A few weeks ago I went with Sadie’s parents to drop her off to college. I was honored to be invited to this rite of passage because I’ve been babysitting Sadie since she was 3. If you’ve been following my blog, then you know that Sadie is more than a niece to me. She’s the twin sister to my inner child Sophie. When she was younger she always wanted to pretend we were sisters. I was more than happy to be the age she picked for me, which was usually something like 16 while she was 7. Still a large age gap between sisters but in reality I’m older than her parents.
Because she is an empath, emotionally intelligent, and wise beyond her years, she worries about my mental health. She knows that I feel lonely when their family goes on vacation so she’ll often call me while they’re in France or Italy or wherever they are. I feel guilty that she can feel it and tries to make me feel better, but that is definitely one of the reasons why we are so similar, since I obviously do the same thing, being a therapist and all.
My dad got depressed when I went to college, and because I am also an empath, I got depressed, too, although I didn’t realize that was the reason at the time. In some ways, he never recovered. I was the first of 4, so the nest kept getting emptier and emptier year after year. My dad coped with his loneliness by living in a state of mania. Ironically, in the end this has resulted in him being completely cut off from the family. But in his fantasies he wins the lottery and he buys a hotel and we all leave our jobs and work at the hotel together, running the family business. Strange how our coping mechanisms for loneliness end up leaving us feeling even lonelier than we were before.
To make matters worse, I’ve been seeing someone for the past few months who often leaves me feeling lonely because he’s long distance and doesn’t need a lot of contact to feel connected. Or perhaps more accurately, he doesn’t want to feel lonely so he doesn’t let anyone get too close. I often wonder if this is some repetition of my own trauma to be with someone who makes me feel lonely. I talk to my therapist about it a lot, and she and I both think it’s me. I read a book about parentified children that captured my loneliness well. When you’ve had to be the one to tend to other people’s feelings and haven’t had someone care about your feelings, you always feel lonely, like you have to it all on your own.
I think there’s something about the immigrant experience that heightens the feeling of loneliness because you are so far away from your family and you don’t go back often. It leads to intergenerational trauma for the descendants of immigrants. Whether parents tell you or not, you carry the struggle with how to feel connected to a place with people who are different from you, who may not even accept you.
My dad’s first depression was when he came to the U.S. for residency in medicine. He wanted to go back to the Philippines but Marcos had declared martial law so going home wasn’t an option. I think he married quickly and had children as an antidote to his loneliness. In fact, my younger brother and I were both born while my parents were still in residency, which is pretty rare.
So far it hasn’t been too bad since Sadie left, thanks to cell phones. We’ve talked several times, we text. Also, because I’ve been practicing lovingkindness regularly and in my weekly meditation, I am constantly reminded that we are always connected, and that loneliness is an illusion. Just like my not feeling loved is an illusion. When I first started meditating, I could feel other people’s feelings more clearly–new clients, friends I hadn’t seen. Several months ago I made a deal with a client that we would practice lovingkindness as a way to heal our country, and since then I have felt other people’s feelings even more intensely. As a result, I started wondering about how a particular client was doing who I was no longer seeing. I reached out to her and found out that she was not doing well and was feeling lonely so we start meeting again. It is because of her that I started the lovingkindness group and have started blogging again. In fact, she gives me more homework than I give her. So although I reached out to her because I felt her loneliness, it turns out that she has helped me feel more connected, as well.
Lovingkindness is like a boomerang–it always comes back to you. So now when I’m feeling lonely, I send lovingkindness to the person I’m missing and ask them how they’re doing. Most of the time I feel connected again.
If you’d like to join the weekly meditation, send me an email at cbarongan@gmail.com and I’ll put you on the list. There’s no cost, no obligation to attend, or even to stay for the full meditation. I’ll also send a recording of the meditation for that week so that you can listen to it on your own time if you prefer. Hope to see you there. It truly is an antidote to loneliness.
Normal in Training 