When Being Alone Pushes You to a Liberating Realisation

Ken Kitson
Sep 3
9 min read

I visited back home in Australia recently. It was nice to be back in familiar places, but it also felt surreal. In spite of the familiarity, it no longer felt like home.

One night, sitting in my hotel room I was watching TV when an ad came on. It was part of a campaign for mental health. A series of celebrities, looking sincere,

encouraging people to tell someone if they

weren’t doing okay.

Now, I’m sure the advertisers hoped all their ads would make people think—but this one really did. But maybe not int the way they planned. What struck, or maybe the realisation that descended on me wasn’t inspiration, but a question: what does telling someone you’re not okay actually achieve?

If you’re talking to a trained professional, fair enough—they know how to help you work through things. But if it’s just a friend, a relative, or some random acquaintance? Let’s be honest, the best you’re going to get is sympathy; the worst, the wrong advice from someone who’s not living your life, feeling what you’re feeling.

And sympathy doesn’t solve the problem. The wrong advice can be catastrophic.

“Sympathy doesn’t solve problems—actions do.”

The Harsh Realisation: Only You Can Save You

Here’s the truth that most of us spend our whole lives running from: the only person you can truly count on is yourself.

More than that,

the only person who can truly help you is you.
The only person who can take action to solve your problems is you.
The only person who can effect how you feel is… you.

When we’re surrounded by people, we live in a kind of fool’s paradise. We assume that when things go wrong, there will be someone to lean on, rely on, or at least t care, even if it’s an unconscious belief. Someone will make it okay. Someone will save us. Its evolutionary. There’s protection in the tribe. If the sabre tooth tiger came calling, you're not alone so you’ll be safe.

But, how is anyone else going to save you from your emotional “sabre tooth tiger”?

Despite how all the comforting words that someone may offer sounding soothing at the time - no one is coming. Because no one else can.

“No one is coming to save you. That’s the bad news… and the good news.”

Sure, a psychologist can help guide you. A friend can listen. A loved one can give comfort. But at the end of the day, only you can change the thoughts in your own head. Only you can decide to take the next step forward. More so, only you can actually take that next step.

That mental health ad back in Australia was well-meaning. But telling someone you’re not okay isn’t a cure. It doesn’t fix anything. At best, it buys you a little sympathy. At worst, it keeps you trapped in the belief that your salvation lies in someone else’s hands.

Living Between Two Worlds

Moving to Thailand has made that truth hit me harder than ever. While I lived on my own in Australia and didn’t keep myriad friends around, you don’t feel totally isolated. But remember what I said, a fools paradise that someone will be there to help. The reality is that I was just as alone when I lived in Australia. So same same.

In Thailand, on one side, there are the expats. And the reality is, the vast majority are the kind of people I wouldn’t have chosen as friends back in Australia, let alone share my emotional troubles with. They bring their baggage with them, complain constantly, living out their unresolved dramas and ego, just under the tropical sun. That’s not what I came here for.

“Loneliness feels like drowning until you learn how to breathe underwater.”

On the other side, there’s Thai society. And while I respect the people and the culture, my Thai language isn’t strong enough yet to break through the surface, so “deep and meaningfuls” are presently impossible with most of them. Besides, to most locals, I’m just another foreigner—no different from the hordes of tourists who flood through every season, so there’s always and “us and them” feeling.

So for now, I live in between. Not fully part of either world. Like oil and water not mixing on either side. And that’s where loneliness has teeth. The sabre tooth tiger has can have huge teeth. It’s not until you have no options that you realise the buck really does stop with you. There’s no room for meekness and weakness when shit needs to get dealt with. There’s no point stressing because you’re totally on your own when the fact is you are totally on your own.

The Spiral of Isolation

Sometimes loneliness creeps in quietly, like the tiger stalking you. You can hear the odd leaf cracking as the tiger sneaks ever closer. You can feel the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. You can feel it’s warm breath as the anxiety rises ever higher. The.. it strikes. Other times the tiger attacks like a sledgehammer from nowhere with complete surprise, stealing the peace.

There are nights when I feel a physical weight in my chest. Nights when the silence in my apartment feels too big. Nights when I catch myself spiralling—ruminating on past relationships, replaying mistakes, worrying about tomorrow. The tiger is stalking me. Sometimes I can be sitting alone and out of nowhere there are waves of total panic, it goes straight for the jugular.

Sure, I’m in Thailand. Bars are easy. “Company” is easy. I can go out and find a “girlfriend” at the drop of a hat. Alcohol too is a great short-term self-medication. But the trouble with “easy” is that it’s always fake, short-lived relief. The next day it’s still you and only you.

The local Thai bars? You’re invisible unless you’re a regular or paying. The foreigner bars? You could have company in ten seconds flat—but it’s all transactional. Affection bought by the drink. Smiles rented by the hour. A night that is just a business transaction.

“Fake connections are more dangerous than being alone.”

Even when I meet women outside of that world—at the gym, for example—it’s still complicated. Mixed signals, shallow conversations, and their constant suspicion that they’re just one of many. And when you’re already lonely, those disappointments hit harder than they should.

The Battle for Authenticity

That’s the crux of it: authenticity.

I can’t fake it. I can’t switch my brain off and live in an ego-fuelled illusion where I pretend the bar girl is my soulmate or that a casual fling will fill the void. My peace of mind is worth more than that.

