Being Human in a Culture of Disconnection

Finding Our Way Back Home

I’ve been going through this thing lately.

Where nowhere feels like home.

Where no matter who is around me, I feel alone.

Where I wish desperately with every passing day that I could stop time in its tracks, if only to rest for a little while.

Where I feel utterly depleted from little failures... Failures like suddenly feeling completely incapable of going out for a walk with the dog, like wanting to see my friends but being unable to face the thought of pretending to be okay, like not having the energy to do my daily yoga or meditation practice that usually keeps me sane, and like becoming steadily exhausted by the insistant, nagging thought;

"What is the point?"

Depression crept up slowly after finally completing the four-year marathon of my bachelor’s degree. So slowly that I didn’t even notice something was wrong until I found myself suddenly devoid of all energy, blundering in the fading light I hadn’t noticed was dimming until it was all but extinguished, wondering how I got into this dark abyss and how I would ever find the strength to climb back out again.

I was supposed to feel happy, relieved, free, right? The idea of this triumphant moment had gotten me through countless late-night meltdowns while submitting a report one minute before the deadline, through seemingly endless lectures, field trips, practicals and pre-exam cram sessions, not to mention all the personal battles, or the real “stuff of life”, that has to fit somewhere into the middle of that…yet, I wasn’t happy. Instead, the wave of pent-up stress, old trauma and fear I had been holding back for all those years took that moment of my lowered defence to flood me at once.

This already overwhelming tide of despair was given weight by the heavy impression that there wasn’t even one person I could tell who could possibly understand my exasperation and grief at this unrecognisable person I was becoming, who I would feel comfortable burdening with my suffering on top of their own or, as my tired mind whispered to me in the dark; who would even be capable of helping me anyway.

Only I can do that...right? Except I didn’t even know how to take the first step.

When everything feels too big to overcome, scaling that looming mountain of "all the things I have left to do" suddenly seems impossible. How do I even begin when I am having trouble walking outside my front door, even as my legs are aching from sitting still? I want to do positive things for the world, I want to be a part of the solution that creates a better one, but instead, I just seem to be endlessly dragged down by the symptoms of the problem.

A Culture of Disconnection

One thing I am sure of is that it’s not just me, there is an epidemic of hopelessness taking hold that is the product of a very fragmented society. Some people may be more sensitive to this seam of pain that is running through us all but nevertheless most people will experience some shade of it at some point in their lives, with startling suddeness as all the lights flick out or, like me, in an almost imperceptible, steady ebbing of colour.

However, it is not us, the victims of this mass social alienation, that need to be "fixed". We are not the ones who are broken, we don’t necessarily just need medication and therapy (although they certainly have their place) before being unceremoniously cast back into an unforgiving and hostile world, what we desperately need at the core of our global culture is connection.

Don’t get me wrong, therapy can provide us with a connection to another human being that is both immensely powerful and often life-changing. It can be the lifeline we need to get back up when we’ve reached our breaking point. But I want more than a weekly dose of deep connection. I’m an advocate of the concept therapy at a bigger scale; all of us showing up for each other, all the time.

Because what we are missing is feeling like we matter, like our pain is valid, that we are allowed to fall apart, that there is space held for us in the familial, social and professional realms of our lives to be seen and heard...that the world is a safe place to simply show up as ourselves, exactly the way we are in each moment, and just be human together.

The thing is, all of this requires other people. And most of us, especially in the Western World, have been taught that needing others is weakness, that strength is found in independence which we define as “going it alone”.

We receive social praise and validation for isolating ourselves further and further from each other, building walls so high and with such focus on our goals of self-sufficiency and high achievement that we don’t realise until it’s too late that although others can’t scale or penetrate our barricades, we are equally unable to get out of these mighty fortresses we have painstakingly constructed.

From a young age, we are taught that we should compete, not connect. A mentality that (conveniently) is highly beneficial to the perpetuation of the deeply flawed, individualistic, consumerist and profit-driven model of capitalism.

This way of thinking has contributed to the creation of a damaging culture of disconnection which is encouraged by our society to a disturbing degree, even in the face of robust and mounting evidence that disconnection and loneliness are potentially as detrimental to the health of it’s citizens as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, that we are much more likely to die of a myriad of diseases, statistically closer to meeting our ends through heart disease, cancer, depression and suicide.

