A Toxic Stew: Add Chronic Loneliness

When Ralph Yarl approached the door of the wrong house, he had no idea that he was on the wrong street. When Kaylin Gillis’s driver pulled into the wrong driveway, he realized quickly and started leaving. These two were shot at in a moment of …  what? Panic? Fear? Ralph will survive. Kaylin was killed. These two incidents happened in one weekend. They are shocking. They are horrifying. Why is this happening? “It’s the guns,” say some. “It’s racism,” say others. Still others point to the fear-based propaganda of Fox News and similar outfits. And while the guns, racism, and the stoking of fear are all implicated, I suspect another ingredient in this lethal toxic stew: chronic loneliness.

While I don’t know enough about the two incidents to say with certainty that the shooters suffered from chronic loneliness, their behavior and the circumstances suggest it.

Ralph Yarl was shot, through a glass door, by an 84-year-old man who lived alone. Kaylin Gillis was shot by a man who “had long had a reputation among some residents as a sour character who barked at neighbors’ dogs, scolded a local church, and was so averse to unannounced visitors that he had at one time used a chain to cordon off his quarter-mile-long drive.” This description is a classic description of the effects of chronic loneliness.

Chronic loneliness

…is the condition of “constant and unrelenting feelings of being alone, separated or divided from others, and an inability to connect on a deeper level.” While any healthy person might feel lonely at times, loneliness becomes chronic when being lonely goes on for days, weeks, and maybe months. It is not the natural human condition to be lonely. What’s natural is the opposite—to be with others. We are wired to be connected.

The vicious cycle of chronic loneliness

What’s so very sad about chronic loneliness is that it becomes a vicious cycle. The chronically lonely “feel threatened and mistrustful of others” so they don’t reach out for connection. The ability to self-regulate in the external, social environment suffers. The chronically lonely are less likely to notice positive things that happen to them and more likely to notice the negative. Over time, the heightened stress that comes with chronic loneliness takes an emotional and physical toll. The lonely find it difficult to control their emotions. They overreact to small things and feel threatened when approached by strangers. They withdraw further, and a downward vicious cycle begins.

Loneliness is a deeply disruptive hurt. Once it becomes chronic it is difficult to turn around. “Lonely people have more miserable lives,” says Dr. John Cacioppo, “and earlier deaths.” So, a stranger comes into one’s personal space and this is immediately threatening. Asking no questions, feeling only fear, the stranger must be repelled. Unfortunately, rather than using words, they used guns.

It’s an awful toxic stew.

Even before the pandemic, experts were warning about the epidemic of loneliness they were seeing. In a 2019 article, Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo says, “The misery and suffering caused by chronic loneliness are very real and warrant attention… As a social species, we are accountable to help our lonely children, parents, neighbors, and even strangers in the same way we would treat ourselves. Treating loneliness is our collective responsibility.”

The Covid pandemic has exacerbated the issue. We have all had the experience of social isolation. Too many people are still isolated, fearful to venture into a world of spontaneous social connection.

Rebuilding our social skills

As a result of the pandemic, our social skills have atrophied. (But our Zoom skills are much better!) We need actual In-Real-Life human connection. Our well-being requires it. As with any rehabilitation of weak muscles, we must put in the effort to gain back our ability to be with people, and to connect. We must make the effort to show up, go out, and be with others. We must make the effort to be kind and to smile at others. It may make all the difference in the world to that person. It will make a difference to you.

And what does this have to do with shared housing?

Living with others is one way to not experience loneliness. Meeting a housemate in the kitchen and asking or answering “How was your day?” or “How did you sleep?” is both completely mundane and substantially important. Someone notices us. We are not alone.

A lone fir

in an open field

withers away.

A lone man

loved by none.

How can he live long?

– from The Hávámal (The Sayings of the Vikings)

Here are more posts about alleviating social isolation: Short-Sighted Stranger Fear , Is Living Alone Making You Lonely? A Smart Way Out of Loneliness.