Have you ever felt alone even though you were surrounded by people, some who you even consider friends?

You can feel alone when you’re physically alone and feel alone when you’re surrounded by people, even your best friends. Being alone and feeling alone are both difficult realities.

However, let's not mistake loneliness for solitude. Sometimes someone may want to be alone and read a book or watch a movie, whatever it is they may want to do. They may desire to have their own time and space to prepare for human interaction with friends and family and other people they may come in contact with and strike up a conversation. Being in solitude and desiring it, is a choice, loneliness is feeling that takes over and is a situation that you find yourself in.

Loneliness is both a feeling and state of being, it is the feeling that you aren’t connecting with people around you and the state of physically being in the presence of no one but yourself and your swirling thoughts. Loneliness can be terrifying.

I find myself feeling lonely in both scenarios, many people do. Connecting with people can be difficult and it can be difficult to create close relationships and even if you do it doesn’t mean that automatically you won’t feel alone anymore. When this happens it is very easy to slip into dark thoughts and feel alone, like you have no one you can trust or depend on, like you have no one to turn to, even though in reality you may have many people to turn to and may be afraid to confide in them because you think they might think about you differently. It can be hard to open up to people and reveal your vulnerabilities because sometimes we interpret being vulnerable as being weak. It’s not.

Feeling alone or being alone is not a weakness, and sometimes it can be empowering but not always. You have to know you needs and make sure that they are met because if you’re not getting what you need, it can impact other aspects of your life in the long run.

Don’t fear being alone, embrace it, address it, and if you don’t want to be alone you don’t have to be. Confront why you feel this way and think about ways that you can solve the situation, if there is in fact a problem.