by Paula A

Created on: January 31, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

Loneliness can be such an over whelming thing and isn't just when you are alone, sometimes you can be in a crowded room, office, classroom, at home or in a busy street and yet you still feel so alone, the rest of the world is carrying on without you!

It takes you to a place where it's difficult to come back from unless you can find a way to snap yourself out of it. Sometimes I have a conversation in my head which helps me but other times I seem to get so deep it makes no difference what I do.

I was rarely alone at home with sisters and brother around most of the time but I felt so alone so much of the time. It is like a depression which washes over you like a deep dark cloud and you feel as though the whole world is excluding you.

These days I can be in an office full of people and yet feel I am so isolated I could be on a desert island. It's as though there are a million conversations going on around me but I am not part of any of them. I can hear what is being said but it sounds as though it is coming from a long way off and I am shut away from everyone else and the voices are coming through a deep dark fog.

My sister used to say I was feeling sorry for myself when I mentioned it to her but it wasn't that, I just knew I was different. I feel myself getting sad and the tears pricking my eyes but there is no way back from this place I call loneliness.

I can't remember when I first felt this feeling of loneliness but I know it was after the abuse started and the first time mum found out what was happening to me. Up to that point I thought I could share anything with her but then things changed, I could no longer run to her and say what was on my mind, troubling me and making me so unhappy.

This was partly because I didn't want to see the hurt in on her face or see her cry. I knew she felt she couldn't do anything to help me but if I had only felt she understood, was on my side and didn't blame me. Whenever I cried myself to sleep all I could think was I really want my mum back, I want her to give me a cuddle and make it all ok. I wanted her to take us all and leave him so we could be safe again and mum wouldn't have to cry anymore.

Everytime he touched me I wondered how he could be so cruel, not only was he hurting me but also my mum as well, he was betraying us both by his actions but he didn't care he just carried on regardless.

The day I told her I no longer waned them in my life was the most difficult day of my life but also the best, finally I could say what I had felt for years and although it didn't take away the loneliness it did free me so I never had to pretend with them again.

These days when I get myself into that state I have to try really hard not to go back to the days when I really wanted my mum, I know she will never be there for again in the way she was when I was a child. We do speak again now from time to time but I won't see her because she still makes excuses for him and says he is a different person than he was back then but I don't believe her and I still live the loneliness of not sharing a normal family life, not having a cuddle with my mum when I am unhappy.

Learn more about this author, Paula A.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.