“You can be surrounded by people and still feel like you’re drowning alone.”

There’s a kind of loneliness that no one talks about.
It doesn’t always come from isolation or being physically alone. It can show up in a crowded room, in a warm family gathering, or during a conversation with someone who loves you.

It’s the loneliness of trauma.

When you’ve experienced trauma—especially childhood abuse—it can feel like you live behind a glass wall. You’re watching the world move, love, connect, and laugh… but you’re stuck behind that invisible barrier, unsure how to join in. The pain you carry isn’t always visible, and often, people don’t know what to say or how to hold space for it. So instead, they offer silence, distraction, or worse, platitudes.

Trauma makes you feel like an outsider.
Like you’re too much.
Too broken.
Too complicated. (Especially complicated!)

Even when people care, it doesn’t always make the ache go away. You might want to reach out—but what would you even say? How do you explain the feeling of not feeling safe in your own body or mind? How do you talk about something that shaped you in ways even you don’t fully understand?

That’s the kind of loneliness I’m talking about.

And for a long time, I thought I’d be stuck in it forever. But here’s what I’ve learned:
Healing doesn’t erase the loneliness right away—but it invites connection back in, piece by piece. Safe people, safe spaces, and honest conversations begin to crack the glass wall. Slowly. Quietly. But surely.

And to those who love someone struggling with this kind of loneliness—please don’t look away.
Don’t just sit there silently, hoping your presence is enough. And please, don’t reach for distractions in an effort to avoid discomfort. Take initiative. Ask thoughtful questions. Offer presence without pressure. Remind them, with gentle persistence, that they’re not a burden. Be the person who notices, who checks in, who stays when the conversation gets real.

Because trauma survivors often won’t ask for what they need. (I know this all too well!)
But that doesn’t mean they don’t need it.

If you’re feeling the weight of that loneliness today, I want you to know something:
You’re not the only one.
And even if it doesn’t feel like it yet, there are people who will understand. There are words that will find you. There is a kind of love that knows how to sit with pain—not fix it, but sit with it.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the beginning of no longer being alone.