I finished reading Lonely by Emily White.
It was a riveting read. I never thought that a topic like loneliness could compel me to read a book cover to cover and so quickly. It's a weirdly taboo topic. No one talks about it, yet, loneliness is seeping into our lives ever so gently. It’s becoming much more common now than before to become lonely. It's here to stay.
I wanted to write another post to concisely capture the takeaways from this book. It made a profound impact on my understanding of the need for social connection and how immensely it influences ones life.
A SLIPPING SELF-CONCEPT
I was unaware of how much impact our connection with the society has on us holding on to our carefully constructed / developed / crafted sense of self. It can slowly start to chip away when connections with other people start to decline. Growth becomes stagnant.
Your inner monologue can only nourish you for so much time. Emily shares research on how this sense of self can start to slip as loneliness extends beyond years.
A MISSING CONNECTION
Loneliness is often not talked about and there's a few reasons for this. Of course, its a stigmatized topic, that's one reason. No one wants to be seen as lonely.
But, there's another reason that was surprising to me. Emily compares depression with loneliness and how we do not feel as anxious about associating ourselves with depression as we do with loneliness. Largely, as a society, we have come to peace with the fact that depression is a growing problem and that it deserves a conversation and our serious attention. There's an ongoing cultural and political conversation about depression which makes it somewhat of an accessible condition to talk about. We know to a certain degree, even if its vague, what happens to a person when they get depressed. We have the "words" to talk about it.
I never thought about this before, but it’s true, isn't it? We don't see loneliness being talked about as something deserving of our tax dollars. There's rarely any admissions of feeling chronically lonely. Where should someone even begin if they want to bring up loneliness as a problem that plagues their life?
Emily talks about one specific conversation where there was opportunity for her to talk about loneliness and confront it with her family, but the words to bring it up were largely missing, she realized. Where would she begin? She'd have to go into explaining her whole research before going into her own experience for any of it to make sense.
CHOOSE CAREFULLY
When disclosing loneliness or seeking help for it, there's potential for the person with whom you decide to talk about it to take offence in the disclosure. The many causes and effects of loneliness are not understood very well. There is potential for the, "Am I not enough of a 'dash'?", question to arise. Fill in the 'dash' with your choice of relation - friend, husband, wife, brother, sister, mom, dad, etc. The fear of confronting this question can lead one to hide their loneliness altogether.
There's also the fear of being judged harshly as a person. A lonely person is largely seen as undesirable and problematic. No one wants to be viewed this way leading to further hiding your struggles.
Talking about a problem let's us define it. Once its defined, we can take action to make things a little better. But, with so much anxiety bubblingup over this topic, how are the lonely to reach out for help? Who do they reach out to?
NO TAX MONEY
Due to a larger cultural conversation that is missing, there are no avenues for lonely people to reach out to for help where they can get some guidance on how to slowly come out of loneliness and get somewhat reintegrated socially.
Loneliness is not recognized as a mental health condition or something that carries enough weight to be added into the DSM, which can limit the amount of money flowing into systems that might help the lonely people. Emily discusses how loneliness can be difficult to classify as a mental health problem or a brain related condition, owing to the fact that its a very human experience that anyone can fall into but also stressing that extended periods of loneliness can have a profound impact on ones long-term health and overall longevity. It's an inherently complex thing to classify as well has highly subjective in nature.
IN CONCLUSION
I might add to this article later. Emily has written another book on this same topic but in this next one she focusses more on the connections and the action taking part. It's called Count Me In and I can't wait to read it.
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Sneha