It’s not necessarily you!
According to author Johann Hari in this Technology Education and Design (TED) talk, “We are the loneliest society in human history.”
Even beyond the current COVID-19 shutdown, this could be an important insight into the origins of depression and anxiety and why it has been on the rise in first world countries in recent years. A prevailing assumption for many has been that such issues are caused by the proverbial “chemical imbalance in the brain.”
The primary means that our medical system has used to treat these issues have been chemical in nature. Hari is not making a case against medications for such ailments. Rather, these solutions on their own cannot placate the basic drives that all human beings have to connect with others in real, positive, and meaningful ways, ways that have been tragically lost for many people in today’s world.
Furthermore, the outcome of overemphasizing the biochemical aspects of these issues can leave individuals with a profound sense that there is something inherently wrong with them as human beings, and assuming that identity is counterproductive to the regaining of their health.
“If you're depressed, if you're anxious, you're not weak, you're not crazy. You're not, in the main, a machine with broken parts. You're a human being with unmet needs.” If you're one of them, you are not alone. Here's to a world where we have the same words for depression that we have for COVID-19: "We're in this together."
