Summertime Blues: Feeling Lonely During the Sunny Days
My brother passed away in June just over 9 years ago. It was the weirdest thing to have summer unfolding around me while I felt no summery sunshine-y feelings whatsoever. Enter social media. It seemed like an endless scroll through folks living their best summer lives. Beaches. Rainforests. Mountains. And lots of other people surrounding them.
While were apparently surrounded by joy and love and others, I was going through an entirely different process. I was sullen, so hungry for human contact and yet feeling so separate from it. I was looking in on others and their apparently easy breezy, super social lives. I was different.
I write all of this to connect with you if you also feel strangely caught up in how different you feel from what's happening with others during a time of year where folks seem to expect us to be happy. To be free. To be adventurous.
Maybe you're going through a tough transition. A loss. An unknown something that keeps you from experiencing the joy that the sunny long days have brought you in the past. It may remind you of being isolated from peers as a kid during summer, or it can remind you of times when we felt carefree and connected to others.
If the loneliness and isolation is getting to you, remember that you're not the only one. Folks seem to think the winter holidays are the harder times--and for some they are!--but summertime can be difficult for its own special reasons.
Summer can also beg us to make comparisons, those that aren't in our own favor. In looking at others, we can feel we come up short. What if I don't have a crew of friends to grab beers at the beer garden? What if I don't know who to invite to a bike ride I'd like to take? What if I have no plans for the 4th of July? What if I wasn't invited on that camping trip? What if I don't take exotic trips halfway around the world? What if I find outdoor concerts overwhelming?
While I can't make and hard and fast suggestions, I do want to remind you of what a very human struggle you're going through. There is no timeline for sadness, depression, or anxiety. Despite what social media is trying to shove down your throat.
I ask that you be gentle to this part of you that has a hard time. To look kindly upon your struggles.
If you have any thoughts/feelings/musings about this blog, feel free to write me. I'd love to hear what's going on for you. If you're curious about what therapy with me might be like, we can also schedule a free phone consultation:
genoa.hamiel@gmail.com
(415) 697-9283