9781422287682



Loneliness

CAUSES & EFFECTS OF EMOTIONS

Embarrassment, Shame, and Guilt Happiness Fear and Anxiety Romantic Attraction Anger Optimism and Self-Confidence Stress and Tension Sadness Empathy and Compassion Envy and Jealousy Surprise and Flexibility Emotional Self-Awareness Loneliness

CAUSES & EFFECTS OF EMOTIONS

Loneliness

Z.B. Hill

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D

Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2015 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National High- lights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3067-1 ISBN: 978-1-4222-3075-6 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8768-2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcopy format(s) as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hill, Z. B. Loneliness / Z.B. Hill.

pages cm. — (Causes & effects of emotions) Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4222-3075-6 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4222-3067-1 (series) 1. Loneliness—Juvenile literature. 2. Loneliness in adolescence—Juvenile literature. 3. Emotions—Juvenile literature. 4. Emotions in adolescence— Juvenile literature. I. Title. BF724.3.L64H56 2014 155.9’2—dc23 2014005510

CONTENTS

Introduction

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1. What Is Loneliness? 2. Loneliness Research

21 37 47 60 62 63

3. How Does Loneliness Affect Life?

4. Loneliness and You

Find Out More

Series Glossary of Key Terms

Index

About the Author & Consultant and Picture Credits

64

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INTRODUCTION The journey of self-discovery for young adults can be a passage that includes times of introspection as well joyful experiences. It can also be a complicated route filled with confusing road signs and hazards along the way. The choices teens make will have lifelong impacts. From early romantic relationships to complex feelings of anxiousness, loneliness, and compassion, this series of books is designed specifically for young adults, tackling many of the challenges facing them as they navigate the social and emotional world around and within them. Each chapter explores the social emotional pitfalls and triumphs of young adults, using stories in which readers will see themselves reflected. Adolescents encounter compound issues today in home, school, and community. Many young adults may feel ill equipped to iden- tify and manage the broad range of emotions they experience as their minds and bodies change and grow. They face many adult problems without the knowledge and tools needed to find satis- factory solutions. Where do they fit in? Why are they afraid? Do others feel as lonely and lost as they do? How do they handle the emotions that can engulf them when a friend betrays them or they fail to make the grade? These are all important questions that young adults may face. Young adults need guidance to pilot their way through changing feelings that are influenced by peers, fam- ily relationships, and an ever-changing world. They need to know that they share common strengths and pressures with their peers. Realizing they are not alone with their questions can help them develop important attributes of resilience and hope. The books in this series skillfully capture young people’s ev- eryday, real-life emotional journeys and provides practical and meaningful information that can offer hope to all who read them.

It covers topics that teens may be hesitant to discuss with others, giving them a context for their own feelings and relationships. It is an essential tool to help young adults understand themselves and their place in the world around them—and a valuable asset for teachers and counselors working to help young people become healthy, confident, and compassionate members of our society. Cindy Croft, M.A.Ed Director of the Center for Inclusive Child Care at Concordia University

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psychologists: Experts who study the mind and emotions. evolutionary: Having to do with the process by which organ- isms slowly develop and change over many generations. species: A certain type of organism that is capable of breed- ing offspring of the same type with each other. genetic: Having to do with the DNA passed from parent to offspring, and the characteristics that result from it. neurologists: Doctors and scientists who study the brain and nervous system. Words to Understand

ONE

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W hat I s L oneliness ?

L isa sat on the sofa, staring into space. Her parents and sister were talking to each other in the same room, but their voices flowed around her without her really hearing. All her closest friends were away on a school trip, and there was nothing to do and no one to talk to. She had tried texting her friend Rick to see if he wanted to get together, but he hadn’t answered. Lisa was feeling lonely and bored. Across the street, elderly Mrs. Holman sat all alone at her kitchen table. Her husband had died the year before, and her three children lived on the other side of the country. Over the past few years, one by one, all her friends had either died or moved away. Mrs. Holman was lonely and sad. Meanwhile, in the house next door, little Jack Diggins was crying in his crib. His parents had gone to see a movie, and the

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LONEL INESS

Many older people struggle with loneliness. Their emotions may be hard to identify with—but their loneliness is not so different from yours!

