Pondering Loneliness When You Live In A Place Some Call Shangri-la
People flee to the wilds seeking solitude and yet there's a crisis of human disconnection now gripping America. Therapist Timothy Tate explores what's behind it
For many of us, we set out in search of solitude while trying to flee feelings of solitary loneliness. Here a lone hiker walks along the shore of Heart Lake in Yellowstone National Park. Photo courtesy Jacob W. Frank/NPS
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mountain Journal features Timothy Tate's column "Community Psyche" as a regular "think piece" and no way is it intended to be dispensing professional psychotherapy advice. If you are feeling alone, seek out the help of a mental health professional and if you are in urgent need of assistance dial 988.
by Timothy Tate
There are inescapable certainties in this life, and one of them is that most of us, at some point, will feel lonely and depressed. It's hard not to when you care about things so much.
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines loneliness as the “affective and cognitive discomfort or uneasiness from being or perceiving oneself to be alone or otherwise solitary.”
Don’t fret. No pun intended; you aren’t alone.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem, “The Riddle of the Strider”—incorporated into his novel, The Fellowship of the Ring—the second line reads, “Not all those who wander are lost.”
It’s a slogan many of us have seen on bumper stickers along with another promoted by the Montana Office of Tourism, “Get Lost in Montana.” Of course, let us not forget another motto promoted by tourism officials in Montana’s neighbor so the south: “Find Yourself in Wyoming.” Can we really lose ourselves? Is that a good idea? And how do we find ourselves?
If you’re feeling stuck, the only way to get unstuck is to venture outside the comfort zone that prevents you from seeing other options. To be clear: not all people who isolate, in order to be alone, who seek solitude, are lonely. Many people who feel comfortable in their own skin are not afraid of "being alone." This is what we often find in those who identify as introverts.
But now, when individuals and communities are dealing with social trauma and change wrought by the Covid pandemic, with growth issues pulling us apart, many good folks are experiencing profound feelings of loneliness borne by disconnection no matter what their personality type.
Loneliness is real and mental health professionals recently declared it to be at epidemic proportions.
When I began thinking about this edition of Community Psyche, about mental health issues people face in mountain towns, Tolkien came to mind but I also had the lyric to a great Harry Nilsson song, One, going through my head. Nilsson allegedly wrote it in 1968 after calling an intimate-other who did not answer the phone. Today, we might call that behavior “ghosting.”
As a working psychotherapist in a Western mountain town, I can testify that there’s been a growing sense of social estrangement amongst us. Going on for a while, particularly as young generations abandon involvement in social service and other organizations embraced by their elders, it’s an area of great concern to me.
Near as I can tell, feelings of loneliness have been exacerbated not only by the forced retreat into our bunkers caused by Covid but in a city like Bozeman and smaller towns in our region, it’s heightened by feelings that we are losing community— and “social” media has only made it worse.
Near as I can tell, feelings of loneliness have been exacerbated not only by the forced retreat into our bunkers caused by Covid but in a city like Bozeman and smaller towns in our region, it’s heightened by feelings that we are losing community— and “social” media has only made it worse.
This winter, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy identified loneliness as the number one health issue we face. “Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight – one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives,” Dr. Murthy wrote in the advisory.
He added, “Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders.”
Indeed, it can be a strange notion to think many people are suffering from loneliness in a nurturing natural paradise like the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
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It's been said that much of the rural West can be a lonely place so full of space where distance between people can be intimidating for those not used to long expansive sightlines often devoid of trees.
Who can forget Gretel Ehrlich’s 1986 book The Solace of Open Spaces in which she found peace and purpose after enduring a brutally long Wyoming winter and other challenges. What I like especially about Ehrlich’s book is how she artfully describes the different ways of social connection that existed in rural Wyoming when she was writing it, but some may have eroded in recent years.
As I’ve written here before and based on earlier years of practicing in Miles City, the notion of “rugged individualism” and people flocking into the indigenous West, claiming they don’t need any other people to get by, is a myth.
Despite all the pretty scenery that stretches out between large and small outposts of people, it is difficult, especially for people with certain predispositions, to cope with lack of structured human interaction. Self-isolating, without understanding why we do it, can be a form of solitary confinement. My point: we need each other.
Despite all the pretty scenery that stretches out between large and small outposts of people, it is difficult, especially for people with certain predispositions, to cope with lack of structured human interaction. Self-isolating, without understanding why we do it, can be a form of solitary confinement. My point: we need each other.
Dating back to my own childhood upbringing in the Chicago metro, I remember cities being intensely lonely places despite all the people. Oftentimes we pass by one another without making eye contact or acknowledgement. At least when you change your patterns of behavior in urban landscapes, as you move through the physical world, it’s possible to easily increase the odds of having meaningful interactions.
Still, the phenomenon of loneliness often is not about what we do outwardly but how we navigate the inner terrain represented in the landscape of our mind. For some, there’s a whole other world being lived inside their heads.
For me, there are three kinds of connection: how we relate to the physical world; how we relate to each other as humans; and the third is connection that comes with having a healthy dialog with ourselves which means getting to know who we are. And when we do that, we can consciously realize we are never alone.
