Dear Phil: When workplace loneliness made me blind to the help around me
- Phil McAuliffe and Dr Hans Rocha IJzerman
- 4 days ago
- 13 min read
What happens when a dream promotion becomes a lonely nightmare? In this Dear Phil, a leader shares how connection turned isolation into courage and creativity.
Hello my friend
What happens when a dream promotion turns into something very different? When the initial excitement fades and how doubt quickly takes its place, without training, mentoring or support?
In this Dear Phil, a reader shares how loneliness crept in, and how connection brought them back.
Join us now and see how Dr Hans Rocha IJzerman and I walk alongside the reader - and you.
Here’s the situation shared with us
I was promoted to a leadership role for the company I work for.
The opportunity was amazing on paper, but it quickly became a living nightmare when training was insufficient, and support quickly dissolved over the following 3 months. The combination of both left me feeling inadequate to complete my tasks in my new role and in my chosen career. I approached my superior at the time and received little to no support in the work I was given - this started to feed a narrative in my head that I was the problem and that I did not deserve to be in the position I was put in.
These thoughts turned from an internal conflict to external ailments, where I was becoming distant from my partner, my family and my friends. I felt alone.
I knew that I was changing for the worse and needed something to change - so I sought the assistance of my Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and spoke to a counsellor. This led to me seeing my General Practitioner (GP) who together diagnosed me with suffering from social anxiety and minor depression.
Through speaking with the EAP Counsellors and my GP, I developed the language to be able to communicate my pain points at work to the leadership team. They were amazing and quickly assisted me in finding my happiness in work again. I believe they were always there to do so, but I was so blind to their eagerness to help because I felt (and believed) that I was alone in the situation.
Today I am much happier, and have stronger bonds with all my team members because I was able to communicate clearly what was happening and have the courage to be very vulnerable to my colleagues.
Conversations with colleagues go to a much deeper level with some.
Productivity is much better, I am thinking clearly without the 'voices' crowding my head.
Creativity is back, I am no longer afraid to try new things or voice new approaches.
Phil says
What a powerful story you’ve shared. Thank you. I imagine many readers nodded along as they read your words, remembering times when they experienced something similar.
Before I start, I want to say that we know that humans notice their loneliness most at times of change. Sometimes that change can be major - like when someone we love dies, a relationship ends or we move away from friends and family. Sometimes it can be seem 'minor' - like a new role within the same workplace. Either way, this knowledge can help us respond to loneliness we can expect to feel at these times. I've written an article on how we can anticipate this and respond to these changes on the HUMANS:CONNECTING blog previously (see 'How to Thrive Through Life's Transitions').
There are a few points from what you shared that really stuck out for me. I want to go through each of them.
Training without support
‘training was insufficient, and support quickly dissolved over the following 3 months. The combination of both left me feeling inadequate to complete my tasks in my new role and in my chosen career’
Here it sounds like there was some training and support, but they were insufficient to what you needed once the work began. It must have felt like you were pushed into the deep end of the pool: sink or swim.
I’m curious here about the nature of the training you were given. Training for a new role can often be a few conversations over a coffee with our new supervisor where our supervisor simply downloads whatever comes to mind in the moment. Other times it’s a folder labelled ‘training’ – whether an actual folder or an electronic one – with some outdated documents of questionable relevance.
Wherever on that spectrum your training fell, I suspect your supervisor told you that you could always ask questions. But when you’re new, you don’t yet know what to ask. And later, when the questions come, your supervisor may be too busy, distracted, or answer with a tone that feels like: “You don’t know this yet??!”
It's at this point that it feels like the stories that made you question your entire career choice crept in. Those stories where we doubt our performance and our suitability to even do the job are one that I’m intimately familiar with, too. The frequent state of confusion creates doubt, and that doubt snowballs.
The doubt morphs into self-criticism, until you begin questioning whether you belong in the role at all. That is a horrible mental and emotional space to be in, and a very lonely one.
The story we tell ourselves
'I approached my superior at the time and received little to no support in the work I was given - this started to feed a narrative in my head that I was the problem and that I did not deserve to be in the position I was put in.'
First, I want to acknowledge your courage in asking for help. That was the right thing to do. The lack of support was on them, not you. While that’s easy to say from a distance, the daily experience of that is horrible.
Secondly, you raise something that’s important: the internal narrative began to feed itself. You were not undeserving of your promotion, your role or your career. What you didn’t deserve was being left unsupported. That’s an important distinction.
When workplace loneliness takes hold, it doesn't stay at work
'These thoughts turned from an internal conflict to external ailments, where I was becoming distant from my partner, my family and my friends. I felt alone.'
These lines are important, and I want to pause with you here. What you describe here is the physical and mental manifestation of loneliness. You started withdrawing, possibly due to the unworthiness story you were telling yourself about your work bleeding into other parts of your life.
