Loneliness and North Yorkshire | Gransnet Local

Writing as North Yorkshire | Gransnet Local I urge you to spread the word about Gransnet Local and help us combat loneliness, it is not an overstatement to say that loneliness kills.

This excellent blog post Loneliness | Abetternhs's Blog depicts an all too frequent scenario at a doctor's surgery then details key facts about loneliness and isolation, giving many research sources.

Personally, I have experienced different types of loneliness at different stages of my life. As a very young child I often felt like a cuckoo in the nest, especially when mother appeared most often to side with my sister. One example occurred on my 4th birthday, I recall having my hands heavily bandaged having fallen while carrying a milk bottle full of water from the outside drain for a pretend picnic, drain water because mother refused to give me any juice from inside. Having those bandages removed was agony as they were left on so long they had to be soaked and then peeled away.

Back to the birthday party, mother had hidden lots of threads off multi-coloured wool around the garden, the winner of the game to be the child who found the most, which I did so big sister promptly accused me of having cheated by watching out of the window while the threads were spread around. Mother agreed straight away and gave big sis the prize. The feelings outrage, isolation and injustice I felt as I knew I had not cheated have probably never left me and that plus many other events where I was excluded or denigrated contributed to a later period of total estrangment from mother and sister. What a poor lonely drab thing I felt then.

Even deeper was the period following mother and fathers divorce which coincided with big sis leaving for university and breaking up with the boy I thought was my first love. Later during a violent marriage our bed was the loneliest place you could imagine. Then later in my thirties came chronic illness - probably the most physically isolating cause of loneliness for me (even though I met my partner during that period) but also the period during which I think I have grown the most personally partly through learning to live with the limitations of my illness and partly through coming to know many new people through the internet and getting back in touch with some old friends. For me the internet is a priceless lifeline.

Yes, I have been depressed to the point of being suicidal but that was before the internet took it's current form and I would hope that the online support I know receive and see others benefitting from might have helped stop me sinking to such despair. I truly did not know what was happening when I became so ill and now see others going through being diagnosed with M.E. and fibromyalgia and the grief and confusion that brings being helped through by support forums.

There are a few of the reasons that I hope Gransnet Local does come to fulfil it's mission of helping combat loneliness and isolation. Anyone is welcome to join and use the forums at Gransnet North Yorkshire so please drop by for a chat about anything from local issues to your experiences as a grandparent and anything inbetween.