Caspar Gylling

Loneliness and friendship

Most of my life I have been surrounded by people. It has always been easy for me to make new friends and I have always had plenty of friends. Some might even say that I was popular.  Nevertheless I have felt alone for the majority of my life.

Throughout my life I have never felt that I belonged anywhere, socially. I do not think I have ever felt accepted for the person who I really am. I’ve often felt that, if I was someone else, people would like me better and if they saw the real me, they would dislike me and leave. Therefore I have always tried to be what I thought people wanted me to be or expected me to be.

I have been personifying myself as anything from an academic, a pedagogue, a creative, a partyperson or even the funny guy. But none of these personas were ever really me. Maybe a part of me, but not the entirety of which is me.

Because of this I have lost count on who I really am. I still do not know who I am but I have a better sense of who ‘me’ is now. I have done a lot a soul searching in the last couple of years, starting from when I had my first child almost six years ago. Now I try my utmost to do only what I want to, and not what I think others expect of me. Not saying that I do that all the time, but I am doing my best to assemble the puzzle. A puzzle that I have been tearing apart for 20 years.

That does not mean that the past is the past and I am only looking forward now: My past hurts every day, and it is extremely hard letting go of it. Not being me, has done the opposite of what I was trying to do. I still feel lonely, like I did before. The major difference between now and then is that the friends I had gained trough the years, I have now lost. Good friends I had had for 10-15 years I never speak to anymore. There are many reasons why I have lost the friendship of each individual friend, but the most recurring reason is definitely my struggles with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and social anxiety. To be clear, I do not blame any of my previous friends for giving up on me. I completely understand! They, of course, just saw me pulling myself away from their company and starting saying no to events, etc. How should they know why I was pulling away, when I was such a good liar…? I just wish I had told them about my struggles. Maybe they could have helped me. Unfortunately the feeling of weakness and loss of control prevented me form doing so.

Even though my past is extremely painful, I now do my best to not repeat the mistakes of the past. I’ve never been more open than now and I do not feel weak or out of control anymore. Quite the opposite actually! Even telling how I feel about the above is a major accomplishment for me, because my mind still tells me that it is my fault and that I am a bad guy or friend, even though I know that is not true. Hopefully, being more ‘me’ can tear down that wall of loneliness one brick at a time.

Thank you for reading!

/ Caspar Gylling