Maybe the hardest part of all this for me is that I still have hope, I still have some fuel left, given by a mix of hope and anger. I am a fighter: the fighter in me is exhausted and sad and bitter, but he’s also still alive and angry and a little hopeful.
I’m livid at our Western society. That’s the truth. It infuriates me that when someone comes out and says, “I’m too lonely to bear it, my life is too joyless because of lack of sufficient closeness”, society’s response (including many good-natured, well-intentioned friends) is, “Go see a therapist” and/or “Get on antidepressants”.
Antidepressants do not cure loneliness, they do not create the close connections that we — or I — need with other human beings. Apart from the fact that antidepressants actually dull ALL emotions, not only the “difficult” ones (and I don’t want to live with dulled emotions), there’s the plain fact that meds like antidepressants can maybe be, at most, a band-aid, a patch, but they do not cure loneliness, they do not solve the problem at its root. The root of the problem is in our society, in how it functions, in the nuclear family or couple format, in the importance we give to romantic relationships above all others (so if you don’t have that, you’re screwed), in the rampant and pervasive individualism. And in the tendency, especially here in the U.S., to solve everything by putting people on meds. I spent most of my life in Europe and I never saw, there, the massive use of meds for every little thing as there is here in the U.S.
You have some pain in your body somewhere? Take pain relievers.
You have some pain in your heart? Go to a shrink (now I can fully, and sadly, appreciate Woody Allen’s humor around “Americans and their shrink”).
You’re lonely? Take antidepressants.
You’re sad? Take antidepressants.
You’re nervous or worried? Take anti-anxiety meds.
What about creating, building, and maintaining real community? What about working less and fostering more free time, more time together among humans, more time out in nature?
What about asking, “Why do you feel lonely or sad or worried?”?
What about addressing the root causes of this (pervasive) loneliness, sadness, anxiety?
Almost everyone I know here in the U.S. is on some form of meds for mental health or neurodivergence. I had never, ever, seen this in the three decades I spent in Europe. The system is broken. The system here in the U.S. is broken.
The fact that Western society puts the weight of “finding a solution” almost completely on the individual (& on their/her/his family of origin and/or spouse/romantic partner, if they/she/he has one) is unhealthy, unrealistic, unsustainable. So it is unsurprising that that weight might sometimes, eventually, become unbearable.
I am not broken, despite all my loneliness and sadness.
And I’m not giving in to this broken system. I am going to fight it my way, no matter what it takes.
The Little Prince and the Fox 