Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how to deal with loneliness

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how to deal with loneliness · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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At the lowest point in my life. I was overwhelmed by loneliness.
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Even when I was around friends and family, I still felt lonely
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and it became hopeless. I didn't know what to do, and I
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had no idea how to deal with this loneliness.
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Hey, there and welcome back to another episode of feel your
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feelings, with me, Ethan, Jewel. Now I'm not a doctor, a
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psychiatrist or a professional in the mental health field
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whatsoever. I'm just a normal guy who has
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felt some big feelings has talked.
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To a lot of people who have felt big feelings and wants to start
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the conversation on Mental Health.
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However today I'm very lucky as I am joined by a professional
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dr. Jenn Hartman a licensed
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psychologist from Texas. Today we're going to be diving
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into the topic of loneliness, digesting it and understanding
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how we can deal with loneliness. So, thank you so much for being
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here. And as always, let's feel some
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feelings. Dr. Hartman, thank you so much
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for joining me. You so much Ethan.
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It's an honor to be here and I'm really excited to get going on.
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Our conversation loneliness, is something that I have
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extensively experienced and I've spoken on a lot in my music.
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My last album was actually called loneliness in the
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presence of company and it explored, every topic, the ins
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and outs of loneliness and of isolation.
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However, as I spent time being lonely and writing about
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loneliness and truly understanding it, I realized
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that there is more to it than a A lot of people think so, dr.
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Hartman, I want to start today by asking you do you think that
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loneliness is an inherently negative thing or is there
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potential growth to be found within loneliness?
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Thank you for bringing up this really important topic.
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Ethan, even though we have more ways to connect now with each
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other than ever before, in my field, the mental health field,
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we understand that loneliness has now reached epidemic
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proportions. So I think it's a very, very
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important topic for us to Talking about and talking about
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regularly. So, to answer your question
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directly, obviously loneliness can feel horrible and it can be
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sometimes even dangerous, but it doesn't necessarily have to be
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horrible and dangerous. I do think that we can
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experience a lot of growth in loneliness, but sometimes we may
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have to work on how to let that willingness to do that work
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unfold. And so I don't know if you have
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anything from your experience that helped you figure out like
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how to lean into the loneliness and how To work with the
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loneliness rather than resist. It definitely.
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I mean, there is room for growth in my experience with
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loneliness. I found myself really struggling
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to see the positive in it because of the isolating nature
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of loneliness. Instead of thinking, oh, how can
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I grow from this? I was thinking, what's wrong
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with me? And I was feeling lonely,
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physically emotionally, mentally physically, because all my
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friends went off to college and I was just kind of left behind
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and a lot of those relationships, really struggled,
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and Only because I was struggling with depression, I
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think depression and a lot of mental illnesses, really
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isolate. You and convince you that you
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deserve to be alone in that you're better off alone.
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And unfortunately, these lies that our brain tells us
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encourages us to lean into the loneliness, instead of trying to
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see growth. Another thing I found is as I
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was struggling with this loneliness, I saw on social
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media. The best of the best of other
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people's lives. I saw all of the highlights I
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saw None of their personal struggles, and I was thinking to
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myself, what is wrong with me? I mean, these are supposed to be
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my golden years, I'm supposed to be at my absolute Peak.
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And yet here I am struggling feeling lonely.
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Having a hard time connecting with anybody.
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Do you think that social comparison like this can play
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into loneliness and affect how we experience isolation?
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Oh, of course, of course. Absolutely.
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And I believe that there's some some research out there that can
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support what About to say, but you mentioned scrolling.
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And so, you know, we're just, we just kind of get get into that
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mode where we're scrolling. And when we're really depressed,
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or we're really anxious, and we're kind of hiding away, or
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withdrawing, whatever might be going on.
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We tend to engage less with social media.
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We're just scrolling and we're not engaging as much with posts
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and so that can be a risk factor.
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But then the other thing that can be problematic is, I don't
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know about you, but I don't post my own panic attacks.
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Or crying fits you know where you know I'm snotty or you know
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things like that are going on. WE Post our best moments, right?
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We post our most interesting moments we try to post really
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interesting moments or things that we think other people were
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going to be interested in. So not many of us are kind of
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posting day-to-day about depression or again like panic
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attacks or things like that and so that can unfortunately,
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reinforce the notion that were the only ones like you said, I
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love the comparison of Light real.
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I've used that a lot and I think it's so accurate.
