A Study of Isolation - From Self-Induced to Solitary Confinement
Hello. As a warning, this post may be long and discuss darker themes. If you are not in a mentally sound place, I discourage you from reading this post. Please check out a different post of mine if you are not in a mentally stable condition. WARNING: topics discussed in this post include depression, isolation, and anxiety among other things. Thank you.
Earlier this evening, I went to dinner by myself. At first, I was the only patron in the restaurant, but after a few minutes, a set of three elderly women walked in and were seated on the other side of the restaurant. I visit this restaurant rather often, as I love their food and their staff is always welcoming. One by one, other couples began to come into the restaurant for the dinner rush. They were seated all around me - husbands with their wives, women with their friends, a party on the other side of the room... and I looked up at my chip bowl and realized that I was the only person who’d come to eat alone. It was a very depressing realization. I asked for a box and left so I wouldn’t make the couples around me uncomfortable by sitting there and staring at my table in complete silence.
As I was driving home, I began thinking to myself. Why am I alone all of the time? That probably sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Well, it is true, after all. In school, I typically sit by myself. I keep my head down, and this blog is where I really let my colors fly free. At home, I spend all of my time on my computer and on my phone, communicating with people I can’t see or connect with in real life. Even in my dreams, I spend a lot of time watching the lives of those around me from a third-person perspective, unable to interact with them and unable to be seen. I ask myself again, why am I so alone all of the time?
Is it simply that I don’t belong around other people? Do others not care to be around me? Do I drive them away? Is it on accident or on purpose? If I drive them away by accident, what am I doing wrong to chase them away? If it’s on purpose, why do I do it? Is it for protection? If so, what am I trying to protect myself from? Is it for punishment? And if so, then what am I punishing myself for? I know I’m living with depression. I know being alone makes it so much harder to find a reason to live. And gods do I know that people are unreliable. If one thing has changed constantly in my life, it’s the array of people surrounding me. People I thought I would be friends with forever have turned their backs on me in an instant just for existing in a way they didn’t want me to - were our friendships ever real in the first place?
Alright, I’ve ranted for long enough about my personal life. It’s time to get into the real meat of this post.
What are the effects of isolation on people?
To answer this question outside of my own experiences, I turned to the internet to learn other people’s experiences. The first website I came across was Science Alert (reposted from The Conversation), and the article was from February 3rd of this year (2019). It discussed a challenge posed for $100,000 if one can last 30 days alone in a dark room with no contact with the outside world and nothing but food, water, a bed, and a restroom. This challenge was taken up by one Rich Alati, who lasted 20 days in isolation before negotiating his release for $62,400 rather than the full 100K. He said that during his time he experienced a variety of things such as mood swings, depression, a disrupted sleep cycle, and even hallucinations. This is a rather extreme case, as most people who experience social isolation are not literally isolated from the outside world without the internet or daylight. (This is with the exception of prisoners - but more on this later.) However, this is not to say that social isolation doesn’t have just as severe consequences. People who experience social isolation are more prone to illness, such as cancer or heart disease and are at a higher risk of having a stroke. But the effects of isolation go so much deeper than even that.
What are the effects on children?
My next source of information came from an article posted on No Isolation which discusses, as I’m sure you can guess, the effects of social isolation in children. The website says that children need to be social with other children in order to learn social norms, acceptable behavior. But aside from this, if children cannot learn how to interact with other children from a young age, they will struggle with decisions later in life, and statistically turn out to be a part of a poorer class. In addition, experiencing social isolation in youth tends to lead to feelings of isolation later in life, as well as an increased risk of social anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
What about in teenagers?
My source for this section comes from Newport Academy. They say that the effects of teenage isolation include an increased stress response, less restful sleep, a greater risk of suicide, greater chance of alcohol and drug use, greater likelihood of depression and anxiety, lowered self-care habits such as bathing and brushing teeth, and a decrease in positive outlook on life. Personally, I can deeply agree with all of this information. It is so hard to care about taking care of yourself when nobody else seems to care about you.
Remember when I talked about prisoners?
When people are placed in jail, it is a punishment for committing crimes. While prisons are supposed to “rehabilitate” their prisoners, their isolation tactics often result in hallucinations, anxiety, panic attacks, issues with concentration, poor decision making, paranoia, and impulse control. Often, the tactics used in prison do nothing to rehabilitate - they make the problems already present in the prisoner’s life much, much worse, and people in prison for petty crimes often end up back in prison again and again, sometimes for similar crimes, and sometimes for much worse ones. The source for this piece was an article on Psychology Today.
So what have we learned?
Well, in this post we learned that many people experience isolation in many different ways. We learned that isolation causes many issues, both physically and psychologically. Isolation increases the risk of depression, anxiety, and hallucinations. But through all of this research, I haven’t really figured out why I end up alone so often. Have I chosen to isolate myself? Considering that humans are naturally social creatures, this doesn’t seem the likely option. But then that leaves the other option - am I doing something to drive other people away from me? I think this is one mystery that will elude me for my lifetime. However, I think if something can be taken from all of this... it’s that a lot of the time, we aren’t nearly as alone as we think, and if we ARE alone, then maybe what we really need is to learn to reach out. Put down your phone. Finish this post and then... go outside. Talk to someone new. If you have no friends in the environment you exist in, go somewhere new. And if all else fails... learn to be happy being alone. Take up writing, or drawing. Learn to knit or sew. Find a book to read, or take up wood carving. Find something to express yourself, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find someone through that. Take joy in the people you have. Never take them for granted, and don’t take yourself for granted either. I promise you’re worth so much more than you may realize.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. This one is probably a bit more lengthy than my usual post? Anyway. Have a good morning, afternoon, evening, or night, wherever you are, whenever you read this.
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Sources
https://www.sciencealert.com/isolation-has-profound-effects-on-the-human-body-and-brain-here-s-what-happens
https://www.noisolation.com/global/research/how-does-social-isolation-affect-a-childs-mental-health-and-development/
https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/empowering-teens/teenage-isolation/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-minds/201806/what-really-happens-inside-prisoner-isolation-cells