Lost In Isolation

I believe all humans have felt the strong urge to separate themselves, to create a bubble within their lives that allows them to disappear for hours on end.

Our fellow humans are still incredible to be around, but those quiet, mindful moments with oneself usually lead to wonderful peace and calm.

That is until it no longer works that way. When your bubble only becomes tighter and tighter, when the number of people you interact with becomes slimmer, things only get bleaker.

There’s a fine line between spending mindful moments alone and finding yourself lost in isolation. And unfortunately, every time I lean more into silent self-care, my self-destructive isolation reappears, clawing through regardless of how well my mental health improves.

It honestly never makes much sense. Why is it so easy to separate from my living, breathing world? Am I the only one wired this way, or is reverting to a reclusive lifestyle just that easy in our present day and age?

Some professionals paint it as a feedback loop. Dr. Michael Jochananov explains that “Depression can become a feedback loop when isolating leads people to feel lonely, and the more a person feels alone the more depressed they can get.”

Those sentiments easily resonate with me. Bouts of depression are too common in my daily life, yet our human brain is far from equipped to spend extended time alone.

Back when our technology wasn’t so advanced, our human survival depended on our group efficiency, on the generational trait we all shared to work together to ensure our days and nights continued.

But living in a country built to create a complete life of ease leads to feeling like we need that human contact less and less, replacing it with the onslaught of entertainment spurting out content regularly.

Even though it’s that much easier to lose myself in isolation, I can readily recognize the negative effects this has on the health and wealth of our minds.

Taking things step by step, the sun shines brighter when I understand that human contact is necessary and needed, challenging me to escape from my self-contained mental bubble.

It feels so good to spend time with myself, but as I grow each day, I understand how much better being lost in isolation is when all the other days in between swell with the beauty of my fellow human beings.