The Loneliness of Being a Statistic

One is the loneliest number

There’s not a single day I don’t think of how many others are out there like me. The problem is with today’s society; we lean into our careers so much we never see family, we match with lovers on apps — perhaps never to actually see one of them, and we scrape 10-year reunions because Facebook has already filled us in with the dirt over who is doing what and where and with whom and notes of solitude for those we lost.

There are statistics for all of these. 5 million people use a dating app, and 13% are likely to end up married. 10% of highly educated women stay home — leaving the other 90% to work long after the kids get home from daycare. (This isn’t counting childfree parents, including those who struggle with fertility.) The days of being a Romy or Michelle are over; even back in 2011 TIME noted the decline of the highschool reunion, a result of social media.

Those are easy stats to raise your hand and say, hey, #metoo. Speaking of, almost 20% of women will be date-raped at some point in their life; this is a more specific data point than sexual assault, and for a reason:

I am one of each of these stats. I married my (now ex) husband from Tinder, just two years after the disappointment that there would not be a reunion for my high school class of 500. I pushed back even thinking of having kids to chase a career in journalism, and something was put in my cheap glass of wine before a Weezer concert in 2008. Before I was even 30, I was one of millions who had experienced a life just like mine.

We are definitely not a generation of snowflakes. Which makes it so hard to talk about even these basic phenomenons; we feel continual losses — from friends, to potential boyfriends, to that ex who married the next girl he swiped right on. But so has everyone else. So why cry? Why even consider it a loss of boyfriends, babies we never had, families a far cry from a possibility? When sexual assault is… normal?

Everyone else is right there with me.

And that’s the weird thing I’m coming to terms with about loss. Just because we experience something tragic, it’s normalized, and our minds and hearts grapple with how to feel. I cry alone to the soundtrack of Taylor Swift’s Red album, and yet know there are millions of women who probably cried today, too. But we don’t talk about it.

There’s a stigma to feeling loss; it’s either shushed for those who are grieving the loss of someone near and dear, or we are simply told to “move on.”

When I started searching for grief and loss therapists, I was… at a loss. So many support groups are designed for those who lost a person — not even the potential to have a baby. (10% of women will struggle with fertility at some point in their life.) I was lucky to have some open and honest conversations with other journalists about grief and loss, and how — even though they might have lost a person — the manifestation of our losses came out the same way:

Intense depression and suicide attempts.

Over 17 million Americans struggle with depression, and there are 123 suicides a day in our country. This is not counting those who harm themselves without dying.

I have been hospitalized over a dozen times for my depression since 2015, which is when I started to experience domestic violence. One in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their life. If not more than once. If not by more than one person. It’s not simply one person, one violent attack. Women who date and marry abusive people may have been raised by abusive parents; and there’s a trend to keep seeking out abuse because that’s just our nature and the sick cycle of domestic violence.

I’ve also admitted to abusing medication, specifically opiods. (“Opiate” usually refers to chemicals found in the opium plant. Semi-synthetic opioids are chemicals derived from opiates. — from DrugRehab.com) When we say we have an “opiate” crisis we are really referring to the amount of people who struggle with addiction to opiods — drugs like OxyContin, or a not-quite opiod like Tramadol, or something that is an over-the-counter opiod (and how this is legal blows my mind) like Kratom.

It’s been a few long years of battling opiods —a secret well-kept as the “bigger picture problem” — the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and PTSD — was the preferred target of treatment in hospitals.

(Only about 2% of Americans are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but there’s a lot of gray area around whether this should be depression, ADHD, or an entirely other diagnosis.)

Recent data suggests that 30% of those prescribed opiods will become addicted. In 2017, almost 70% of the 70,000 drug related deaths were due to opiods.

For each of these stats, I am one.

I am sure I am one of many, many women who can attest the same. But we are each one, and as the stats add up, we become more lonely; more of just one person who can say yes — this includes me.

But it does not define me.

Being one — in any of these situations — is lonely. No one really wants to go to an NA meeting. No one really enjoys spending hours on Reddit discussing hormone levels to determine if we could possibly save a few eggs — or better, save a few dollars and just cry for a few years. No one brags about sexual assault, or the loss in divorce. I’ve never seen anyone brag about a suicide attempt.

(Ok, I lied on that last one; it’s somewhat natural to compare scars in the psych ward. But there’s always a follow-up: “I’d never do it again.”)

Being the only one is lonely. What, exactly, am I supposed to do with my life? I’m lucky to have a grief counselor who is helping me shape my life, shake the meds, and show me how to stop being so damn hard on myself.

But I’m very alone, as are many others who are a combination of statistics. (We are ALL a statistic, somehow.) I don’t date, because my baggage doesn’t quite fit into the overhead bin anymore. I don’t join writing groups, because I feel like my career ended years ago. I don’t go to school, because there’s a stat about financial aid somewhere and that applies to me — it’s literally not worth it.

So I go to coffee shops and make friends with baristas; sit at the beach and let my mind wander as the waves come in, go out.

I write my heart out, not for fame or money but just to say hey — maybe you’re not alone, and you’re not just one.

One is lonely, and that’s why I write. That’s why I chose Medium, and that’s why I don’t chase down paychecks anymore. You are not one. There are millions of people around this world who share the pain, whatever pain it is, we feel.

Maybe you tried to numb out, too. One extra pain pill, just to avoid thinking of that baby you’ll never have, the man of your dreams you’ll never see again, a loss of life, somehow, that was idyllic. That’s a staggering and stigmatizing thing to say. And I say it, because I don’t want anyone else to feel like they’re the only one.

It’s no less lonely to be on the other end of the internet when someone says, hey, #metoo, but it might help us each figure out how we feel less lonely; how we can find that therapist, that doctor, that group of amazing friends that feel more like family that we don’t have yet.

One is lonely. But I know I’m not the only one, and that’s why, in this month that brings so much awareness of suicide, I am trying to force myself back into a life that brought me joy —by simply helping others. There’s not a rhythm to what I write or when or even where (something I’m working on; routine can reduce these stats in so many ways) but sometimes, my brain turns on.

It didn’t used to. And if that’s you, cursed with writer’s block— no, you’re definitely not the only one. I’ve gone weeks without writing in a journal, when I have 12 journals from just February lined in my bookcase. Creativity can also be lonely.

And with that, I’m the only one who writes what I write. Sometimes, being the only one is a blessing.

But the other curses can be a long night, a long drive, a lot of tears, and hours wondering why.

But I get it, I know those tears, I drove those miles, and then… sometimes, at night, I can close my eyes and realize — holy shit, there are roughly 7 other billion people who are trying to wake up or trying to sleep, in everything from a mansion to a miniature home made of cardboard.

We’re alone in these moments too. But in that spirit… the whole world is doing the exact same thing. And that’s an amazing thing to realize while we try to rest, and escape all the sorrows we feel— we are not the only one.