I can be with my family and still feel alone

Dear Delyara, I don’t mean alone in a dramatic way. I mean that strange kind of loneliness where everyone is around me, everyone is talking, the television is on, dinner is happening, somebody is asking for ketchup, somebody else is telling me something about school, and still I feel like no one has really reached me all day. I think that is the kind of loneliness I struggle to explain. My life is not empty. It is actually too full most of the time. But a full life is not the same as a felt life. Some evenings I sit there at the table and answer everyone properly, and inside I can feel how far away I am from being truly met. By bedtime, that feeling is worse than if I had just been physically alone.