So I set rules for myself. No “girlfriends” from the bars, massage, or who have had a slew of "holiday boyfriends". No buying into illusions. No sacrificing self-respect for temporary comfort.

Instead, I’ve learned to create small anchors. The staff at a local bar (not a girly bar - they really do only serve drinks) who know me and greet me warmly when I walk in. Sometimes I think my thai barista is my best friend. Familiar routines at the gym. Even a pseudo-relationship with one girl who looks out for me when I’m there—not a romance, not a transaction, but a human connection I can count on, however limited.

It’s not perfect, but it keeps me grounded.

“Peace of mind beats temporary comfort every single time.”

Pain vs. Suffering

Here’s what I’ve realised: pain and suffering aren’t the same thing.

Pain is inevitable. We all feel it—loss, loneliness, disappointment. But suffering? That comes from resistance. From saying things like “why me?” or “this shouldn’t be happening.”

But it is happening. The only question is: what do you do next?

There’s a quote from Jim Rohn that stuck with me: "it’s okay to have a pity party, but you have to put a time limit on it". There comes a time shit still needs to get dealt with. The more time you give to your pity, the more of your present it steals.

The truth is, suffering is often born from the hope that someone else will come along and fix us. That someone will make it okay. But nobody can do that. Even the most caring partner, the most devoted friend, the best therapist—none of them can change what’s inside your head.

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”

Even worse, people who just “hope” things will get better, without taking any action. Not realising that the first “action” is taken inside your head, by what you think.

That’s on you.

Strategies for Survival

The temptation is always there: drink it away, distract it away, seduce it away. But none of those things work for long.

What works—at least for me—is structure. Routines. Anchors. The gym. Studying Thai. Going for a massage (the non-sexy kind). Sitting in a familiar bar where I know the staff, even if I don’t know the customers.

It’s about recognising when I’m sliding into self-pity and changing what I'm thinking about before it consumes me. It’s about being brutally honest with myself: “Yeah, Ken, you’re lonely. But drinking yourself stupid won’t fix it. Falling for the wrong woman won’t fix it. Hoping someone rescues you won’t fix it. So, what’s the next best thing you can do right now?” There's got to be something, even if it is only taking control of my thoughts.

Here's the thing. You will never work out a plan of what to do when you feel yourself being consumed. You must get your strategy ideas ready BEFORE you need them. It's too late be be thinking about how to handle your mind once you're headed down the spiral.

Freedom comes from the realisation

I did say it was a long time ago. But I made it

Back, long ago, when I was learning to be a soldier, we obviously were trained and tested on many things. Some we did as a group, contrary to what many units do we also had to be able to function alone.

I remember one night we had a twenty kilometre navigation exercise. Alone. We were given a map, a compass and a little red light so we could read the map. Clearly that little red light wasn’t enough to see your way around so it was us, alone, in the darkness. The exercise – find ten checkpoints and get back to the start.

These checkpoints were very small lights on containers that if you weren’t within a metre or two you’d never find. To call it challenging would be an understatement. Of course we had been trained to navigate, but this seemed next level. It wasn’t “find your way to this mountain or road junction”, something easy.

If you got lost, your only choice was to hopefully find one of the other’s wandering around the bush. Calling out to someone would have been an instant “fail”. You could always wait until daylight to find your way back, except you would have been walking all the way back to base. If you got injured – well, don’t get injured.

After finding two checkpoints I somehow got myself disorientated. I felt the panic rising like I was about to drown. Waves of anxiety flooded over me. The tiger was about to have me in its teeth. I was totally alone, feeling as if I was fighting for my life, against myself.

Before I was totally overcome with panic I had a realisation. I have no choice. I must work this shit out. No one is coming to save me, and I am not going to fail. I need to work this out. No choice.

That one realisation in the middle of the bush, in the middle of the night, with a total melt down in progress was like stabbing the tiger in the heart. It was liberating.

Here’s the point. The next thing you think after accepting responsibility for what happens to you totally and completely is you think “ok, what do I do now”. You take a step, then another, then another…

The Deeper Lesson

Loneliness, true loneliness, for all its brutality, has been my hardstand maybe best teacher.

It’s forced me to confront truths I’d rather ignore. It’s made me realise that while connection is vital, fake connection is worse than none at all. It’s made me see that I can’t outsource my happiness, or my healing, or my sense of purpose. Sharing problems may feel good but it doesn’t solve problems.

Pain doesn’t cause suffering. It’s the stories we tell ourselves about the pain that do. It’s the ruminating that drives us down.

While loneliness will always be part of life—mine, yours, everyone’s—it doesn’t have to be a cage. With enough honesty, discipline, and self-awareness, it can even become a companion. One that teaches you resilience, clarity, and self-reliance. One that fuels freedom.

“Sometimes the only real friend you have is the version of yourself who refuses to quit.”

Closing: This Too Shall Pass

I won’t lie. There are still days when the loneliness feels unbearable. Days when I look at other people’s lives and wonder what I’m missing. Days when the temptation to just “numb out” is strong. Lonely nights when I can just cry for no apparent reason.

But I’ve come to see loneliness less as an enemy and more as a mirror. It shows me who I am without distractions. It forces me to take responsibility for my own state of mind. And it pushes me to keep growing, even when it hurts. It drives me to understand what I’m feeling and why.

As the old saying goes: this too shall pass.

The good days, the bad days, the crushing loneliness, the fleeting moments of connection. It all passes.

And in between, the only person I can truly count on is myself.