Read and Write for Better Mental Health
Loneliness isn’t a mental illness. I will die on that hill. I will also pass up an opportunity to write an essay for the New York Times because the editor wanted me to write about loneliness as a mental illness.
But loneliness is not a mental illness, so we parted ways, and she paid me a $500 kill fee which was still pretty great. I published the essay somewhere on one of my other websites. It’s pretty good. I need to find it and share it.
Anyway.
Loneliness isn’t a mental illness, but it can be a symptom of mental illness. People with mental illness can feel disconnected from themselves, others, the divine, and the world in various ways. So loneliness can be a part of the mental illness equation.
Writing The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other taught me so much about loneliness and belonging. My first book will not give you 10 Ways Never to Be Lonely Again. That book should never be written because nothing will ever cure your loneliness.
Loneliness is just too complicated.
It comes and goes, shifts and pivots, and becomes something new right when you think you’ve figured it out.
But here’s the good news: If you lean into your belongings, you will feel less lonely. You will be able to give more attention to the things that help you feel connected and the things that make you feel disconnected. Then you can make decisions and choices to do what you can do to put yourself in the way of things that help you feel less lonely.
Reading and writing are two things that help people feel less alone—even people who don’t consider themselves WRITERS or READERS.
Because reading and writing are two things that help people feel less alone and, therefore, might improve mental health symptoms, I created a “Deepen Your Belongings for Better Mental Health” list for Bookshop.org last year in May.