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It's so detrimental to mental health.
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He stated that, we don't want to post the tears, and the panic
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attacks. And I think that's a big problem
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with mental health awareness right now because mental health
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awareness. It's a very big subject.
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It's become a lot more popular which is a great thing but I
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think unfortunately mental health awareness tries to cover
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a very pretty glorified part of mental illness and it never is
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Addresses the dark sides of it and never addresses, the panic
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attacks, and the depressive episodes, and people struggling
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and not being able to leave their bed for weeks at a time.
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And I think that can really add to that loneliness for people
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struggling with that. Do you think there is a solution
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there? Do you think there's something
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that can be done or is that kind of just the nature of the human
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condition as we talked about in our last episode?
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I do think that there are many good things that come out.
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Social media, I'm not sure quite honestly.
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He's in what the answer is to this - downside of social media
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and the social comparison piece and how we're getting
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everybody's highlight reels. I think that's an excellent way
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to think of it. But we're, you know, we're not
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really seeing the real dark aspects of people struggling
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with mental illness, and I think that is very, very real and
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anyone who struggled with mental illness is going to resonate
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with that a lot. And it's like you said, it's
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just not broadcast a lot out there.
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I don't know that I have any big solution ideas to offer.
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I will say, just a small recommendation for any of us
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individually, who are struggling, with mental health
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challenges is, if you're going to be on social media, try to
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engage, and I know this may be hard.
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So, there's that Doom scrolling piece and I think that phrase is
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really apt sometimes where it just kind of reinforces or can
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reinforce our sense of Doom and Gloom about ourselves or life in
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general or things like that there.
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Search is kind of interesting on social media.
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The negative effects are not as potentially damaging if we're
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actually engaging and we're liking and we're commenting and
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we're having some conversations with other people about what
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we're seeing in our feeds. So again just a small piece of
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advice to help soften some of those potential negative effects
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of social media that can worsen our sense of loneliness, right?
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So in some ways, the technology that is supposed to make us more
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social Could tend to make us draw away more and to just watch
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and take in information instead of actually engaging, with other
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people, part of me wonders. If that Sprouts from the
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isolating nature of mental illness, which I've definitely
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experienced in my time fighting depression, how isolating it can
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feel and I can't speak for other mental illnesses.
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But I know within my own experience, one of the hardest
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things was how badly I wanted to.
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Uh, Slate myself and that became one of my hardest battles.
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Even to this day, I find myself trying to rekindle relationships
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and friendships that I lost due to my battle.
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What is it? That makes us want to isolate
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ourselves whenever we are struggling with mental illness?
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I think the easiest answer is we feel crappy?
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I mean, it feels bad and so let's just take depression for
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example. Depression is actually an
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illness that does not just happen in our mind there.
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Definitely are. Ages in the brain but there are
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changes in several other bodily systems.
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So it's really impacting our system as a whole.
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And so when we talk about feeling bad, like when were
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depressed, we're really feeling bad, it's affecting us.
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Body-wide. I don't know that we know
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exactly yet, like kind of how some of the biochemical and
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systemic changes affect our cognition.
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But one thing that happens is it affects our sense of
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perspective, right? So, all of a sudden, not all of
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a sudden it actually can sometimes happen gradually.
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But Our perspective because a lot narrower and then it also
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affects with our motivation. So depression in some ways is a
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disorder of perspective and motivation, we literally feel
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like we do not have the energy to do the things that we know we
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need to do to feel better. And in my field, we call that
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the Catch-22 of depression, right?
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So, like, you don't have the motivation to do the things that
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you need to do to get healthier. And that's a really, really
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tricky aspect of depression, in particular, But that could be
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true for other things, like anxiety, disorders, and Trauma
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as well. I feel like in some ways that
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lack of motivation and the lack of ability to engage in
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seemingly, very simple activities, simple actions to
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care for yourself. I feel like and in my own
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personal experience. I think it brings on a lot of
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shame. I think it brings on guilt
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almost like what's wrong with me.
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I am doing so much worse than these other people and I wonder
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if shame has any part in the Isolating nature of mental
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illness. Oh, absolutely.
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Shame. Absolutely wants us to isolate.
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It wants us to stay behind, you know, thick curtains and veils,
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and all kinds of things. And, again, depression affects
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how we think about ourselves. So it can take a perfectly
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lovely, highly accomplished intelligent individual and
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really get them questioning their worth as a human being on
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this Earth. Some of that is about shame.
