Loneliness, social isolation, and accumulation of chronic conditions: A nationwide longitudinal study in Japan, 2026, Ito et al.

Loneliness, but not social isolation,​

This is an important distinction. I am by all conventional measures quite socially isolated, on the fringes of society, and that has its own problems, in particular straight practical ones.

But I don't often feel lonely. Always been quite comfortable with my own company, and even wanted/needed a fair chunk of the waking day to myself, which has probably been a strength in dealing with decades of ME/CFS and the social isolation.

Which, in turn, does not mean there is no pain and grief at what I missed out on at a personal level due to ME/CFS and the trainload of contingent shit that comes with it that made the overall experience much worse than it needed to be.

They combine actually. The lies told about us are what socially isolate us even when we are around people - whether hat is by choice in the hope of them not being bigots that hurt us or not

I blame bacme and other people like Chalder and moss-Morris and the authors of the old guidelines and anyone who contributed and used it as an excuse to spread rot knowing how vile it was.

That thing about being lonelier around people some say to do with other conditions well it’s been manufactured by them that most encounters with people we don’t choose carefully and manage them carefully are intended to be vile. Nothing to do with us and nothing to do with being sensitive or other tosh such narcissists who mislead would say.

I appreciate human nature when I notice what a proportion of certain people in jobs like delivery person or chemist or the odd person on the phone are good people and kind and nice. It’s like finding gold when I find a genuinely good person who was a friend or colleague at one point rather than disappointment.

Sad to say how many others are just horrid when they see or hear I’m disabled. I know it’s not me because I’ve had an invisible disability which put me for years in that unique position of hiding in plain sight whilst being more aware than most myself what some are like. I was shocked by how some I assumed weren’t horrid bigots changed when I got ill enough I wasn’t going to be of use to them in future and they thought me telling others what their true self was like could be passed of as me imagining it or being mad.

The utter rude broadsiding for no reason and magnet from people hardly knowing me intruding into my life just to screw with me in bps ways is quite shocking - and it’s always narcissists and screwed up people who mightnt know they’ve hurt others but have and didn’t take responsibility so get obsessed with finding the next person (having labelled the person they hurt last ‘mad’ rather than taken responsibility). Some are just straight bullies. Some are weird people with horrible attitudes to do with having been taught bs about mental health thru their work that’s bigoted or sought it out via social media or non social media people that are all over the place as coaches or wellbeing business etc talking nonsense and often they are just wanting to be the same themselves or project, it’s very unsettling and disturbing. Some just wanted to see me to snub me due to my apparent status change making them feel they’d ‘won’ and/or wanting to check my drudge to judge it wasn’t empty enough (weirdly common during those I saw after lockdown).

To just find a normal interesting person who doesn’t want you to lie about your day because they control some list of what’s interesting to only being listing day trips and how busy they are but what you’ve on your plate doesn’t count is great. But I’ll find them as I find them thanks.

Even if that didn’t hurt me why would u want to be near that malign force that’s nothing good to offer. Particularly when I don’t have much energy to go round there’s nothing more gutting than having it sucked by someone that didn’t deserve it and some actively want to make you feel bad. And that’s an easy rule: as someone who gives too much leeway and is always looking to think something’s not intended that way or laugh it off if I come away feeling really bad about myself 3times in a row from a person then I’ve allowed myself to say I know with certainty what they do is no accident whether they think or acknowledge that’s what they are doing or not - that lack of them having that empathy is also their problem to not notice it.

And on top of that shed loads of people got weird during lockdown I assume because they unlike us (who know how to be healthy with it) used it to burrow into wellness crap or narrow their circle and became school playground cliquey level strange.

So this stuff hasn’t just been callous and cruel to us but it’s ruined large numbers of people who mightnt have otherwise been awful people who now don’t know what life’s about

It’s be like a magic radar except people do it to your face in an undoubtably and unsubtle fashion.

So fgs don’t try and force it on us - yes lots of it if for my literal safety because many who did or don’t know me well make me a target. It’s one of those areas where it isn’t good people who do the right thing attracted in but those who aren’t too much. And most people sadly don’t have much to offer but if they were being a friendly are frankly just takers and when there’s little to take they get kicks from judging of other ways. That’s what they are being taught and fed by the rumour mill to boot.