This is a common and understandable response. You started to get sick and, I presume, miss work.
I’m curious about what your initial response to this was. I often see that people did what I did: double down on the work and push through. It’s tempting to do this, but all we end up doing is feeding our loneliness by digging ourselves deeper into the hole.
This strategy leaves us feeling exhausted. We deny invitations to connect – whatever that connection is – or do things that bring us joy because we’re simply so tired. This feeds our loneliness.
I feel that the distance you felt between yourself and others in your life and the distance you felt within yourself was subtle at first. I doubt that you recognised the growing distance at first, but then that distance became impossible to ignore.
How awful this feeling must have been. I’m sorry you experienced that.
Worthiness striking back
'I knew that I was changing for the worse and needed something to change - so I sought the assistance of my Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and spoke to a counsellor. This led to me seeing my General Practitioner (GP) who together diagnosed me with suffering from social anxiety and minor depression.'
There are so many good things in what you’ve shared here. You experienced what I call your ‘worthiness striking back’: the inner defiance that says ‘I deserve better’. You took steps. You reached out.
This was the turning point.
I’m curious to know, did your doctor ask you about the state of your social health and how connected you felt? The reason that I ask is that we know that unaddressed loneliness is an antecedent condition for anxiety and depression (source). It’s sometimes that the symptoms are treated without acknowledging – or even being aware of – an underlying cause of social ill health.
Finding the words and language
'I developed the language to be able to communicate my pain points at work to the leadership team. They were amazing and quickly assisted me in finding my happiness in work again. I believe they were always there to do so, but I was so blind to their eagerness to help because I felt (and believed) that I was alone in the situation.'
This is the power of the language of loneliness. We don’t talk about loneliness because we don’t know the words to use. We’ve seen from other ‘Dear Phil’ columns that the words we use point to something else – like workload issues – but leave the loneliness unnamed and unaddressed. Once you began to speak openly, others responded with care. Bravo to you for speaking up AND to the leadership team who met you with such care.
Be gentle with yourself here. You weren’t wilfully blind to their eagerness to help.
Loneliness’ superpower is in it convincing us that we are the only person to have ever felt this way, and that even if we tried to explain, no one would understand.
That lie drives us further inward, feeding the disconnection.
The spring in your step returns
'Today I am much happier, and have stronger bonds with all my team members because I was able to communicate clearly what was happening and have the courage to be very vulnerable to my colleagues.
Conversations with colleagues go to a much deeper level with some.
Productivity is much better, I am thinking clearly without the 'voices' crowding my head.
Creativity is back, I am no longer afraid to try new things or voice new approaches.'
This is wonderful. Your words convey joy, ease and flow. The spring seems to be back in your step.
What’s important is for you to note this down as an example of what can come on the other side of responding to the challenge. In this instance, it was the connection and support that you needed in your workplace.
We are so good at convincing ourselves that we’re the problem. Yet often, what we need — connection, support, and ease — waits on the far side of courage, in the simple act of asking for help.
Thank you for sharing your story, and your outcome, with us. Your courage will help others find theirs.
Dr Hans says
Reading your story stirred what my friends and fellow researchers Drs Alan Fiske, Beate Seibt, and Thomas Schubert (and their colleagues) call kama muta - that profound feeling of being moved when witnessing genuine human connection and care.
Your journey from isolation to belonging exemplifies something beautiful about our fundamental nature: we are wired to flourish in community, not suffer alone.
First, let me affirm something important: you earned that promotion. In the fog of loneliness and depression, it’s easy to question our worth or chalk success up to luck. But your leaders saw your talent and potential—they believed in you, even when you didn’t believe in yourself. You belonged in that role.
Social Baseline Theory
Your experience beautifully illustrates what another friend, Dr Jim Coan, describes in Social Baseline Theory: This theory suggests our brains evolved to assume that trusted others will be nearby.
In fact, when we’re connected, our brains use fewer resources to deal with challenges. But when that expectation is violated - when we feel alone - our nervous system ramps up. Everything becomes harder, cognitively and emotionally. And not metaphorically - neurobiologically harder.
Dr Jim’s studies are striking. In one, participants facing a mild threat while holding the hand of a trusted partner showed reduced activity in brain regions associated with fear and effort.
Simply put: when someone is there for us, the world feels safer, and our minds work better.
The return of your clarity and creativity after reconnecting with colleagues was not accidental. It was your brain resuming its natural, socially regulated state.
Effective workplace loneliness interventions are extraordinarily difficult
Yet when we consider interventions on how to help people, I must express deep skepticism about our field's ability to reliably distinguish effective from ineffective workplace loneliness interventions. The most comprehensive meta-analyses to date shows concerning patterns: effect sizes vary wildly across studies, most research suffers from small samples and brief follow-ups, and publication bias heavily skews toward positive results. And even if some interventions show promise in academic settings, they are much harder to scale to real organizational contexts.
