage, the further away you feel from yourself.
That’s where the loneliness lived. Not in silence, but in effort.
The pressure you don’t see from the outside
From the outside, it might look like something small. A dinner party. Friends. A normal evening. Nothing overwhelming on paper.
From the inside, it’s one of the hardest situations. I want to be with people I care about, but the moment there are more than one or two people, something shifts. Conversations overlap. New faces appear. Someone sits next to you and starts talking. Who are you? How are you? What do you do? I’m holding a glass of wine, nodding, trying to follow, but my brain can’t process it. Words come in, but they don’t land. I can’t connect them, can’t respond naturally. And the pressure builds, because everyone expects you to act normal.
When you’ve lost access to yourself, acting normal isn’t something you can switch on. It’s work. Constant work. And the loneliness comes from realizing that no one in that room can feel how much effort it takes just to stay seated at the table.
I remember being at a dinner like that not long ago. At some point, I looked outside through the back of the house. Woods. Grasslands. Quiet. And I saw deer running past.
I didn’t hesitate. I stood up, walked outside and followed the deer with my camera. That was my escape. Not because I didn’t like the people, but because I needed something that didn’t ask anything of me. Nature doesn’t expect you to explain yourself. Animals don’t need you to keep up. Outside, I could breathe again.
That’s how pressure works in situations like this. It’s not someone telling you to stay. It’s the expectation that you should be able to. And when you can’t, you find your way out quietly, hoping no one takes it personally.
When suicidal ideation took over
There were plenty of moments when I genuinely thought: I don’t want to live anymore. And those thoughts live there constantly. It filled my entire mental space.
The last time suicidal ideation was getting to me big time was not too long ago. I was working outside. The sun was shining. Everything around me looked calm and beautiful. From the outside, it probably looked like a perfect situation.
Inside, I couldn’t stop crying. I was working through the tears. Literally. And all I could think, over and over again, was: I need to end this. I didn’t want to feel that thought. I didn’t want my mind to keep going there. I was fighting it constantly, and that fight was exhausting.
That’s what suicidal ideation looked like for me. Not darkness everywhere. Not chaos. Just a relentless thought that wouldn’t let go, even when everything around me suggested I should be fine.
Why one moment of being seen isn’t enough
That moment where someone listened mattered. It mattered because that day I wasn’t just holding everything together on the inside anymore. It came out.
I was crying nonstop while still trying to function. I remember looking straight ahead and thinking only one thing: I need to end this. Not with drama attached. Just a clear conclusion in my head.
That day, a friend sat down with me and listened. I didn’t filter myself. I didn’t manage the story. I just poured it out. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t try to fix it. He stayed. Later, he took me out for dinner. That mattered. It created a pause. For a short while, I felt seen instead of managed.
But here’s the part that’s easy to misunderstand. After all that crying, something did release. The suicidal ideation eased for a while. I was exhausted. Empty. That lasted for hours. But nothing was solved.
The next day, it was business as usual. Not because people didn’t care, but because they thought this had been a one-time thing. Now he should be okay again.
People sensed something was wrong, but they couldn’t really touch it. And I don’t blame them. They don’t live inside my head. They don’t wake up with a debilitating brain fog. And besides, people have their own stuff to deal with, and lives to live. I get it.
And all the while, the suffering continues. With no clear way out. No one knew how to help me. And at that point, I didn’t know how to help myself either.
That’s loneliness.
Why I understand Eeyore now
I’ve always had a soft spot for Eeyore. I never really questioned why. Now I understand it.
Eeyore doesn’t demand attention. He doesn’t dramatize his sadness. He shows up as he is. Quiet. Slower. Carrying something heavy that doesn’t magically lift. And the world around him often keeps moving, hoping he’ll catch up.
That’s what this kind of loneliness feels like. You’re still there. Still present. Still listening. But you’re carrying something that doesn’t resolve just because others are uncomfortable sitting with it. You don’t need fixing. You need space to exist as you are, consistently.
For a long time, I was Eeyore. Not depressed in the way people expect. Just quietly burdened, and increasingly alone in it.
What loneliness actually felt like
Loneliness didn’t feel like being alone. It felt like carrying something heavy while pretending you weren’t. It felt like explaining less and less because explanations were met with advice, reassurance, or silence.
It felt like noticing that people were more comfortable when I seemed lighter, quicker, closer to who I used to be. When I wasn’t, the space shifted. No one said anything wrong. But you feel it.
That’s when you start shrinking your world. You talk less. You share less. You listen more. You stay engaged with other people’s lives while your own experience slowly disappears. That’s not strength. That’s loneliness.
Why labels never explained what was happening
Depression. Anxiety. Suicidal ideation. These words get used a lot. They’re not wrong. But they never told the whole story.
For me, they were outcomes. The deeper issue was living too long in a reality that didn’t match how I was expected to function. Losing yourself while still being asked to participate, respond, and cope as if nothing fundamental had changed.
Loneliness wasn’t a side effect. It was the environment everything else grew in.
What LDN changed, and what it didn’t
LDN didn’t fix my circumstances. It didn’t give me my old life back. What it did was stabilize my nervous system enough to stop constantly fighting myself.
With that stability came clarity. I could finally see that the deepest damage wasn’t caused by weakness or lack of resilience. It came from being unseen for too long while disappearing from the inside.
LDN didn’t solve the loneliness. It made it visible.
If this confronts you, don’t look away
If this makes you uncomfortable, sit with that. This is what many people with chronic or post-viral illness carry quietly while still showing up.
If you feel lonely while surrounded by people, you’re not broken.
If being alone feels safer than being social, there’s a reason.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’re withdrawing.
It’s that there is nowhere for you to fully exist.
Cheers,
Arjan ❤️
If this piece brings something up for you, please don’t sit with it alone. Loneliness loses some of its power when it’s shared, even imperfectly. Reach out to someone you trust, or to a professional who knows how to listen without fixing. You deserve to be met where you are.
arjan eikelenboom 