We’ve all felt unnoticed, unwanted and alone. These feelings have spurred some of the most beautiful and poignant works of art and literature. But is loneliness an actual illness, like anorexia or clinical depression? According to Elle magazine author Emily White, the answer is yes.
In her new memoir, Lonely, White attempts to give loneliness—a state, as she puts it, of “frightened isolation”—its proper place among other diagnosed conditions. Suffering from chronic loneliness as she does, White wants this “stigmatized” experience to be not only officially recognized by the world at large, but to be honored as an affliction worthy of extensive research and given its very own category in the next DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the fifth version of which is due out in 2013.
The manual is getting longer and longer, with the fourth version including “caffeine-induced anxiety disorder” and “nicotine dependence” among its afflictions. You might remember my article about orthorexia (obsessive healthy eating), which is another candidate for inclusion in the book. It seems ridiculous to include so many “conditions,” but the danger of exclusion is that therapists and psychiatrists might brush symptoms aside as part of the human condition or confuse them with the symptoms of other disorders.
In the book, White herself struggles to distinguish chronic loneliness from depression. Although she admits to suffering from both, she believes depression has been given more than enough press and is now understood by the culture at large to be a legitimate illness, worthy of empathy and care, while loneliness continues to be misperceived as a “light, minor, and occasional problem.” White’s book also includes research from “loneliness researchers” from Arizona to Scotland and responses from “about 20″ other sufferers she found via Craigslist and her blog.
While I agree that lonely people need to be shown empathy and be assisted in becoming reconnected to others, it doesn’t really seem like turning loneliness into a psychiatric illness is a good solution!
Does the author think loneliness should be treated with a detached, scientific attitude, and that lonely people should be medicated into feeling better?
Seems like this would make things worse, for me at least.
What is then the main distinction between chronic loneliness and clinical depression? Shouldn’t they be considered as one and the same illness?