🎧 Listen to Sarah read this installment of Cured.
My idea about what it will mean to be recovered from serious mental illness gets tangled up with the American obsession with being very, very social. Having friends can be wholesome and fortifying, but not when it’s seen as evidence that we’re worthy. The misconception is that if we have lots and lots of people around (virtually or corporeally), then we’re okay. This line of thinking leads us to regularly attend brunch when we don’t want to, tally the number of people who wish us a happy birthday, take likes and shares on social media seriously, and believe we should have fifty friends instead of the more reasonable (and more common) two or three.
I’ve always been a solitary, albeit a sociable one. The term introvert is thrown around too easily and defined in different ways, but in the sense that some people are fueled by being alone and enjoying their own company, I suppose it applies to me. I don’t hunger to be around others. Small talk with my neighbors, being with my family, and cat videos on Instagram meet a surprising amount of my need for connection.
Some of us are hardwired for solitude. Researchers theorize that our brains have a social circuitry that strives for homeostasis. When it’s depleted, some people need a lot of interaction to get even a faint dopamine hit; others need little interaction to get the same bump.
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Much is made about how important social connection is to our mental well-being, and social support is considered fundamental to mental health recovery. One’s social support network includes someone to do things with, someone who can give emotional support, someone who can validate you and what you might be going through, someone who can do you a favor like driving you to a medical appointment, and someone who has the knowledge to guide you through a problem or help you reach a goal.
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