You can’t do it all alone. You’re not wired that way. No one is.
Depression and anxiety has a stronghold on people all around the world. Some of it is a chemical imbalance, or what’s medically referred to as clinical depression. But for many people, this depression is situational, and the situation causing this rampant loneliness usually has a common core: loneliness. Loneliness is cited as the leading cause of depression in adults and, despite numerous social media platforms and the various methods of communication and interaction available, many adults say that (in times of distress) there isn’t a single person that they could call.
Human beings became an apex predator not because we are the fastest or strongest, but because we were smart enough to understand the power of community. Our ancestors banded together to hunt animals, forage, explore, and protect themselves from other predators. We live in a culture that now not only wants us to neglect self-care for the sake of productivity, but also wants us to forgo community assistance. We are told that we should do it all on our own, and it we cannot, then we have failed. This individualistic mindset reduces people to their talents and gaslights them for needing support.
The truth, the real truth that we all know innately and have known from early childhood, is that no one can (or should be expected to) do everything alone. Independence is a vital skill to learn, and rejection is an essential emotion to learn to properly process. But we all need interdependence with, and to feel accepted by, a community. Finding a community that can teach you, challenge you, learn from you, uplift you, pour into you as you do them, and celebrate you is not a luxury, but a necessity.
