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Feeling lonely and unhappy isn’t just a low mood. For those of us who have lived with childhood abuse, loneliness can have roots that go deeper than most people realise — patterns of isolation that started early, difficulty trusting that connection is safe, or simply never having had a stable baseline of belonging to return to.
What I’ve found, through some hard years and some slow learning, is that waiting for the feeling to lift on its own rarely works. Neither does waiting for someone else to solve it. What does work — at least for me — is small, deliberate action. Not dramatic change, not a new chapter. Just the next manageable thing.
These fifteen are things I’ve tried, or that others I know have found useful. None of them are magic. But they’re a start.
Getting Started
1. Try something new that you’re genuinely curious about
Photography, painting, a musical instrument, a language, a craft. Survivors often grow up in environments where curiosity wasn’t welcome or safe. Giving yourself permission to explore something purely because it interests you is, in itself, a form of recovery. It doesn’t have to lead anywhere.
2. Give some of your time to something you care about
Volunteering connects you with people working toward something they believe in. For survivors who spent years on the receiving end of harm, choosing to give can feel quietly significant. Start small — one morning a month, rather than a commitment that quickly becomes a pressure.
3. Reach out to someone you’ve lost touch with
A message, a phone call. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation. For survivors, old friendships can carry complicated feelings — but they can also carry real warmth. A short, honest “I’ve been thinking of you” is usually enough to open a door, if there’s one to open.
4. Spend time outside
A walk in a park, sitting by water, moving through a wood. For survivors whose nervous systems have been on high alert for a long time, natural environments can offer something that busy social settings sometimes can’t: a kind of non-demanding presence. You don’t have to perform. The trees aren’t waiting for anything from you.
Building Structure
5. Set yourself a small goal and work toward it
Not a marathon. Something specific and achievable in the near future. Learning one new recipe. Finishing one book. Walking a particular route. The point isn’t the goal itself — it’s the experience of deciding to do something and doing it. For survivors who were told, directly or indirectly, that their aims didn’t matter, this is worth practising.
6. Find a group built around something you already care about
A book group, a walking club, a craft class, a choir. The activity gives you structure and something to talk about, which takes some of the pressure off the socialising itself. It also means you already have something in common with the people there — a genuine starting point.
7. Practise noticing what’s good
Not forced positivity. Just the deliberate act of noticing: the coffee that was exactly right, a conversation that left you feeling lighter, an hour that passed without difficulty. For survivors, the nervous system is often attuned to threat and loss. Training it to also register good things — small good things — takes practice. A few lines in a notebook at the end of the day is enough.
8. Consider getting a pet
A dog, a cat, something to care for and to keep you company. The routine of feeding and walking and being with an animal can be grounding in a way that’s hard to explain until you’re in it. Animals don’t judge, don’t have agendas, and don’t require you to explain yourself.
Absorbing and Creating
9. Try cooking or baking something from scratch
Following a recipe is one of the better forms of mindfulness I know — you have to pay attention, you’re working with your hands, and at the end there’s something real. Share it if you want to. Keep it for yourself if you’d rather.
10. Read
A good book gives you somewhere else to be. For survivors who have spent long periods feeling unsafe in their own lives, the experience of being absorbed in someone else’s world — held by a story — is not a trivial thing.
11. Write things down
I keep a log. Not a diary in the confessional sense — just a record of what the day held, what I noticed, where I am. Writing regularises things somehow. It puts experience at a slight distance, where you can look at it more clearly. If you’re not sure where to start, try one honest sentence about how today felt.
12. Choose what you listen to with care
Music and podcasts are real tools, not just entertainment. What you listen to when you’re low can either compound the feeling or gently shift it. Keep a short list of things that reliably make you feel a fraction better — music that settles your nervous system, conversations that remind you that other people also find life complicated. Use them.
Looking After Yourself
13. Step back from social media when you need to
Comparison is almost always distorted, and social media makes it worse. If you notice that scrolling is leaving you feeling smaller than when you started, that’s a signal worth listening to. Put the phone down. Do something that asks something of you — hands, movement, attention.
14. Learn to say no to things that cost you more than they give
For survivors, this is often hard-won. The habit of saying yes when you mean no — of managing other people’s feelings at the expense of your own — can be deeply ingrained. You are allowed to decline. You are allowed to protect your time and energy. Saying no to one thing makes space for something better.
15. Talk to someone who can actually help
If loneliness and low mood have settled in and won’t shift, a GP, therapist, or counsellor is worth contacting. For survivors, this often means finding someone with experience of trauma — not all therapy is the same, and it matters. Reaching out is not a last resort. It’s the sensible thing to do when what you’re carrying is too heavy to carry alone.
Loneliness and low mood are not signs of weakness, and they do not have to be permanent. The points listed here will not suit everyone, and some may not be right for where you are now. But trying one, and then perhaps another, is a reasonable place to start. You choose.
