The Link Between Loneliness and Chronic Illness

Source: Katie Willard Virant

Loneliness is a significant issue diminishing the quality of life for individuals and communities (Lewis et al., 2024). Living with a long-term health condition increases one’s risk of experiencing chronic loneliness (Lewis et al., 2024). While I’ve previously written about the link between loneliness and chronic illness, I’d like to share a recent study that has come out on this topic.

2024 Study on Chronic Illness and Loneliness

In their 2024 study on chronic illness and loneliness, Lewis et al. define loneliness as “the subjective experience a person feels about their social connections.” The study authors underscore that we wrongly tend to see loneliness as an individual problem that can be corrected solely through individual behavioral changes. Rather, they assert that loneliness occurs due to intertwining individual and societal factors. In order to understand experiences of loneliness in chronic illness, the researchers interviewed 40 people of varying ages and with varying illnesses. They found three main themes.

Theme 1: Loneliness as invisibility of self

The study found that many people living with chronic illness felt separated from others because their illness made them “invisible.” That is, they believed that their illness made them undesirable as friends and associates. To preserve the connections they had, they were careful to downplay to others the effects of their illness, if they talked about their illness at all. They believed that connection depended on minimizing their illness, and that they would lose connection if they were more forthcoming about the ways that illness affected their lives.

Theme 2: Loneliness as being left behind

Study participants described a sense of their lives standing still. They watched their peers moving into new life stages such as higher education, meaningful employment, marriage, and children, despairing that they themselves would ever attain these milestones. The sense of a stolen future loomed large, as did the belief that their friends would forget about them as they moved into new life stages.

Theme 3: Loneliness as being a spectator rather than a player

Study participants described feeling like “stationary objects” as friends moved around them with travel, socializing, and robust activities. Their inability to take part in these activities caused them to feel separated from other people and life experiences.

Connecting This Study to Your Experience: A Writing Exercise

Grab a pen and three sheets of paper. Title each sheet of paper with the themes outlined above. The first sheet will be titled: “Loneliness as invisibility of self.” The second sheet will be titled: “Loneliness as being left behind.” The third sheet will be titled: “Loneliness as being a spectator.”

Consider how the three themes resonate with you, and use each page to connect your experiences and emotions with the themes. Fill each page however you would like—write a paragraph, make a bullet point list, or draw a picture.

Once you’ve completed this phase of the writing exercise, take each paper in turn and think about the study authors’ assertion that both individual and social factors contribute to loneliness. Explore this assertion in writing. In which ways do your own beliefs, emotions, and actions keep you feeling invisible, left behind, and like a spectator? In which ways do societal norms (other people’s beliefs, emotions, and actions) keep you feeling lonely? Where are the opportunities to change (or even shift slightly) those factors that contribute to your loneliness?

Conclusion

Awareness that loneliness is a common experience for people living with chronic illness can jump-start us to take stock of the ways loneliness and illness intersect in our own lives. Naming these specifics allows us to problem-solve effectively.