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Make Connections • Experts say that people feel only six main emotions— happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, and an- ger—and that all the other emotions we experience are some sort of combination or variation of these.

What I s Lone l i nes s?

• There are more than 600 words in the English language used to describe emotions. We use these words to give labels to differ- ent “shades” of the six main emotions. Because we have different words for all these shades of feeling, we can talk about many kinds of emotions. • We use 42 muscles in our faces to express emotions. We have learned to recognized others’ emotions, based on the expressions on their faces.

babysitter had the television turned up so loud she couldn’t hear his cries. Jack was feeling lonely and scared. And on the other side of town, Lisa’s friend Rick was walking down the street surrounded by a group of friends. Their voices were loud, and everyone was laughing—but Rick was thinking about his girlfriend Tracy. Tracy was an exchange student to Germany this semester, and Rick missed her. No one else really seemed to get him the way Tracy did. He had tried to tell his friends about a new band he had just heard, but they hadn’t understood why he was so excited. So even though he was in the middle of a group of friends, Rick was feeling lonely and misunderstood. FEELING ALONE Everyone feels lonely sometimes. Sometimes the feeling comes from being truly alone, but it has more to do with feeling alone, unconnected to other human beings. You could be all alone in

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LONEL INESS

Sometimes you can be in the middle of a crowd and still feel lonely.

the middle of nature, and yet feel perfectly happy because you feel connected and close to the people you love—or you could be walking down a city street, surrounded by a crowd, and feel desperately lonely because no one in the crowd even knows your name. Like Rick, you could be with a group of friends and feel lonely, because no one understands you. You could be with your family, like Lisa, and feel lonely because you want to be with someone your own age. Experts have found that loneliness can’t necessarily be pre- dicted based on how things look on the outside. Lonely people aren’t necessarily “loners.” Even though a lonely person might have many relationships, they aren’t meaningful connections that meet her emotional needs. She could be surrounded by friends and family; she could be attractive and popular. And yet inside, she may feel as though she’s not truly connected to anyone. Lone- liness is more of an inside emotion than an outside reality! Many times, loneliness is mixed up with other emotions. It can go hand-in-hand with boredom, as it did for Lisa, or it can go along with sadness, like it did for Mrs. Holman, or fear, like it did for little Jack. When you go to college, you might feel lonely and homesick at first, even though you’re living in a crowded dorm. A soldier who’s deployed to a foreign country might be lonely even though he’s constantly around other people. His loneliness might be a mixture of boredom, sadness, fear, homesickness, and other emotions. WHAT ARE EMOTIONS? Our emotions are the inner feelings that come and go within us. We’ve been having these feelings ever since we were babies. Sometimes we feel happy, and sometimes we feel sad; sometimes we feel angry, sometimes we’re scared, and sometimes we are bored. People used to think that emotions were the feelings of the soul—or the heart—while physical pain and other sensations were

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What I s Lone l i nes s?

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Make Connections We still talk about the “heart” as the place where our emotions live. None of us think that the beating organ in our chests is really what makes us happy or sad, angry or amused—and yet we say things like:

LONEL INESS

“My heart broke.” (When we mean, “I feel sad.”) “My heart leapt.” (“I was suddenly happy.”) “You’ll be in my heart forever.” (“I’ll always love you.)

“He has a heart of stone.” (“He has no sympathy for others.”) “She’s soft-hearted.” (“She has a lot of sympathy for others.”) “My heart was heavy.” (“I was sad.”) “Eat your heart out!” (“Wish for something you’ll never get!”) “I poured out my heart to her.” (“I expressed my feelings to her in words.”) “I believe it from the bottom of my heart.” (“I am emotionally com- mitted to this belief.”) “My heart is set on going.” (“I feel stubborn about my decision to go.”) “I had a change of heart.” (“I feel differently about something from what I did before.”) When we use these f igures of speech, we don’t stop to think what we’re saying. We know what we mean . But phrases like these show that we still are thinking of our emotions as coming from some mysterious place inside us, rather than from our brains and bodies, as scientists now believe.

the feelings of the body. Psychologists and scientists today know that emotions actually take place in our bodies, especially in our brains, but a lot of us still tend to think of these feelings as though they’re happening in a different sort of reality from either our bod- ies or the outside world. We often speak of emotional health as