Thunder in the Brain

In which I discuss loneliness for Mental Health Awareness Week...

It's been a good few weeks since I last wrote here and the main reason for that is I was feeling a bit down for in the last few weeks of April. It's perhaps appropriate then that this week is Mental Health Awareness Week and the theme this year is loneliness. 

Loneliness feels like a really important theme as the pandemic has reduced our contact with each other. Due to isolation periods, not being allowed to cross bubbles and only meeting on Zoom, I have regularly felt cut off from the world over the last few years. 

I have never considered myself a particularly outgoing or sociable person, indeed I am generally something of an introvert, but I've come to recognise the value of interacting with other people. Humans have evolved to be together and every human brain needs interaction with other human brains to really function properly. If I spend a day on my own I start to feel an emptiness, a sense that my brain hasn't been stimulated. If I have a period of isolation and then interact with people again I don't notice the benefit it has until afterwards when I can almost feel the neurons firing in my brain, the fizz of things working as they should do. 

Whilst living on my own is so joyful in many ways, an occasional loneliness does come along with it. I felt this over my Easter holidays. By pure co-incidence I found that literally all the people who I would normally meet up with were on one sort of holiday or another. Of course everyone is perfectly entitled to do that and I was a little envious with finances not really allowing for a holidays anytime soon (I mean, I've had to fork out money to replace so many parts of my car in the last year it can barely be considered the same car anymore). This meant I faced a period of not seeing other humans for several days at a time, which can be quite unpleasant. 

I have struggled with my self-esteem for a long time but gradually I am starting to feel a bit more confident in myself. That said, it does fluctuate sometimes and a period of loneliness can be a trigger for a big dip. It's easy to start thinking it's your fault you are on your own, that no-one cares or wants to spend time with you. When the fog lifts it's easy to see that for the nonsense it is. My calendar for May and June is packed full of social engagements which clearly puts those thoughts down. 

There is also a vicious cycle to loneliness. Feeling lonely can affect your mental health and then your poor mental health can make you lonely. I have a bad habit when I'm feeling down to sink into myself, to avoid the social interaction and not have the day to day conversations which could actually help to improve my mood. 

Over the years, I've concluded that the very best thing to improve mental health is talking. As Brits we are not particularly good at sharing how we are feeling and men are generally even worse. The importance of checking up on friends, family and colleagues cannot be overstated. Personally I find it really easy to hide behind questions like "how are you?" (it's easy to fire out a quick yes regardless of the actual answer and move on) but a more open question like "did you do anything at the weekend?" or "how are you feeling about x thing that might be challenging" can really start a conversation going. 

I feel I've achieved the first ask of the Mental Health Awareness week campaign of "help people to understand links between loneliness and poor mental health". The second aim is to invite conversations so I'll leave that as my homework to you. Mental Health Awareness has a conversation guide for talking to someone about mental health here. You have seven days to complete this task- your time starts now.