I’ll stick with the nice people each one of whom took a long time to find and who I’ve learned you can’t predict they will be - values matter and psychologists know this and precede beliefs. Very few seem to have kept their safe from belief-based propaganda and can see wood for the trees and talk on real things anymore. I’ve as much time as I can scrape together for those who do. My timings don’t always marry perfectly but I’m not sure even if I had more to go out meetings loads more people whether it would be much more con I’d get than pro.

If they want to make us less lonely drop the bigotry propaganda they pretend is cod psych to try and get away with it. And do a campaign rectify the bigotry spread so we can have our real identities back that we worked for and are not some stuck on target please.

Agree with everything you said, and have experienced it too, @bobbler.

In particular that social isolation and loneliness can interact and become synergistic, feeding off each other. I feel for people who are naturally gregarious being forced into this kind of situation. We are not all comfortable being alone.

It was more the pint that - putting aside the disability stuff (making feel ill when out of harder to say yes to things etc) - just the label and misinformation means that even if someone lived an exact same life as they did before ‘socially’ they’d be made lonely /lonelier by the behaviour that others are encouraged to do to them (which is in order to threaten ‘social isolation unless you act normal’ encouraged by bps misappropriaters but as you can’t cure disability with callousness is just them inciting cruelty and exclusion and lack of acceptance).

Some poor extrovert could at the expense of their illness be entering the same rooms and not being able to avoid some (eg work) and be being actively and deliberately made lonely by them never having the choice of being accepted as themselves. It’s not something easily hidden like some other ‘isms’ are (at pain) and some aren’t so the pressure to do so is at great cost of who they are being maintained (eg if extrovert still me and loud just cant always be as I had been in same way just cant run round like I used to doing things for you, and am diligent still but might be late if I have an ill turn gets rewritten whether others know the name for it or not)

Many that talk about this stuff make all sorts of wrong 2+2=5 inferences

One of the worst is the idea people are lonely ‘just because they aren’t getting themselves out like they could if they made an effort’. When the real exclusion that leads to the lonliness is ‘in the room’ and in their face when they do and at every situation they are forced into like work. It’s horrific how onlookers blame those they get encouraged to ostracize and suggest to them ‘it’s in their gift’ at the same time as them being used as the weapons doing it.

That locus of problem needs to be underlined really. I don’t know how well this article does that but it’s about time a mirror was held up to do-gooders who do bad by not thinking outside their bigotry when ‘helping’ aka aggressing victims of their own choice to not think.

It’s synergistic in that overt sense when instead of being kinder to those who tell them they are lonely they give them a lecture to be less themselves and basically’why they should expect it if they are like that’ or tell them to do more throwing themselves into situations where they will be rejected, ridiculed or not accepted unless they self-deprecate or self-bigot , what that does to a person is unquantifiable. And we don’t give out manuals (but I bet it’s still there) to other isms to tell them ‘how to act/look less x’ in schools and workplaces but that’s what some of the CBT stuff certainly in the past has been about justifying or ‘giving coping techniques’ to the aggressed person for at best instead of joining the campaign to get understanding right.

Even if someone on their own took on that task of communicating what needs to actually be understood (too much to lumber in an individual) it needs oversight from bystanders for many to choose to be kind and hear that instead of the misinformation which for the bystander is a much easier option (as doesn’t involve them putting themselves out and giving real grace etc and feeling bad for doing the wrong thing but getting to feel kind ‘for putting up with it because they are insert insult (maladaptive/trauma needs dealing with/need CBT etc)’.

It’s quite horrific really if someone keeps trying like a puppy dog being told ‘people are nice’ when they aren’t often and so you have to be careful and go slow until you find out who people are. There are even then only certain situations of their life where they can choose to not be around those who exclude them and they have to have enough health left after those to devote to finding and keeping those good ins who do accept them for who they are - how many of those are out there (for them to find) is effectively outside of their control but within the control of society (norms, stopping the untruths etc) but still these myths prevail

Hanging round with people who aren’t kind is probably more lonely making than no one but they continue to judge people stuck with that hobsons choice. Because they misunderstand the consequences of these options are not the same as they are for themselves