Let’s Talk About…..Alone

Alone. It’s a strange word that can mean a few things (see definitions above). But I want to focus on being alone, the feeling of being alone.

Being “alone” can be a choice. A need to clear your mind, a need to escape, a need for no distractions. You can be alone as in single relationship-wise. You can be alone in your working day. But theses are really being on your own, people are saying you’re alone because they don’t like it. How many times have you watched something on TV or at the cinema, and the person who chose to be on their own is made out to be in the wrong/better off with someone else…. “I work alone” or “I just want to work on me”. They all end the same way.

I’m in my late 30s, and I’ve never really been on my own. I grew up in a family of 4; moved out at 19 with my then boyfriend/future ex-husband; separated from and moved back to my parents with two children; moved in with my then boyfriend/future husband and children. Apparently that can make me less of a person. Maybe, maybe not. But I have certainly been alone in those times. Sometimes too alone.

During my first marriage there were often times I felt alone, even when raising toddlers who never leave you alone! The way I perceived things in that marriage; how it felt that I was a mother only, how I felt that I was not allowed to do anything on my own as a woman (if I wanted to see friends, had to take the kids too); if I wanted to go to class, had to drop kids off at parents (even if he was at home); tried to be talked out of becoming community councillor – and he didn’t vote for me!); how I felt trapped because it became apparent that I didn’t love him and I was there a sense of duty to my evangelical upbringing. Once I felt so alone I thought about slitting my wrist as I washed the big knife – a hug around the legs and a little just-learned-to-talk voice said “love mama” stopped that right in its tracks.

When the children and I had moved into my parents, it was a house of 5. Always busy. Grandparents loving the extra bond gained with their grandchildren. Respite for me to deal with a divorce (and some harassment from that) and complete my degree, and look for work, and be a single person, a single parent. I wasn’t on my own, but there were many a time I felt alone. In the middle of the night, sometimes I’d miss the intimacy, the cuddle. I never missed the man who used to give that to me, but the act. That made me aware of the aloneness that occurs with being a single parent. It could often be part rectified by the hugs of small people – and let’s face it, hugs from your children can never be matched, but they are most definitely NOT the same thing!

At the same time as leaving my husband, deconstruction started in my faith. Some had questioned the validity of my marriage because he was agnostic, and divorcing him made it worse. People would give side glances, or do chitchat in the hopes to gossip, or just point blank avoid. It hurt. It hurt more than the demise of my marriage (I think my heart had left that a lot sooner than my head did). These were people I’d grown up with. Some I’d known since I was 4! I felt very alone then. I remember once when my dad made me feel alone, although I know it wasn’t aimed at me in anyway… there was a news report on BBC about adoption, and my dad said a throwaway comment that only married couples should be able to adopt. I questioned him on loving co-habiting couples, and he stuck to his statement. Which resulted in me asking about single parents, which you could see he was against (he’s a Conservative voter, he believes the BS on socialism and social security) but suddenly realised that his eldest daughter, although living with them, was a single parent. I felt alone in that moment. I felt unworthy to be a mother, to be a child of God, to be their child. And, like I said. I know it was never his intention to make me feel like that; but his antiquated belief system made me feel like that. And if it made his own flesh and blood feel that way, how would it make others in my situation?

The deconstruction of my faith carried on. I still believe in God, but many of the things I believed true even just 15 years ago are no longer believed. But that’s a whole other blog post! I moved from my evangelical home of 16 years to the Salvation Army. I still didn’t feel at home, but the judgement I felt was now gone. It was also within walking distance from my parents house, and the kids liked going too. That process has been a long term thing. It’s still going – I didn’t think 10 years later I’d still be affected by some of those things, but I am. I don’t feel alone any more though, I found an amazing group of people on Facebook that help.

I went to Nepal. It was a charity trek around the Annapurna region. I was on my own, as in no one I knew went with me; but there was a small group of Nepalese staff and three other “foreigners”. I had wanted to do something like that since I was younger, but had kept it to myself (like wanting to join the Navy, but feeling I wouldn’t be allowed). My ex-husband hadn’t really been one for travel. Or saving. So I thought it would always just be a dream. But I managed to go, and make sure the children were with their father for 14 of the 17 days I’d be away (he then changed his mind, and my mother stepped up with not minding having them for longer than the three days – and this happened about 3 months before I was going, and it’d been planned for over a year!) I travelled from my hometown to Heathrow on the National Express coach – on my own. Sat around Heathrow for about 4 hours – on my own. Flew to New Delhi – on my own. Flew to Kathmandu (where we couldn’t land and ended up back in New Delhi) – on my own. Settled in to a 15 hour delay until next flight – on my own. But then got talking to others who were on the same delayed flight – no longer on my own. I was on my own, but never felt alone. At no time walking round that amazing scenery for 11 days did I feel lonely. I missed my children like crazy, but I knew they were at home waiting for me. I wasn’t alone. I was in the midst of new smells, new sights, new clarity. But I was never in a place that was dark, was depressing, was lonesome.

