Dueling with Depression: the ubiquity of loneliness

I was out one night with friends smoking a cigarette between beers, and I remember standing on the sidewalk, almost shaking in the cold while we talked about relationships and that general feeling of loneliness from being single.

Then one of my friends mentioned he would rather be in a bad relationship than be by himself. This surprised me a bit, as I’d much rather be alone than live with someone who makes me feel alone.

But at the same time, I get it. Loneliness hurts. It’s shards of broken glass scraping away at your heart. And when you’re struggling with depression, those shards cut even deeper. “If only I wasn’t alone,” I’d think to myself, “I’d feel better.”

Author Andrew Solomon, who has written books and lectured about his own experiences in dealing with depression, published an article in The Guardian calling depression a disease of loneliness.

“Many untreated depressives lack friends,” Solomon writes, “because it saps the vitality that friendship requires and immures its victims in an impenetrable sheath, making it hard for them to speak or hear words of comfort.”

And the irony of feeling lonely when we’re more connected to each other than ever before in human history isn’t lost on me. A recent study in the United Kingdom revealed that one out of 10 people don’t have a close friend, which amounts to over 4.5 million people in the UK who feel like an island surrounded by a sea of people.

We’re not alone in our loneliness.

But there’s a danger, I feel, in thinking that eradicating loneliness would somehow eradicate depression. I see people torturing themselves with the idea that if only they found the right partner or the right friend, they’d be less depressed.

I’m very fortunate to have several close friends in my life, one of whom I’ve known for decades. I feel completely comfortable confiding in them with my own struggles, my own vulnerabilities, my own shadowy secrets. But the depression is still there — always there — deeply embedded in my chest like an axe.

In fact, there have been times when those friendships have been strained, as the thought of returning a friend’s message becomes needlessly and frustratingly overwhelming.

It’s difficult to find a friend or partner who works to understand that part of you. And it’s easy to find people who call themselves your friend only use that against you.

There’s also a therapeutic value to loneliness as it forces me to disconnect, at least for a time, and reflect. “All great and precious things are lonely,” wrote Steinbeck.

One of my favorite things to do is go on long hikes by myself, purposely getting a little lost in nature. I stop and listen to the wind shoulder its way through the trees. I witness the sun get swallowed up by the horizon. I drink in the night sky and glimpse this vast, seemingly isolated universe we all find ourselves born into.

There’s nothing wrong with someone because they feel lonely, especially when you consider how small we are from a cosmic perspective. But it’s a misstep to attempt to fill that void with people who may not accept you for the complete mess that makes you who you are.

After all, we’re all kind of a mess, depressed or not. And we all feel lonely, relationship or not.

Being lonely means being human.