After all, like most primates, humans are highly social animals; we were never meant to function alone.

Yet, oftentimes, we were brought up in small, core family units (if we’re so lucky) in homes that are cut off by stone walls, physically and psychologically, from our neighbours living merely feet away. In many cases, estranged even from our larger network of relatives.

In a healthy society, we would be whole as a product of our strong familial and community bonds. We would be a part of a network of people that would function as a wider family, each member caring for and looking out for each other.

Not to say things would be perfect (they wouldn’t). We would still have trauma, grief and suffering to cope with, we would still have challenges to face. But in an unconditionally loving, supportive and understanding environment, our resilience to these events would be much, much higher.

Likewise, deep healing can only occur in an space of emotional safety, validation and acceptance because this is what defuses shame, perhaps the single greatest threat to connection.

Without the shame that comes inherent with disconnection, our capacity to deal with issues as they arise would increase exponentially, leaving little room for trauma to take root, fester and morph into addiction, sickness and disease.

The Danger of Virtual Connection
"Social" media has been presented as the modern solution - sold to us as a cyber hack of connection. Yet this is a connection that occurs only within the mental arena, while our physical selves remain alone in our living rooms, usually wishing we were somewhere else.

Of course, social media can be a wonderful and effective tool for sparking initial connections, broadening minds, spreading ideas and sharing stories that speak to others and make them feel temporarily less alone...but it has its limits.

The true work of meaningful connection is done in a shared spaces, where more than words are connecting us. Where the simple, brave act of showing up, the wholehearted gift of just being there, changes everything.

It takes us to a deeper level of connection, where the simple act of witnessing someone’s pain forges a space where true intimacy can occur....even if that means just touching an arm, holding a hand or sitting together saying nothing at all.

And yet, how have I reacted to this new awareness of my own experience of disconnection?

By googling the questions I’m too afraid to ask anyone in my life in a desperate search for answers, by scrolling through artwork and memes on Pinterest and Instagram that reflect my deepest thoughts, fears and agonies.

All just to feel for a brief time as if someone else out their feels the same way I do. That maybe I’m not just broken, maybe I’m not alone in this after all.

Breaking the Silence
Would it be easier for me to tell a person instead of a search engine how I’m really feeling? No. It would be much, much harder. I know that’s the case, otherwise we would all be telling each other how we feel all the time.

And it is easy to see why we hold back, there are certainly greater risks to bring open. Being vulnerable is always a risk...but that is exactly what makes it so brave.

To quote the wonderful researcher and storyteller Brené Brown; it is also what makes “vulnerability the birthplace of connection" because through the greatest risks come the greatest rewards (eventually...because the greatest things also take time, don’t they?) and what could possibly be a more more rewarding than feeling like your story matters to somebody? Than being seen, heard, and understood exactly as you are, where you are?

Because it’s becoming more and more clear to me, the more I have suffered in silence, that it is in precisely the opposite way that we find our home, a place of belonging and safety, in an otherwise scary and uncertain world.

It is found by reconnecting with our own inner voice, even if for now, it is only a cracked, hoarse whisper. Because by speaking up, even if it’s just to ourselves to start with, we validate our own feelings in the process, and by so doing, acknowledge the worthiness of our own story and the stories of others.

The very act of manifesting them into sound, bringing them into the physical world, is a relief. It makes them real, gives them substance and makes them worthy of being heard. By uttering the things we never dared to dream we would ever, could ever, speak aloud, we are undertaking the radical act of self-acceptance, in all our flaws, pain and darkness.

We are choosing the wild, untrodden path of loving ourselves without exception. And as an indirect result, we are also accepting the light and shade that also exists in everyone else around us.

That is how we open the way to a new kind of human family, a culture of acceptance, belonging and connection. That is how we walk the path by which we might finally find our way home to each other and to ourselves.

If there is one thing the darkness is teaching me, it is that taking those first steps down that unlit path is not easy, it is certainly the harder road, and at first it may feel just as terrifying and pointless as the lonely void you’ve left behind.

But if you keep walking on, despite the fear, despite the darkness, there is every chance that you will stumble across your courage, find your lost heart still beating and bump into other people who have chosen, just like you, to walk on that difficult terrain in search of something more.

It is in this way that you will look around one day and realize that you are no longer alone, that you are finally striding sure-footed, that you have learned to navigate by the stars.