EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 21

April 2000

  I FEEL SO ISOLATED AND ALONE

Paul battles with depression.At one stage his life was together. He now lives in a hostel and feels everything has been taken from him.

In 1978 I went to study for the priesthood. I found that the religious order was compact and it was really strict kind of life. You had to get up quite early in the morning and say the various offices which followed Mass and before Mass it was meditation. Then it was breakfast,after which we went off to Allen Hall to study Philosophy and other aspects for the priesthood. I stayed there for approximately a year and a half and then I reconsidered my vocation for the secular priesthood,rather than the religious priesthood. There again I felt lonely and isolated. I used to spend my time studying in the library. I studied rather than join the other lads playing rugby and football. I enjoyed some of the study, I enjoyed Philosophy. The first year was only kind of a format for the secular order.

I left Oscot after approximately a year. I just felt isolated and wanted the home life. I went back to working as a social worker in Blackburn for a while. The bishop who was there, Bishop Kelly, recommended me to reapply in four years time for the priesthood or religious life.

I left the seminary and was back with home life. That entailed looking after my parents who were quite old. It was doing things like maintaining the house. I centralised my work around social work activity. I later got a job of gardening at an old peoples' house where I also worked in the kitchens. That lasted five years and I enjoyed that.Whilst I was working in the gardens my father and then my mother died. Of course bereavement comes after death and in particular it has been a bad time in the last two years. I now live in a hostel in Blackburn. They were asking too much to support the house that I lived in with my mum and dad,therefore I had to sell it.The hostel is institutionalised and I hope to move from there into a council flat over the corporation side of Blackburn.

I have discovered over the last few years that you travel through life totally on your own. It is between you and God what you do. It's a lonely life and nobody can answer it for you,only yourself really. When parents die, children find their own lives. Loneliness can get you unless you fill your time with something constructive. I feel some empathy with the homeless who have got nothing at all,and who are waiting for other peoples choices for them. They are crying out but it is kind of a dim voice at the moment. That is the way our society works. The homeless really need someone to support them and help them. There are a lot of places that do try to help. I also need support although I don't class myself as homeless. I find that I am a very lonely person and it's no fun being lonely.

I have a program from the Out-Patients at Queens Park but without that program I would feel totally lost I think. I go to relaxation sessions on Monday at Occupational Therapy. I feel like I have had a breakdown over the last few months and I think that it has been brought on by bereavement. Some people say that that is an excuse but I don't think that no-one can realise or see within you what you really feel like and how you do miss people. At the moment I'm at the stage of isolation and I have empathy with the homeless. They don't have anybody to make them a cup of tea in the morning.

Living in an institution I find that day-today is basically the same. Your got up at 6.30am and breakfast is from 7.30am till 8am everyday, including Saturday and Sunday. You get a cup of tea at 10am. It is really regimented in a sense. Soup is at 12pm and then another cup of tea at 3pm. You are not allowed to make your own cup of tea in your room or anything like that. It is shared accommodation really. You share the bathrooms and you share the showers. Your room is private and your not allowed to take anyone in at all. There is a television room where everyone goes to watch television and a communal room where you go to do social activities but not many people do really.

Mainly people keep themselves to themselves and I do especially. Everyday might as well be the same . It is easier to remain lonely and isolated in a place like that. I have been living in that institution for six months now. I have no friends there really. I was attacked not long ago for no reason at all. I was just walking around and somebody attacked me . I didn't defend myself. I just dismissed it as a one off.

When my mother died I thought about giving myself totally to God. At the moment I'm not sure. I have got this feeling sometimes that I should really give my whole life to God. I don't feel that there is anything else for me. If I could just work for God I feel that it would satisfy me . Even just doing some work in the garden or something.
 

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