Small children are often afraid of being left alone, and may put up a fuss when their parents leave the room. This may
occur even if the child has never experienced a traumatic incident that might justify this fear. The fear of being alone is
a basic, inborn feeling, and may persist into adulthood and even throughout one's life.
In today's mobile society, aloneness is much more common. A widow or widower who has three children may not live near any
of them, because they all moved away. The neighbors with whom one was friendly for many years are also gone away. These circumstances
may result in a person being deprived of close relationships. For the elderly, the problem may be accentuated by their inability
to get around, because they may no longer be able to drive, and the wear-and-tear diseases of aging may even make it difficult
for them to walk, resulting in their becoming "shut-ins" in their apartments.
As unpleasant as such solitude may be, it is surpassed by the aloneness that one feels when depressed. In this case, one
tends to feel not only alone, but also what is much worse, abandoned. People who have experienced some type of abandonment
in their childhood are particularly vulnerable to such feelings if they become depressed, even many decades later.
The great Chassidic master, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, wrote about his depression, stating that there were times when he
felt he was in the deepest recesses of hell. Yet, he never felt abandoned, because he recalled the verse