TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Dealing with sense of rejection, loneliness amid social restrictions
To remedy the sense of rejection and loneliness, try conducting activities outside your home where you can greet strangers and reach out to your friends more proactively.
Change Size
Irena (not her real name), a 34-year-old education activist in Jakarta, has never felt this dejected and lonely her whole life.
“During the pandemic, my activist friends have become even more ambitious because they believe that this crisis could be a pretty great opportunity to leverage our movement, since the online learning system has brought so many problems,” she said.
“So my friends have been so lost in their attempts to find donors and secure new partnerships with various stakeholders. Their unlikely success in securing funds during our troubled economy amid COVID-19 has become similar to drug [use], causing them to be addicted to [their pursuits]. As a result, they’ve become more pragmatically ambitious than ever.”
As a result, Irena’s relationships with her friends have been transformed into pure business – no more inquiries about her personal life, no more concern over whether she is OK. When Irena tried to reach out to them for personal matters, they did not reply.
She also feels insecure because one particular friend in their education movement, who she feels has become much more charismatic, successful and dominant in the organization, never seems to pay attention to her.
Irena believes this woman pays attention only to those who can match her better qualities.
“She shines really brightly. She's really smart and she's securing a lot of projects and partners for our foundation. She does not even want to look at me because I’m not as bright and charismatic as her and I don’t contribute as much to our movement,” she said.
“It just confirms my worst fears that other people are never interested in me as much as I’m interested in them. It’s always been like this since I was a teenager; maybe it’s because I simply am a boring person,” she lamented.
However, according to one psychologist, there might be a logical explanation to such feelings.
“When you’re left alone for a fairly long period of time, especially when you’re really by yourself and there’s no one else there, you can really get very swamped by your own very worst fantasies because your mind cannot free itself,” American psychologist Polly Young-Eisendrath told The Jakarta Post in a Zoom interview.
“In this case, people’s minds can turn on themselves, exacerbating already-existing feelings of self-hatred and insignificance, as well as fears that you’re not worthwhile and not lovable,” she explained.
These self-loathing patterns strengthen because recently we have been deprived of the comfort that familiar strangers offer.
“In the normal world, you got great relief to be with strangers, particularly strangers you see very often in your town. You can just say ‘good morning’ to them and they’re neither receiving you nor rejecting you […] these impersonal interactions can give you some mental space,” she explained.
Mechanical, virtual meetings via Zoom does not really cut it, according to her.
“You need to go outside of your home to just get some emotional space from strangers you meet along the way to loosen your negative patterns a little,” she advised.
“The emotional space might help you to relate to yourself in a more compassionate way, that you have a place in the world, that you’re doing something worthwhile, that you’re a lovable person, opposed to attacking yourself”.
After you have calmed yourself down, you can perhaps contact that one friend of yours to remedy your insecurity, according to Young-Eisendrath. “Around 99 percent of the time, people are happy when they contact you. Although the result can be disappointing also,” she said.
Irena said she felt much better upon starting her daily jogging regimen again in her housing complex, smiling and waving to people she met along the way.
She, however, still hesitated to contact her activist friends for fears that the coronavirus crisis had exposed her “friends” for who they truly were: selfish, ambitious and pragmatic young go-getters.
Young-Eisendrath debunked this bleak view.
“It’s not true: What we show during times of crisis is really our response to fear. When we are afraid we will protect ourselves, we will try to meet our own needs first. We have so many other options when we are not afraid: curiosity, humor, spaciousness, kindness,” she said.
“Crisis will also show you whether you have courage. You might think you’re courageous, but you don’t really have to prove it in times of crisis,” she said to conclude the discussion.
