Mental ill health can make you feel isolated even when you are surrounded by people. Surrounded by loved ones or strangers, our own minds can make us feel intensely alone. I remember being depressed and feeling disconnected from everything. Once I was at a music festival with friends and felt completely alone, completely isolated. As hard as my friends and family tried, they couldn’t understand what I was going through. I’m sure many with mental health struggles can relate to this.
Recently my carer consultant colleague and I tackled the theme of social isolation with the lived experience workforce at the hospital and found some interesting results. It is still my view to this day that loneliness is the number one killer in mental health, and when we asked consumers and peer support workers to define social isolation, loneliness came out on top. After collating the data of this project, the clear solution to social isolation from an organisational perspective was groups, and more of them. Whilst this is a great solution to this problem, what if you aren’t part of a mental health service that doesn’t actively produce groups for you to take part in.
The opposite of social isolation is connection, but what if you don’t have loving relationships? Where do you find connection? Some examples could be nature, animals, TV shows, gaming, books, yoga or faith.
I’ll first be looking at connection from two different angles. The clinical level of connection and the personal level, I'll then touch on a holistic framework of ways to connect.
Clinical
Peer Support Groups – There are many groups out there including diagnostic specific peer support groups which can assist with recovery.
Peer Support Workers – Most mental health services employ Consumer Peer Support workers and Carer Peer Support Workers who use lived experience as a therapeutic tool for recovery.
Mental Health Clinicians – Psychiatrists, Psychologists, GPs, Social Workers, Occupational Therapists and Nurses are just a few of the clinicians able to help with one’s recovery.
Personal
Seek Connection - During my periods of depression I was unmotivated to seek and almost expected connection to happen to me. We must seek connection in all its forms, whether it be people, nature or material possessions.
Faith - There is personal faith which is connection to a higher power and there are faith communities or even spiritual connection to the land.
Ground activity – find the activity that grounds you and brings you back to your centre. The activity that gives you insight into who you are. For me, meditation/mindfulness allowed me insightful reflection into my condition. This grounding activity will be different for everyone or it may be multiple activities. The aim is to learn about yourself and the more insight you develop the more effectively you’ll be able to manage your condition.
Self Help Books – I read many of these during my recovery. There are many good ones, also many bad ones, use discernment and critical thinking.
If we are looking holistically at connection, there are seven areas that can be explored:
1. Environment
2. Spiritual
3. Emotional
4. Intellectual
5. Physical
6. Social
7. Financial
Each one of these areas contain many levels of connection. For example, physical connection might be working on your fitness or diet. Environment might mean connecting with your home, beach, mountains or even the local park. The social level may mean connecting with an old friend, family members or work colleagues. If you want to explore the emotional level you might look at developing your own resilience through some assertiveness training or mindfulness for insight. Obviously, It will be different for each person.
Although human relationships are important for growth there are so many ways and things to connect with in this world other than just human relationships. When our minds take us into isolation, taking an approach to explore either clinical, personal or using the seven levels of connection will give you plenty of options to re-connect and move forward.
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