{"id":5812,"date":"2026-03-09T09:05:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T08:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/complicated.life\/blog\/?p=5812"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:43:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:43:51","slug":"letter-2-loneliness-and-the-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/complicated.life\/blog\/letter-2-loneliness-and-the-group\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pandemic Letters: Loneliness and the Group\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the pandemic years, <\/em>2019-2021, Psychologist Marius Presterud wrote a series of reflections from Berlin \u2014 letters that tried to make sense of a world suddenly rearranged. <\/em>In the letters Presterud delves on the deeper implications of Covid-19, its impact on societal health and practical consequences for health personnel. As winter settles heavily over the city once more, we return to his second letter, Loneliness and the Group, which asks a question many of us have felt but rarely voiced: what does it mean to feel alone in a time when so many share the same feeling?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n
Find the right therapist<\/div>\n
Our directory contains 2500+ vetted therapists. Use our advanced search tool to find the one that fits your exact needs and preferences.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n
\n Find a therapist<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

Letter 2,\u00a0Loneliness and the Group<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loneliness is one of those experiences we seldom name out loud, even though most of us have rehearsed its vocabulary in the dark hours of the night. Perhaps one thing that cannot be repeated often enough is this: When you feel lonely you are always part of a larger group. This group just doesn’t meet up and talk about it very often, which may be part of the issue. It is a tragic-comic predicament rings especially true for our current moment in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is still too early to tell what toll loneliness stemming from social distancing and lock-down measures have taken on our collective health and cohesiveness, pre-pandemic life saw as many as one in ten suffer from severe and persistent loneliness(1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This phenomenon is happening in tandem with the relatively modern phenomena of people living on their own. In 2020 one in three households across the European Union had only one person(2).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German capital is currently leading this trend, with every second household in Berlin being a single person household. More gloomily, around 300 people a year pass away in their apartments in this city, unnoticed by family or neighbours.(3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond loneliness literally being a very painful thing to go through(4), there are secondary costs too. It has been associated with anxiety, depression, low sleep quality and concentration problems, as well as an early death and a higher risk of death by suicide(5).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feelings of loneliness also escalate the body’s inflammatory response and makes you more vulnerable to heart problems, cancer, dementia and less protected against viruses (…)(4)(6). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps a lesser known statistic is that loneliness might indirectly affect one’s career, leading to lower wages and fewer promotions due to, amongst other factors, less collaboration with colleagues(3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, these findings support the broad claim that loneliness cuts an average of ten years from a person\u2019s life expectancy. – You’ve probably seen headlines like “Loneliness more unhealthy than obesity”(7) or “Loneliness worse than smoking 15 cigarettes a day”(2), etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what do we really mean when we speak of loneliness<\/em>, and are we talking about the same thing when we do? Since loneliness is stigmatized it may be hard to know exactly what people mean when they say they are lonely<\/em>, as well as when researchers study it and take steps to alleviate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alleinsein und Einsamkeit \/ Aloneness and loneliness<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever imagined the M10 being a big, beige boa? And in passing, slid your fingers along the side of its ribs? Wiped off the soot, in post-wake up somberness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daydreaming is a pleasant activity of being alone with one’s own imagination, and can be performed with or without others present. While feeling alone in the presence of others can be experienced as unpleasant and awkward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When loneliness was first studied it was expected to reflect how socially connected people were or weren’t(8), but it turned out that the objective and the perceived amount of social connections people experienced were very different things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people had a lot of friends, but also felt lonely. While some had few confidantes, but felt that they had all the support they needed. Simultaneously, having very few social connections seemed to have detrimental consequences on people’s health regardless of whether it was noticed by the persons themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This led social scientists to explore the various forms loneliness can take. Below I present three underlying dimensions that were identified:<\/p>\n\n\n\n