Sunday

Sunday afternoon has no errands and no visitors, and the hours stretch out. Here are a few small ways to get through it.

The long afternoon

Sunday doesn't need rain to feel long. The sky can be clear and the street busy with other people's plans, and your home can still have nobody in it but you. Maybe you used to love a slow Sunday, back when the calm was your choice. Now the hours stretch because company is missing. Noticing that is fair, and it doesn't mean you're failing the day.

This page is about missing people. If the problem feels more like a gray, low mood, read rainy Sundays in the depression room. The evening after supper has its own page, long evenings at home, and so does a holiday, holidays alone. This one is for an ordinary Sunday when nobody is coming.

Skip the forced cheer

People love to tell someone alone on a Sunday to cheer up. You don't owe the afternoon a smile, and you don't owe anyone a report that it was lovely. You can be grateful and lonely at once: the tea is hot, and you still wish someone who knows your name were there to drink a cup with you.

A Sunday you'd have chosen feels different from one that drags because nobody's coming, and you're allowed to enjoy the first kind and admit the second is hard. If your body is up for a walk and your doctor hasn't told you otherwise, take one. Turn on a lamp before the room gets dark. You don't have to fill every hour.

Reaching out on a Sunday

If you'd like company, one small step is plenty, and it's allowed to fall through. Make a phone call you can manage, write a short note, or go to a hall, a church, or a coffee shop where you can stay an hour at the edge and leave when you want. If it doesn't work out, that's one Sunday, and there will be others to try again. This site won't teach you how to talk anyone into spending Sunday with you, because everything here is about your own mind. That includes the voice that calls the wish pathetic, and that voice is wrong.

No page can promise you a friend by next Sunday. If wanting a friend is the main thing, read wanting a friend at seventy. When a heaviness has been hanging around on other days too, the depression room can help. You don't have to figure out which page fits before you're welcome in either one.

Medicine on an empty Sunday

If you take an antidepressant or any other prescribed medicine, an empty Sunday is never a reason to stop it, skip it, or change the dose. Keep taking it as prescribed and bring any questions to your doctor. Medicine and loneliness covers this in more detail.

For the rest of the afternoon, keep things small. Eat at the table, even with the other chair empty. Say one true sentence, to someone you trust or just to the room: "This afternoon is long, and I'd like some company." Then let the rest of Sunday go however it goes. If the day starts to feel frightening, go straight to the next section.

If you need care

If you're in crisis in the United States, call or text 988 (https://988lifeline.org/) now, before you read any further. You don't need a good reason or the right words. If you're outside the United States, call your local emergency number or a local crisis line. A real person can stay on the line with you.

If you're not in crisis but the loneliness has brought something heavier with it, like a flat feeling, a tiredness sleep doesn't fix, or a sense that tomorrow has shrunk, tell your doctor. Keep any prescribed medicine as prescribed until you've talked it over together. There's more in the loneliness room, short definitions in the glossary (including loneliness and adjunct to care), and short answers in the FAQ. Nothing here is for sale, and no page can promise you a friend. This page is not yet medically reviewed.