This research gap points to something important: designing effective workplace interventions is extraordinarily difficult, requiring nuanced understanding of organizational dynamics, cultural contexts, and individual differences that academics rarely possess. I increasingly believe that practitioners and lived experience experts - people like Phil who have navigated workplace loneliness themselves - are best positioned to design these interventions, with scientists providing rigorous measurement and evaluation support rather than leading the design process.
Academic research excels at identifying mechanisms and measuring outcomes, but the messy work of creating psychologically safe, culturally responsive interventions requires different expertise.
The balance between privacy and offering meaningful support
But your story also surfaces a painful paradox: how should workplaces balance respect for employee privacy with the need to offer meaningful psychological support? This tension is especially tricky because the boundary between personal and professional life is often blurry. While individuals should absolutely retain agency over how much they share, companies can do more than wait until a crisis emerges.
One idea we’re exploring in our product development is the development of early indicators - ethically designed, privacy-respecting ways to help people notice changes in their own social and emotional patterns before things spiral, like a self-assessment tool where the report is only available to the employee.
These wouldn’t be surveillance tools or HR-driven diagnostics, but rather self-reflective supports: tools that help individuals better understand when they’re veering off their social baseline and guide them toward help if they choose. Because loneliness rarely appears overnight - it accumulates, often silently.
Still, no tool can replace the foundational role of human support. That’s why I was heartened to read that your workplace had a counselor and Employee Assistance Program, and that this helped you connect with your GP and begin a path toward healing. While loneliness is often shaped by structural or environmental forces, there are moments—like yours—when timely, professional care makes all the difference.
I want to acknowledge that with deep respect. You sought help. You showed up for yourself. That takes strength.
Loneliness warps perception
Your story also touches on something we see again and again in research: the way loneliness warps perception. You mentioned being “blind to their eagerness to help” - a pattern that’s well documented.
When we feel disconnected, our cognitive lens shifts. We misinterpret neutral or even kind cues as disinterest or rejection, reinforcing withdrawal. Breaking that cycle typically requires both internal shifts - like therapy or coaching - and external changes in the environment.
That’s why organizations should be cautious about quick fixes. Apps, nudges, or wellness campaigns might feel modern, but they’re often too generic to address the complex, personal nature of loneliness.
The evidence is far stronger for structural interventions: psychologically safe leadership, meaningful collaboration, adequate onboarding, and time to build real interpersonal trust. Supporting mental and social health isn’t about adding one more program - it’s about embedding connection into the very fabric of how work happens.
That said, your story also reveals something that many organizations don’t get enough credit for: even when the situation was far from ideal, your workplace had essential scaffolding in place. An Employee Assistance Program, access to counseling, a responsive manager—these don’t fix everything, but they matter.
And they mattered for you.
Providing support before crisis
The real challenge is how to activate these supports before someone reaches a tipping point. That’s hard. Most people don’t announce they’re lonely. Many don’t realize it themselves until things are already fraying. But companies can still take proactive steps: checking in after major role transitions, normalizing emotional ups and downs in performance reviews, embedding relational check-ins into team rhythms - not as surveillance, but as care.
This requires humility and experimentation. It means not assuming that one intervention will work for everyone. But the effort counts. Despite not having that warning system in place, your organization got many things right, especially in how it responded once you were able to speak. That’s a powerful reminder: being proactive doesn’t mean being perfect - it means staying attuned and ready to act when the signal comes through.
Systemic support wrapped around you
What struck me most about your story was how things shifted once you found language - once you could name what you were going through, and people responded with care. The change wasn’t just inside you. It was in the system around you responding differently. That’s why we need personalized and relational approaches - not just to treat loneliness when it appears, but to build workplaces that make it less likely to take root in the first place.
Your recovery is a testament to that kind of environment. And now, having lived through it, you’re in a unique position to notice subtle signs in others, to create a culture where people feel seen before they fall through the cracks.
Thank you for sharing your story with such courage that touched me deeply and made me feel kama muta.
You remind us that loneliness at work is not a personal failure - it's a signal that connection is needed.
Your experience shows how challenging this can be for everyone involved - organizations trying to balance support with respect for privacy, individuals struggling to articulate complex emotional needs.
What's beautiful about your story is how well your workplace ultimately responded once communication became possible. When we recognize connection as essential infrastructure and approach these challenges with patience and care on all sides, people thrive.
What we heard in this story is not unique, but it is urgent.
At HUMANS:CONNECTING and Annecy Behavioral Science Lab, we believe that meaningful human connection must be part of how we lead, how we support, and how we show up. Every day.
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That’s it for this article
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~ Phil
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