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So the difference between guilt and shame is guilt is I've done
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something bad. And shame is.
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I am that right? Like, there is something bad
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about me. There is something inherently
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flawed about me. I agree with you.
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I think shame can be a reinforcing factor for
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depression, and then can also contribute to withdrawal and
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avoidance and kind of helped us along unfortunately, in feeling
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lonely. The tricky thing about, Shane,
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it's kind of a catch-22 situation with shame, as well as
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depression is. We have to somehow figure out
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how to find Safe accessible ways to be vulnerable in order to
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work through our shame. Because the entire concept of
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Shame is that it's shameful that you don't want to share it with
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anybody. And that's an incredibly
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difficult road to walk. That's a hard path to go down of
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being able to allow that shame to be seen.
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I'm obviously very biased about this, but I think that is one
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area where a therapy can be really beneficial and that is to
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help create a safe sacred place. Where you can air out some of
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this stuff and it's not going to go anywhere else ready to just
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going to stay in the room and hopefully you know, you found
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someone who's a good match to work with you and can help you
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hope this right? And help you maybe even engage
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with some of these things that you feel ashamed about in some
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different ways. So again, I own my bias as a
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mental health, professional. I think that's something that
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might be a little easier to find in the therapy relationship
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because that's what we're there to do, right?
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And it's maybe not as easy to find that in some of the other
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kinds of relationships we have in our lives, right?
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Because with family and friends, other personal biases can come
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into the conversation and it can affect how they view you.
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It can affect how they view your problems.
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And I very often get DMS from people where they are telling
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me. Oh, I'm trying to reach Shout,
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I'm trying to reach out to friends.
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I'm trying to reach out to family, but they just don't
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understand. They don't get it.
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They are trying to add their own opinions in and it is getting me
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down and I don't know what to do and I'm lost and I need help.
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And what I always say is, I always respond and I say you
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should try therapy. Of course, it's not fully
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accessible. For everybody therapy.
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Can be expensive, but as you stated in our last episode,
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there are resources out there. Our apps there is Affordable
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online therapy, and there are different routes that we can go
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to create the safe space to accept our loneliness to accept
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our shame and hopefully to be able to work through it.
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Yes, absolutely. I want to add another Concept in
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here, and it's with regard to self compassion, which we talked
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a lot about in our last episode. One aspect of self-compassion is
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common humanity. And so, this is the idea that no
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matter what we are struggling with, Is in a world of 8 billion
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people. Someone else is struggling with
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something very similar. In fact, probably a lot of
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somebody else's are struggling with something very similar and
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so it's a practice, it takes a while to get to the point where
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you can do this but the ability to realize when I'm suffering,
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I'm actually never alone in that suffering.
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I'm a human being part of Being Human means.
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We're going to suffer and so undoubtedly, someone else is
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struggling with something similar.
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So, And when I'm in the deepest depths of my depression, or even
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when I'm feeling alone, I'm not alone in those feelings.
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For me, I find that really compelling and really powerful.
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Even when I'm feeling lonely, I'm not alone in that feeling.
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There are other people struggling with something very,
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very similar. Absolutely God.
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I say that all the time. I'm pretty sure I've said almost
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that exact same thing before that is.
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Yeah, it's great. And that sounds like a great
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place to wrap up this. Topic dr.
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Jenn thank you so much for joining.
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Me, and bringing professional perspective to this podcast
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today. Thank you so much for the
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invitation. It's been an honor and I've
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really enjoyed my time with you even to everybody listening,
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please remember, you are not alone in what you are battling,
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no matter what your brain tells you, you are not alone in your
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mental health. Struggles and there are other
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people out there feeling the exact same thing.
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Loneliness is not easy struggling.
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Not easy, but there is always room for growth.
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So look for that growth, seek it out because you deserve to
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flourish. That's going to wrap it up for
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today's episode. Thank you for listening and
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another huge. Thank you to dr.
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Jenn Hartman for joining me in bringing some incredible
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information in perspective to this topic.
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She'll be joining me next week as well as we delve into the
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topic of therapy. Please shoot me a message on my
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Instagram at Jewel boy underscore and let me know what
15:29
you thought. About today's episode.
15:30
Also, if you need help, feeling your feelings, check out my
15:33
music, Ethan, Jewel on all platforms and I almost guarantee
15:37
it'll make you cry. So thank you so much for being
15:40
here. And as always, thank you for
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feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.