Loneliness can take you towards fear - 8 December 2009

Loneliness can lead to fear and develop in to an uncurable condition. 
Bharat Bhushan - 8 December 2009

There are unique points of time within our lives, when we move from one state of happening to the other. From being a school-going child to a junior college adolescent, and later as a young adult, to an undergraduate college. Much later, to a new job, or to postgraduate studies, and then again, to on-the-job training and thereafter to a longish career. At each moment of 'happening', one is saying goodbye to a set of friends, familiar situations, used-to time schedules and entering strange and new situations, new friends and unfamiliar bonds.



At this point of migration within our lives, we are alone. This could be for a short while, and it may not matter if there would be a couple of friends who would also migrate with you. If you are all alone, and the movement is from one geographical location to the other, even if within the same city, it can hit you hard. That moment of loneliness, if it stretches out, and there is no discussion or counseling within the house, and if you are a single child, that loneliness can lead to fear. This condition usually cannot be reverted unless recognised, and unless YOU want to be cured.

Each young adult has their own story. Some of it real, and some of it imagined, while dangerously, some of it as pure fiction within their minds. They have some assumptions about their friends, suspicions when a particular friend is more friendly with someone else, or if their parents fight over some issue, and they come to conclusions because of something that they have read, or seen on TV or discussed in social media. These assumptions become strong ideas, and later evolve as stories within their own right. From a tight school-time day schedule, the young adults are now in colleges and new workplaces and are able to organise or escape from their schedules. This leads to escapism within their own mind, and they never realise it.



And then, comes along a friend, or a book, or a twist in the story of a soap opera, and there is a sad and tragical situation that has happened. This has an easy impact on the mind of a young adult. Loneliness can easily create empty space within the mind. Not many of us realise it, but it is true that the mind operates in multiple channels. You are thinking of the day to come, when you are brushing your teeth, for example. When the lecturer in your college classroom is boring, you are thinking of the cricket match that is to come, and at the same moment, whispering to your friend, while staring at another handsome or beautiful classmate. So, you can do so many different actions at the same moment. This is true of our mind also.

Sad situations catalyse within the minds of young adults and make them imagine that the future holds terrible options for them. Their biggest fear is the break-up of the family, and along with that perspective, is the fear that their parents or elders could actually be correct when they point out their mistakes. Their friends do not do so, and they are usually in agreement with them. So, how could the parents or elders or teachers know better? There is one way to know that you are correct or you are wrong. If you are thinking it out within your head, all alone, and working out all the combinations and permutations, then you are usually very wrong. If you are discussing it out, or have written it in your diary and slept over it, or actually, if you have had an argument with your parents or elders, then you are mostly correct.

The young adult is totally confused about situations because of a chemical imbalance in their hormones as they are at that delicate stage in their lives. They have fallen in love, or have been infatuated, or been refused in love, or are confused about teensy weensy situations. "His hand touched mine, and he patted me on my back. Does he love me? Does he love me and nobody else?" Such doubts abound within the minds of the young adult. And when there are no answers, or, if there are disappointments, then the escape route is to create chaos within the house and within the family. This is the result of mythological situations within the mind that have developed into really familiar characters that are very friendly, because they occur within oneselves, or during sleep time.

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