Second Look: Prickly Heat Sucks. Just Like Loneliness
I’m looking back at articles I wrote years ago on Substack to see how I feel retrospectively. This time it’s “Prickly Heat Sucks. Just Like Loneliness" from February 2021.
A couple of years ago, I wrote about returning to Darwin, the tropical Australian city where I spent my teenage years. I called the piece “Prickly Heat Sucks. Just Like Loneliness“, and re-reading it today, I’m struck at how raw and melancholic it sounds. Moving to Darwin from England as a child was both challenging and transformational. You cannot imagine two completely different worlds.
I had a quote from Michel de Montaigne at the foot of the article: “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.“
I was particularly struck at the time at how Montaigne’s word connected with my memories and feelings. For someone who felt like a fish out of water, the idea that even if you didn’t feel like you belonged in a physical place, you could feel like you belonged to yourself.
The challenging impression for me now though is that’s only part of the story.n In that original article, I catalogued my experiences of never quite fitting in. The white English kid in a multicultural Darwin classroom. The Australian anomaly at English boarding school. Five schools in eight years. A 40th school reunion I had no intention of attending.
Reading it now, I can see how I’d mythologised my displacement and used that to create my identity. I’ve more than once written about being a ‘one man band’, feeling like I needed to be self-sufficient and independent to the point of not ‘needing’ anyone’s help or support. But there is a cost to that stance - loneliness. If you are not close to anyone, then there is nobody who sees you properly.
Self-sufficiency leads to emotional and intimacy poverty, yet I now know that human beings evolved in groups and our brains are literally wired for connection. If I gave the impression I was championing self-sufficiency, I was wrong, because I’d be championing a form of poverty.
However, it’s easy to see how I fell into the pattern of believing forming attachments would only lead to disappointment because when you are constantly on the move, those attachments are severed. So you put up the walls, stay an observer and not a participant.
What, of course, I now understand is that building authentic connections requires ongoing and transparent conversations. These connections don’t just come naturally; they take effort and ongoing maintenance. They require vulnerability, curiosity, and the courage to be seen - you must be brave.
Belonging to yourself isn’t about self-sufficiency or independence. It’s about knowing yourself well enough to show up authentically in relationships with others.
You can’t truly belong with others until you know who you are. But equally, you can’t fully know who you are without the mirror of genuine connection. We discover ourselves in relation to others. We grow through relationships that challenge us, support us, and see us clearly.
Brené Brown defines connection as “the energy between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued.“
I’ve realised there’s something of a circular effect though, the more I’ve learned to belong to myself—to understand my patterns, my triggers, my history—the more capacity I have for genuine connection with others. But that connection, in turn, has deepened my understanding of myself.
So each iteration of me learning more about myself, the more genuine the connections I form with others, and in turn each of those connections teaches me something about myself and round and round we go. A virtuous cycle. I guess the trick is to get onto the treadmill to start with. And that means deliberately cultivating the skills and courage needed to forge meaningful relationships.
I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan, and The Wall is a favourite album - I saw Roger Waters and band play the album at a concert in Melbourne years ago, where they built the wall - completely dividing the audience from the band. And then pulled it down one brick at a time. I was in heaven!
The “wall” is a psychological barrier that the show’s character Pink builds to shut out the world and his pain. As he adds more “bricks” of trauma, he becomes increasingly isolated and detached, leading to a mental breakdown. But then he realises he must tear down the wall to escape his self-imposed prison and find love.
The analogy is apt. Many of us, for whatever reason, erect walls between us and the world. The turning point is when we make the crucial step to acknowledge the wall and start removing the bricks and seek connection. There will be many bricks, and only slowly will light shine through.
Loneliness is real, but it is not inevitable.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development found that the key predictor of long-term happiness and health is the quality of our relationships. Not career success, not wealth, not even good genes—but relationships. Study Dirtector Dr Robert Waldinger notes: “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.“
For those of us who have experienced long-term loneliness, and felt we were outsiders, this is a valuable insight. My history might explain why forming connections felt dangerous, but it did not define my future. My discomfort was not a sign I didn’t belong, just that I hadn’t yet learnt how to belong. I needed to learn how to form genuine connections, and to do so, I needed to start pulling down my wall and be vulnerable, in the knowledge that vulnerability does not equal weakness.
Belonging to yourself means understanding your patterns without being imprisoned by them. It means acknowledging your wounds without letting them define all your relationships. It means recognising that displacement creates certain tendencies, but it doesn’t have to write your future.
Belonging with others means showing up consistently, vulnerably, warts and all. It means letting people see you properly, even when it’s uncomfortable. It means recognising that needing others isn’t weakness.
Darwin will always be part of my story. Those five schools in eight years shaped who I became. The loneliness was real. But they’re not the whole story anymore.
The whole story includes the work I’ve done to understand those experiences. The gradual building of genuine connections. The learning to be curious instead of defensive. The practice of vulnerability. The discovery that belonging isn’t about finding the right place, it’s about cultivating the right relationships.