Oh, you noticed we were lonely?
The surgeon general lays out a plan today to overcome the epidemic of isolation.
My clinical mentor laid it out distinctly as he usually does, “Can you believe we have to pay to find a place and a person to cry with?”
Therapy is strange in many ways. I find that counseling in modern times isn’t always focused on a distinct diagnosis or in treating individuals that are experiencing one of the major life events that call for mental health support like a death, a trauma event, a divorce, a lay off. No. I see the lonely marching through the door.
“Loneliness I think of as a great masquerader. It can look like different things,” Murthy told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday. “Some people, they become withdrawn. Others become irritable and angry. … I think the time you get concerned is when you start experiencing a feeling of loneliness for prolonged periods of time. If you feel lonely, you pick up the phone and call a friend, and then it goes away, or you get in the car and go see a family member, that’s OK. That’s loneliness acting like hunger or thirst, a signal our body sends us when we need something for survival. It’s when it persists that it becomes harmful.”
Lonliness (source below)
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/health/murthy-loneliness-isolation/index.html
I appreciate the actual headline from the Surgeon General. It certainly is past time.
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