I am lonelier in company than I ever was in actual solitude

Dear Delyara, At least solitude made sense. What hurts now is being surrounded by family, colleagues, parents at school, ordinary conversations, ordinary life, and still feeling untouched in the one place that most needs warmth. I can speak all day and still arrive at evening with that terrible sense that nobody really reached me. That kind of loneliness is hard to explain because it sounds ungrateful. But it is real. I am needed. I am included. I am spoken to. I am functional. None of those things are the same as being known in the living centre of yourself. That’s what I’m starved for — not noise, not people, not interaction, but emotional accuracy. I miss being met without having to build the whole bridge from scratch every time.