ISOLATION, LONELINESS AND DEPRESSION

 

It is both odd and tragic that in this age of the internet, cell phones, text-messaging, and various forms of e-communications, we should still be discussing the ills of isolation and loneliness. However, despite all the outlets at our disposal to “reach-out,” the problems seem to be escalating along with the resulting depression. Psychiatrists Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz cite two “major studies” in this regard. In the first:

• “McPherson found that between 1985 and 2004, the number of people with whom the average American discussed ‘important matters’ dropped from three to two. Even more stunning, the number of people who said that there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled: in 2004, individuals without a single confidant now made up nearly a quarter of those surveyed” (The Lonely American, 2). 

This is particularly serious because loneliness and isolation seem to provide optimal conditions for social-psychological breakdown.  Olds and Schwartz observe that, “A great many people who think of themselves as depressed have in fact a sense of isolation at the core of their feelings.” (5-6) 

Many explanations are brought forward to explain our growing isolation. Some cite America’s legendary pioneering spirit and our emphasis on self-reliance. Others suggest that loneliness is a product of our frenetic pace. However, these explanations fail to explain the recent nose-dive in levels of intimacy, since we have always been self-reliant and frenetic!  In addition to this, there is the finding of James Buie that “Depression…for those born after 1950 is as much as twenty times higher than the incidence rate for those born before 1910” (Edward Welch, Depression: A Stubborn Darkness, 113). 

What then has happened to us in recent decades? I’d like to suggest that one of the greatest culprits for this phenomenon has ironically been the cult of “self-esteem.” Welch appropriately asks: “What happens when people are raised on a steady diet of ‘You are great, you can do anything, you deserve it, you are the best’…Depression and denial are the only two options left.”

Why this dismal assessment? For one thing, we become addicted to relying upon an inflated self-esteem to get us out of bed in the morning. This means we need increasingly higher levels of the “drug” of self-esteem. It also suggests that for the self-esteem fix to work, we have to believe it. Therefore, before long, we come to believe that we are a highly superior person and, consequently, to maintain our emotional high, we deny and repress all data to the contrary. Isn’t this our natural inclination anyway?  How much easier to succeed at this when society is telling us that believing in ourselves is such an admirable goal!

What then happens to our relationships when we believe we are god-like and deny everything that contradicts us? We cease to share a common reality—a necessity for meaningful relationships. Have you ever tried to relate in a meaningful way to someone who thought he was Napoleon or Caesar?  It’s impossible! 

Consistent with the “religion” of our day, I too had convinced myself that I was a superior human being and that nothing could stop me once I made up my mind. Although it gave me a confidence and a swagger, I was paying an increasingly high price for this mental addiction. First of all, failing to assess myself correctly, I made many foolish and painful decisions. But perhaps even more importantly, I had isolated myself from others, although not purposely. On an unconscious level, I needed others to affirm what I believed about myself. When they treated me according to what they saw with their eyes, I, of course, was offended. They had failed to give me the acknowledgement I thought I deserved and had contradicted everything I was trying to tell myself. Furthermore, whenever I had a disagreement, having already denied my own culpability, I was convinced that all the blame belonged to the other guy. I was “Caesar,” and everyone else refused to recognize this fact.

It is only as I became assured that Christ loved me and would accept me forever that I was able to accept myself. It was only in the context of His love that I had the courage to face the painful truths about myself along with my self-delusions.

Now, I love to be transparent and laugh at my foibles in front of my students. They find this liberating. It enables them to set aside their mask and also laugh at themselves. One student remarked about how different and refreshing this experience is from being with someone who maintains his façade and brags about himself—something that drives people away and kills relationships.

What gives us this liberty? Knowing that we belong to the One who loves us and has died for our sins:

• I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Knowing that I no longer must carry myself on my own shoulders has been a great relief. Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). Consequently, I have thrown away my mask and can now laugh.

 

 

 

Where Friendship Blooms

 

In “Made for Friendship,” Drew Hunter reintroduces us to the often-overlooked importance of friendship:

• Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great were early church fathers and well-known theologians. But they were also best friends. Their friendship endured through distance and even significant relational challenges. Gregory once wrote to Basil, “The greatest benefit which life has brought me is your friendship.” He also wrote, “If anyone were to ask me, ‘What is the best thing in life?’ I would answer, ‘Friends.’” We know the Reformation-launching Martin Luther, but his friends also knew him for his “table talk”—his lively doctrinal discussions around the dinner table.

The Apostle Paul also appreciated the joys of friendship. I would imagine that his attachments had enriched and even enabled his ministry:

• Indeed [Epaphroditus] was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. (Philippians 2:27-28)

We feel uncomfortable about such expressions of friendship lest it might be perceived as a homosexual advance or attachment. However, Hunter points out that many giants of the faith had no such problem with this:

• We might think of John Calvin pondering great thoughts at a lonely desk, but “a close study of Calvin’s career reveals that friendships were the joy of his life.” Addressing two of his closest friends, he wrote, “I think that there has never been, in ordinary life, a circle of friends so sincerely bound to each other as we have been in our ministry.”

However, today there seems to be an obvious lack of such intimate and sustaining friendships. Numerous surveys have noted the growth of loneliness and its dire costs. According to a recent survey, most people do not have an intimate confidant. Why? A consensus emerged that it was largely about shame. People are ashamed to open up and to be exposed, but why would this now become epidemic?

Earlier studies have indicated that this kind of alienation has never been so prevalent. It seems that it is harder to now accept ourselves, and therefore to allow others in. Instead, we are now more likely to wear an impenetrable façade, which we only expose to the friend-substitute - our psychotherapist. We cannot bear the thought of others seeing us the way we really are.

