Thoughts on loneliness

The first sentence of my novel Tiramisu of Death (coming out later this year) is:

“Loneliness killed my auntie Meera.”

The novel is funny, I promise. I can’t write things that aren’t funny. But, like in all my books, there are deeper, more emotional threads. In this novel, I think about difference. Feeling different, hiding your differences, and the loneliness that that generates, almost on a daily basis.

I grew up feeling incredibly lonely. I had a lot of friends, but my parents, teachers, peers and the world around me told me I was too emotional, too sensitive, too angry, too needy, too flaky, too creative and not serious enough, generally too much. I was punished so much for being me that I shut it down and put it away. I felt ashamed not so much of my creativity, but of my own needs.

Needing someone brought up so much shame that I put on all sorts of fronts to not show need or vulnerability. Friendly, fun, sociable, confident, strong, therapist, teacher, great friend - I was all of those things to everyone. Being these things met my needs to some extent, because at least I had friends. But most of the time, with basically everyone in my life, I was the strong one. I was confident. I helped. I took care of people. But I couldn’t let people take care of me.

I couldn’t show and share my own needs and vulnerabilities because it brought so much shame and panic that I couldn’t let myself go there.

I’m only now even starting to - bit by bit, drop by drop - trying to feel okay about even just feeling. I am so much more comfortable with rational analysis, being reasonable, thoughts over feelings. Feeling brings so much panic that I have to slow down. I have to remind myself it’s okay to feel, okay to need. When my brain is going shame, shame, shame, panic, panic, panic, I have to work hard to say: actually, it’s great. Actually, it’s needed. It’s okay to feel, it’s okay to need. It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s a lot of hard work…

So, in Tiramisu of Death, I explore this idea of how we are different, each of us, and how we either do everything we can to hide it, or we go the opposite way, like my protagonist Arya Winters, and we fully let ourselves be who we are, but often that comes at a cost too and we end up pushing people away or being lonely.

I explore this idea that there are two kinds of loneliness; existential loneliness, where loneliness is a part of us, a thread that runs through us. New relationships, new cities, new circumstances make us feel like maybe now, maybe finally, we will no longer be lonely, maybe we are finally cured, maybe we are redeemed and life will be okay from now on, no more loneliness or depression or anxiety or self-doubt. But then our own inner core comes back and we are lonely yet again. But then there are people who aren’t necessarily existentially lonely, but they can be circumstantially lonely. Meaning, a new place, a break up, a new city, a new job can bring loneliness, but it’s relatively temporary because these people are able to feel less lonely when they have love and friends in their life.

If you feel existentially lonely, sometimes it can feel like no matter what change in your circumstances, that thread is a part of you. The end to your loneliness is just around the corner, it’s just there, waiting to be reached, except you can’t reach it. And I think that’s people like me who have been shamed for their own needs, for expressing and fully feeling who they are.

I don’t know. I’m trying to understand this, feel this, and change this. Because I’m so, so tired of always being the strong one. Of people seeing me as someone to turn to, but not someone who might need to turn to them.

Maybe the only way is to take tiny baby steps into exploring and expressing need and vulnerability and then finding people who allow us to do that without punishing us.

More on this soon…

I am very happy about Tiramisu coming back to life. It’s a three-book series at the moment, and I am desperately in love with my main character Arya, someone who believes in radical honesty, who lives life by her own rules, who is who she is even if people think she’s weird, even though, often, these rules of hers come at the cost of belonging and love. What will Arya learn over the course of three books? What will she teach me?

Here’s me, of course in charity shop clothes - what else? An early Valentine’s red top, you say? I say yes, yes it is.

Amita x