Loneliness In Mental Illness

At times the effects of my depression are amplified by a sense of loneliness.  It would seem from conversations with friends who also have some form of depression that loneliness is not unfamiliar to them, and in fact can be a very serious difficulty in their lives.  Loneliness, a sense of dissatisfaction with being alone and a resulting want for the presence of others, is not necessarily its own mental illness, like depression or social anxiety, but it can accompany things like depression and make the experience of mental illness even more hellacious.

When a person experiences a deep, lasting sadness or a regular sense of anxiety, he or she could begin to abstain from making new human relationships or cultivating existing ones, all due to a sense of isolation.  Despite this, such a person could crave connection with other people and yet feel lonely in the midst of others.  Even being around others on a regular basis, for school or for work, may not alleviate this sense of loneliness, and could even heighten it.  This can prove exhausting and emotionally crippling.  Loneliness can certainly be prominent in the lives of those who do not have disorders like depression, but it can be especially disheartening for those that do.

Yet battle with a mental illness is a time when the powers of sociality can be most potent in someone's life.  The struggles may take an intense toll on someone's emotional side, and some people, especially extroverts, require relationships in order to recharge.  Loneliness can be particularly horrifying for extroverts, as they naturally gain energy from the presence of or interaction with other people.  Even so, introverts can certainly have deep social needs, though they can be very selective about who they get them fulfilled through.  I know introverts who have told me stories of their own agonizing loneliness.

People with mental illness can feel quite lonely if others do not understand their suffering, or if they are not attentive to it, especially if the people who don't understand are people who are supposed to love them.  When parents, friends, and significant others or spouses do not understand what someone with, say, depression is going through, the sufferer can feel excluded from emotional intimacy, which might only compound the perceived effects of the condition.  Those with mental illness need whatever comfort and contentment they can derive from their relationships with friends and family.

When Christians are lonely, they should of course seek communion with God.  But, at least for some people, prayer simply isn't going to remove the desire for another visible human to talk to.  I know that prayer, while it can leave and has at times left me with a sense of fulfillment, does not sate the part of my mind that longs for human companionship.  This is not because prayer is not a needed and valuable thing, but because private communication with God was never meant to fulfill the need for intimacy with other humans.  Sometimes a person wants and needs a companion that can be physically embraced and visually seen.  Human friends that one can form an intense intellectual, spiritual, and personal bond with might prove rare and difficult to find.  Christians, especially Christians with conditions like depression or anxiety, can find such friendships unspeakably helpful.