Many of us spend a considerable amount of time in our homes. It’s a place where we should feel safe and secure, and more than that… happy! We are sad when any of you have the opposite experience at home… where instead of contentment your over-riding feeling is loneliness. We appreciate it might even be breaking your heart to know one of your beloved whānau is lonely at home, and you feel there is nothing you can do to change that.
The reality is that loneliness can creep up on you even when there are other family members living with you. You have our empathy if you are housebound with little choice but to stay indoors – like when you have an illness, a disability… or you’re the care taker of someone with little mobility… or a new mother with no transport, or a senior who no longer is able to drive. Others of you have choices to go out more, but struggling financially or emotionally prevents you from venturing out much. Even working from home can feel terribly isolating.
Humans are strong and resilient in so many ways… and yet we can also be so fragile! When we feel trapped at home we sometimes slump into loneliness, making our situation all the harder to deal with… especially without help. Sometimes even when our situation changes and we do get out more and be amongst more people, we still have thoughts which affect how we feel about ourselves, and how we interact with others… sometimes without realising, we further our own loneliness.
Whatever your circumstance, we just want you to know that you’re not alone feeling like this… sadly there are many people like you who find being at home very lonely. Our aim is to help get you to better understand yourself, others and the world you are in – to help you move from the very low loneliness you are in to a space where you feel more able to connect well with yourself and other people.
We have written some pages on some aspects of being at home and lonely, for you to possibly identify with or learn more from. We also appreciate that everyone’s situation is unique so if your cause of being at home and experiencing loneliness is not on one of these pages, or elsewhere in our “I’m feeling lonely” section of the website, we are still here for you.
So please look through these pages… and be in touch if you would like to consider further help from us, as an individual or as a group.
People feel lonely for many reasons. To learn more about at home and lonely categories, select one of the coloured boxes below, or scroll down the “I’m feeling lonely” menu.