My single parent days lasted 801 days. Sometimes it felt loooong, sometimes it felt like a blink of an eye. In that time I discovered who was there for me and who was not. I learnt skills through my degree, through parenting school aged children, through doing things that I wanted to because I just wanted too. After 17 months, I entered the (online) dating world. Sometimes I felt very alone doing that. No one I knew was in the same situation; they were either married or single without children or the responsibilities that come with parenting. There were times when I was getting a few messages and felt very alone because they weren’t interested in a relationship, they were interested in one thing only. And it can feel very lonely thinking you’re the only one who wants to find someone to commit too.

A month before the 801 days were over, I was on my way to Nepal and got chatting with some guy who was also waiting for the delayed flight to Kathmandu. He was yum. So yum. But I was a 30 year kid ld university student who was a divorced, single parent of two under 7. Who would want that? As it turns out, Mr Yum. It took a few messages to each other while still in Nepal (my trip lasted longer than his), and more messaging upon returning home – and bam! he became my Mr Yum. And FYI…he’s still yum! There were times I felt alone during the early days of our relationship. We lived 379 miles apart. Wanting someone so bad, their touch, their smell, their taste – the loneliness aches. But in that loneliness there is hope, because it won’t last. It didn’t last. I was lucky.

Have I felt alone in my marriage? Yes and no. Yes, in a way that I feel alone in my politics, my beliefs, in what I stand for. But it’s not always, and it’s not really alone as we come together to make things work. And no, as in I’ve never felt a lonely void so big I’ve had to contemplate leaving my marriage, my life.

One of my children suffers mental health differences. They were diagnosed ODD, but they are wondering if it’s a misdiagnosis (from being the primary carer and the one that fought for them longer than anyone else; I believe they got it right) I felt alone a lot of the time in fighting for their well-being. And if I felt alone, goodness knows how they felt – although I hope they didn’t feel alone, and realised I was always there, always fighting for them, always standing with them. When we were laughed out of the GP’s office, made to feel inadequate because “it was just a delayed developmental phase” – though the school stood with me and got the referral that was needed. Then there was the Incredible Years course I was advised to do where, although some good advice given, I felt we were basically all told it was our parenting skills that made our ‘behaviourally-challenged’ children that way… bullshit! That was a lonely place to be, even though I knew at least one other parent that felt the same way as me. Then there was fighting for a diagnosis, with one parent claiming that there wasn’t anything wrong because what I described never happened with them (that was 4 weeks a year at their house, once a month, most but not every month in a hotel in the town we lived in – and that was always holiday mode, without chores/responsibilities/schooling). And although I had hubs#2 on my side, in parental responsibility land, I was alone.

I’ve also felt alone in a way that many can feel alone. We lived in a new place, that we had visited a few times before moving; and I was part of a loving relationship, part of a family; but as the children were making bonds with school friends, and hubs#2 continued with his working life with his work colleagues, I would often be alone. I would walk along the beach, walk into town. But with no one I knew, initially I was alone. Thankfully it didn’t take too long to make friends. Then we had to move to a new area because of hubs#2s work; and that was lonely as none of us wanted to leave Jersey. I met people through work, some of which attended my wedding, but being in a place you do not want to live, no matter the joys that can happen during that time (a therapist for my son, children doing wholesome after school activities, schooling going relatively well overall, an engagement/wedding, becoming a dog family, etc), I still felt alone as it was somewhere I truly did not want to be. As it turned out, the children felt the same, with not wanting to be there, but hubs#2 did not feel the same. Sometimes I’ve felt alone in caring for my mother-in-law after we moved to be closer to her. I know this hasn’t been the intention of hubs#2, but nevertheless, it has been how I have felt on occasion. Just like I have felt alone after I was told that the diagnosis for my son could be wrong. The faces of the professionals when I said how that couldn’t be right, was like they hadn’t listened for four years of treating him. That was a lonely moment, until hubs#2 agreed with me.

It is often said that you can be alone surrounded by people. And I understand that. I have felt that, I have lived that. There are people out there ready to help. Please, please seek them out. Don’t think the only way to escape the loneliness is to end it all. I am so glad I didn’t follow through with that small, one-time thought 14 years ago. I may have been free from the pain that loneliness can bring, but how would child#1 have felt from the loneliness of not having their mother; the pain it would have brought my parents loosing their eldest child, the knock-on affect of the unknown loss it would be to all those I’ve met in the past 14 years and those I’ve yet to meet?