The Student Room Group

Loneliness in foundation years

Hi all,

I suffer from severe long term social anxiety and have received therapy for years for the treatment of this. This has affected me most of my life and it has left me very isolated during medical school where I made zero friends and instead just had some acquaintances (the kind where I would just stop and chat with briefly). Any friendships I did make at the beginning would disappear, mainly due to getting into multiple long term relationships during university that ended in heartbreak. Medical school was not a great time for me, I found it very cliquey and it is sad that I didn't make any friends during this time (I only keep in touch with one former non-medic flatmate from university and we are very close friends).

I am now living at home and doing my F2 training in London and again its been difficult to make new friends; although with therapy I've made progress, due to COVID there have been limited chances to socialise. Ive increasingly felt more and more depressed/isolated with the situation. I wish I could have some more support through training but sometimes just dont know who to trust amongst colleagues. Any tips to cope?
Original post by Anonymous
Hi all,

I suffer from severe long term social anxiety and have received therapy for years for the treatment of this. This has affected me most of my life and it has left me very isolated during medical school where I made zero friends and instead just had some acquaintances (the kind where I would just stop and chat with briefly). Any friendships I did make at the beginning would disappear, mainly due to getting into multiple long term relationships during university that ended in heartbreak. Medical school was not a great time for me, I found it very cliquey and it is sad that I didn't make any friends during this time (I only keep in touch with one former non-medic flatmate from university and we are very close friends).

I am now living at home and doing my F2 training in London and again its been difficult to make new friends; although with therapy I've made progress, due to COVID there have been limited chances to socialise. Ive increasingly felt more and more depressed/isolated with the situation. I wish I could have some more support through training but sometimes just dont know who to trust amongst colleagues. Any tips to cope?

It is really difficult to make good friends. Psychologists suggest it takes over 50 hours of meaningful time together.
The only way forward is to make one friend at a time, difficult tho that may seem. Do you have an active junior doctors mess? Join them, offer to help organise something. Organising something can be the easiest ‘in’ to a difficult situation.
Does your team do a ‘Costa run’ or similar. Little things like being part of this, or sharing with the team things like home made cake... small elements of interaction give you courage to make into bigger ones. Having lunch together, if that happens, being the person that says ‘yes’ with a smile.
You have to offer up some of yourself to make friends, always a big hurdle! You can do it.

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