What has changed? Don’t we now live in a society that is more accepting of weaknesses and differences? Well, I have a theory about this. I think that we now have a greater difficulty in accepting ourselves because we have abandoned the love and acceptance of God. Without Him, we are now left to fend for ourselves. We are therefore burdened with the task of loving and believing in ourselves. However, this generally means that we have to lie to ourselves – to deny the dark side and to inflate the good.

We are in hiding, even from ourselves. We resolve our disagreements by always concluding that the other guy is wrong. Instead, of receiving the all-defining affirmations that come from the love of God, we are in desperate need of the affirmations that come from others and from our “successes.” We also become social justice warriors to fill the emptiness.

If we are so needful of these affirmations, how then can we allow our brokenness and shame to be seen!

As a result, the fertile seedbed of friendship has been cemented shut, and transparency has become an endangered species. If we cannot be real with ourselves, how can we be real with others! Our defensive masks remain in place, and it is difficult to relate meaningfully and comfortably to a mask.

To fill the emptiness, we join meetup groups, but our mask remains unmovable. We also become workaholics and seek out non-threatening distractions.

Pastors are particularly vulnerable to loneliness. Their congregation regards them as almost god-like, and they feel the burden to keep up that image.

We can no longer be vulnerable and broken. However, once we believe that our brokenness is beautiful in the eyes of our Savior, our brokenness can begin to be beautiful even to us:

• The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18-19)

There is also a subsidiary benefit. Once we can accept our own brokenness, we can also begin to accept the suffering of others.

The Plague of Loneliness

Today’s bubonic plague is not caused by a pathogen. Instead, it is caused by the absence of an “intruder.” However, loneliness can be every bit as destructive as the plague, and it has become as epidemic. Theologian Jerram Barrs writes:

• In the polls taken of our contemporaries, people say over and over again that their primary personal difficulty is personal loneliness. That is extraordinary. You think of all the contact we have with people in this culture, but people’s number one identified problem is personal loneliness. People simply do not know how to make close relationships.

Indeed, this growing social isolation is even more remarkable in view of the many new ways that we now have to connect – Facebook, Skype, cell phones, meet-ups, dating services…

These findings tally with a survey that came out three years ago, indicating that 25% of respondents indicated that they lacked a personal confidante. The same survey had been conducted 15 years earlier, but found that only 10% lacked a confidante.

This parallels the findings of Harvard Sociologist Robert Putnam who observed:

• A broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement…began a quarter-century ago.

• Voting, political knowledge, political trust, and grassroots political activism are all down. Americans sign 30 per cent fewer petitions and are 40 per cent less likely to join a consumer boycott, as compared to just a decade or two ago. The declines are equally visible in non-political community life: membership and activity in all sorts of local clubs and civic and religious organizations have been falling at an accelerating pace. In the mid-1970s the average American attended some club meeting every month, by 1998 that rate of attendance had been cut by nearly 60 per cent.

• In 1975 the average American entertained friends at home 15 times per year; the equivalent figure (1998) is now barely half that. Virtually all leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.

Many cite greater tolerance as a positive relational development of our increasingly secular society. However, Putnam found that, meanwhile, the trust level was taking a hit:   

• Although Americans are more tolerant of one another than were previous generations, they trust one another less. Survey data provide one measure of the growth of dishonesty and distrust, but there are other indicators. For example, employment opportunities for police, lawyers, and security personnel were stagnant for most of this…In the last quarter century these occupations boomed, as people have increasingly turned to the courts and the police.

As Putnam suggests, social isolation or loneliness might have multiple causes. I would like to focus on one thing that has made relationships more difficult – the growing failure to accept ourselves as we truly are!

Without self-acceptance, we distance ourselves from others. The self that we are unwilling to accept is the same self that we want to hide from others. Rather than showing this self, we cloth ourselves with a façade – a front or a covering. This requires a lot of psychic energy and internal struggle. We engage in habitual, self-obsessed image-management, refusing to let the other into our world – the world we cannot accept.

Why is it difficult to accept this world? We feel ashamed of it and feel certain that if others saw us as we are, they would reject us. Consequently, we condemn ourselves to an endless quest to prove ourselves through accomplishments, carefully manicured appearances, money, power, whatever! However, this just pushes others further away. They feel a pressure to match the image that we put forth.

Besides, when we can’t be real with ourselves, we can’t be real with others. This makes any connection difficult and uncomfortable. To connect, two people need to share a common reality, at least to some extent. However, if we are consumed by managing our image, we do not put forth a true picture of ourselves. What we offer is something that doesn’t line up with what others see about us. This dissonance tends to push us apart. This problem is maximized by our secular culture, which tells us to build our self-trust and self-esteem at the expense of truth - who we truly are - further alienating us from ourselves!

I know a little about this because I had experienced intense isolation. I too had felt ashamed of myself, and no amount of accomplishments, positive affirmations, or psychotherapists were able to make dent into my shame. I was convinced that in order to be loved, I had to become someone else, and for many years, this is exactly what I tried to do. However, nothing would ease my social discomfort.

So what made the difference? Knowing Christ and His love and acceptance of me! As I grew in the certainty that He accepted me thoroughly, I found that I could begin to accept myself, even laugh at myself, and admit my personal failures. Before, I was unable to confront them. They threatened the little sense of personhood and value that I had managed to retain.

Christ has been liberating (John 8:31-32)! He is also an ongoing comfort to me. Prior to this, I was unable to face my faults and guilt and could not resolve interpersonal conflict. I always had to be right. To be wrong was just too deflating and humiliating – something I couldn’t endure. I had been psychologically trapped and lacked the flexibility to relate to others.

Why didn’t anything else work for me? I certainly wanted my psychotherapists and my various lifestyle changes to work, but they couldn’t deliver. Only my Savior could!