Obviously there may be many different feelings and emotions that a person could experience depending on the situation or circumstances. One person may fear change whilst another may revel in it and enjoy the challenges. A child about to enter early adolescence may also have a sense of fear or anxiety about what changes to expect, embarrassment about bodily changes, heightened sexual desires and bodily discharges.

A woman nearing 50 may begin to worry about menopause and may harbour fears of getting breast cancer or osteoporosis. A young adult married man with a family may fear that he might lose his job and be unable to provide for his family. A child may fear going to school for the first time away from his parents.

Fear of the unknown is often something that people worry about when a change occurs that could impact seriously on their lives. The stress response innervates the autonomic nervous system and people can either fight the stressors that are causing their stress or fly away from the stressors and hide or avoid them. People may even become quite depressed because of a transition in their life and their circumstances and their behaviour and mood can adversely affect other people around them such as relatives, workmates, friends and so on.

According to ‘Spot, Seek, Solve — Depression’ (a mental health promotion initiative of Hunter New England Area Health Services, 2001-2006), Symptoms of Depression (which may directly relate to loneliness) may include feeling:

  1. Down
  2. Worthless
  3. Hopeless
  4. Angry
  5. Tired & Irritable
  6. Suicidal

And/or finding it hard to:

  1. Sleep (not enough sleep, sleeping too much and/or waking up early in the morning)
    Concentrate
  2. Control your moods
  3. Enjoy the things you usually like
  4. Eat regularly

Other symptoms may include:

  1. Having aches and pains for no apparent reason
  2. Being extremely pessimistic
  3. Losing interest in other people and not caring what happens
  4. Having a sense of failure or guilt
  5. Loss of outward affection and going off sex

It is important to try to understand your own feelings and emotions because everyone’s situation and circumstances will usually be quite different.