Home care director spends seven days in total isolation to experience loneliness

The director of a home care provider in Hampshire has just spent seven days locked away in a flat with no contact with the outside world, to experience loneliness, calling it “one of the hardest and emotionally testing weeks” of her life.

Kat Thomas, who heads up Bluebird Care Gosport, set herself the daunting challenge so she could see what thousands of people go through every day and look at the impact on health and mental wellbeing.

Ms Thomas went into the flat with enough food for seven days, some books and a TV. She had no access to social media during this time and had no visitors.

The 34-year-old, who has worked in the care sector since 2011, revealed she was “very nervous” in the days running up to the challenge.

She said: “Before I went in, I thought I was more of an introvert but since I have come out, I have realized I am actually an extrovert. I live on my own and spend time alone but I am also used to seeing and speaking to people all the time. We take it for granted that we can walk to the shops and do what we want when we want.”

During the first two days, she found boredom to be the hardest to deal with. “I read an entire book in a day. However I had stopped reading by day two.”

Hitting rock bottom

She was halfway through the experiment when she hit rock bottom. “I tried to keep busy and keep a routine going where I would eat breakfast, lunch and dinner but by day four I had lost all motivation to do anything. I wasn’t interested in doing anything.

“My sleep pattern had got all mixed up as I started having real problems sleeping. I did try and avoid napping but even though I wasn’t doing anything I was tired but couldn’t sleep at all. I took my yoga mat in with me but I didn’t unroll it once.”

It wasn’t long until she sank into complete apathy, spending the majority of her days watching daytime TV, saying: “I thought I would have a real routine but however bored I was, I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything about it. On a few occasions I had to talk myself into having a shower.”

She also found her emotional state was more fragile. “I was watching a lot of TV and there were times where I would find myself crying at something that ordinarily wouldn’t make me cry.”

On the last night which was a Sunday, she did a facebook live which connected to about 40 people. “It felt so strange after talking to no one all week,” she reveals.

“On the Monday, three of my friends came to get me and we went for breakfast and I didn’t stop talking for about an hour.

"People need to see how hard isolation and loneliness can be"

“I found the day I came out very difficult. I had been alone with my thoughts for so long and you start looking at yourself and looking at your life. I questioned everything and the idea of loneliness and what it means.

“I was only in there for seven days but there are people out there living like this and not interacting or talking to people for days at a time.”

Kat Thomas’s challenge was part of a campaign by Bluebird Care Gosport to Unite Against Loneliness. The campaign aims to raise awareness of loneliness and the impact it can have on an individual’s health and wellbeing. The campaign is being run in partnership with The Silver Line, the only confidential, free helpline for older people across the UK.

Bluebird Care Gosport has a different event planned for each month of the year, which it hopes will inspire others to take part in and share across social media. Some of the monthly activities include Dinner Nights, a Pen Pal Project and Neighbours Month.

Ms Thomas said: “My biggest hope for this campaign is that it steers real change in our communities. There are so many charities, organisations and groups out there doing amazing things; The Silver Line, The Jo Cox Commission, The Campaign to End Loneliness, and lots more.

“Even the government is making serious headway in identifying the problem and steering real change but we can only make a difference if communities and people come together. If we are a society that is United Against Loneliness, then that’s when great things can and will happen.

“There are people so lonely they go to see their GP a lot more than they need to or they call out the ambulance when they just want to see someone. If loneliness was tackled properly, so much money would be saved.”

“I realized before, that home care can play a huge part in tackling loneliness and often care assistants can be the only human contact people have. But this has really cemented my belief in the importance of home care, which can often be very task based but it has so much more of a role to play such as companionship."

Ms Thomas recorded daily video blogs while she was in there. These can be viewed here.

click here for more details or to contact Bluebird Care Gosport