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maandag 11 november 2019

Loneliness in Contact

Loneliness: alone with your thoughts. Next to one another comfortable sitting side by side on the bed in his study annex bedroom, looking each other straight in the eye. Jonathan felt sad.
Read the column of our ambassador for the Vrijwilligersacademie Amsterdam, Franckx van Tilbeurgh.

Jonathan and his grief

Loneliness: alone with your thoughts. Next to one another comfortable sitting side by side on the bed in his study annex bedroom, looking each other straight in the eye. Jonathan felt sad. He had cried again. What for? In our eyes he was a plucky boy that hesitated at nothing.

Our first talks by night passed rather reserved. Little by little Jonathan changed his attitude. He felt himself shut out at school: he was not allowed to take part in activities, became teased and had almost no friends. His contemporaries thought Jonathan was different from them. Jonathan felt that he was minor, did not count, did not fit to his schoolmates. For what reason?

During one of our nocturnal talks Jonathan asked me two questions, namely:
‘Dad, what do you think if you become grandfather of me?’, and
‘Dad, what do you think if you do not become grandfather of me?’
I have answered both questions in a proper way. Jonathan: ‘Thank you dad. That’s okay for me.’ As from that moment we talked about loneliness and about the feelings that are associated with desolation. Slowly everything became clear.

Now – several years later – two happily married young men frequent sit in front of us. They are well balanced, full of self-confidence. They nowadays say: ‘With the knowledge we have now we would like to return to the past. For only one day!’

On the 12th of December 2019 there will be a training called ‘A psychiatric diagnosis? Contact is the Key!’. Lidie Nonnekes and Herman Pasveer will inform us further about this topic. Please surf here and subscribe so you are sure to participate in this magnificent training.

Franckx van Tilbeurgh
Ambassador for the Vrijwilligersacademie Amsterdam

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