Many of us are led to believe that if we only escape the rat race of urban life, and head for a perceived Shangri-la in a region like Greater Yellowstone where we can stand blissfully in front of mountains or even escape into the wilderness, our loneliness might then vanish. Or we may turn toward the fast-emerging metaverse.
Many of us are led to believe that if we only escape the rat race of urban life, and head for a perceived Shangri-la in a region like Greater Yellowstone where we can stand blissfully in front of mountains or even escape into the wilderness, our loneliness might then vanish. Or we may turn toward the fast-emerging metaverse.
In reading Bradley Orsted’s recent book excerpt in Mountain Journal and a conversation he had with Todd Wilkinson about how to cope with the unspeakable loss of his young daughter, he says that being in nature felt like coming home.
I derived several insights from what Orsted was suggesting. While you might find that in certain remote natural places there aren’t a lot of people, solace comes not from simply “being alone” but by recognizing, if you’re paying attention, that you’re really in the company of other beings—a non-human community.
Think of it as being immersed in a natural symphony. Listen for the birdsong, sit quietly and wait to hear animals moving through the forest, take in the hum of water passing down a creek or river corridor, absorb the nuances of sound emanating from wind rustling through trees or gaps in the mountains. Watch a thunderstorm build over the prairie. If you’ve never done this before, it’s another way of reminding yourself that you are not alone.
Nature exudes her presence when we become present in ourselves and, like doing deep breathing exercises to help us repel stress and become more mindfully aware of individual moments, the sensory experience of being in nature can be therapeutic.
This is the opposite of peering into a screen and fueling addiction with every viewing, believing this to be an antidote to alienation.
One of the catalysts for loneliness as cited by Dr. Murthy has been the long-term isolating effect of the pandemic coupled with the ease and seduction of social media platforms that seem to suck our attention into a perceived alternate reality, broadcasting scenes from an imagined or invented wonderful life.
Despite the hubris of its creators, Artificial Intelligence, as least so far, is no proxy for the deep soulful connections humans can have when we realize that we are extensions not separate strands from nature. And in our embracing of the interconnection, we realize we are not alone but linked to everything else on the planet. Photo courtesy Jacob W. Frank/NPS
Social media, studies suggest, is not a remedy to feeling more disconnected but can be the cause of it.
And yet, who doesn’t want to be seen as “special,” by showcasing extraordinary things they are doing in their selfie or Instagram reel? Is it about sharing or perhaps a yearning to be seen and reminding others that we are still alive?
On top of this there are video games whose players can merge with a proxy reality joined by other players in their fantasy world, often engaged in violent interactions, that sweep us away from our perceived mundane, ordinary, and lonely, reality.
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Does virtual reality—will AI—leave us grounded in a healthier, happier place than the reality of the physical world? Perhaps, but only for those who have never experienced the true delights of nature.
Studies and books by people like Richard Louv and Florence Williams tell us that getting out into nature, and unplugging, is good for our physical health and mental well-being. I can tell you this is true for most people.
For some of my clients, the first steps toward a more contented and less lonely inner life can involve such simple free things as getting out more on walks, trying to mindfully appreciate individual moments, engaging in deep breathing exercises, eating smarter, getting enough sleep, adopting a pet, or volunteering for a cause that needs help.
Still, I know that isn’t always enough. That’s where therapy or sometimes even addressing a chemical imbalance in our body comes in.
In places like our mountain towns, where people come to escape, they quickly realize that loneliness sticks with them or is never far away. Consider the paradox that for as full of solitude as Montana, Wyoming and Idaho are, we still have high rates of suicide among men middle age and older, young people and those in indigenous communities.
Prior to the advent of Covid, a poll conducted by National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 2.5 million rural residents or about 7 percent of America’s total rural population, said they had no friends or family nearby to rely on. Another 14 million, or roughly 39 percent, said they had only a few people to call when needed.
One method for trying to dull feelings of isolation, alienation, despair, and loneliness is to medicate ourselves until we are numb. Social media and the way it makes us seek continuous doses of dopamine is an extension of that kind of addiction.
The growing preference for a proxy world, as a substitute for the literal churning, throbbing, engaging world just beyond the closed blinds of our homes, is not only alienating but can be a quicksand of invisible social troubles.
What is the driver, the motivation, for our compulsive escapist behavior? In a word: anxiety. We’re uncertain and unsettled about what comes next. We do not control all the variables in our daily lives and that can make anyone anxious.
Covid caused anxiety to proliferate on a mass scale and I’ve witnessed its presence in old timers, families, and newcomers, the hyper-athletic, those who are materially well off and others who have been marginalized or feel forgotten in the boomtime of alleged material prosperity.
I am concerned that we have become habituated to self-imposed isolation as a way of avoiding the human landscape of a post-pandemic world that silently grew into a goblin of anxiety. It is being exacerbated by attempts to find and make meaning in a torrent of change happening at the social, landscape and psychic level in our changing communities.
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What all of us need is a pause. We need to all take a collective breath together. We need to take stock of the blessings we have and what we could lose by staying disconnected.
The once laid-back vibes of Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley and Jackson Hole during the off seasons are now long gone and anything but. The pattern of development at Big Sky seems unreflective and out of control.
Meanwhile, residents in valleys like Teton, Paradise, Madison, and the North Fork of the Shoshone see and know dramatic changes are coming and they feel helpless in preventing their worst effects. It’s so ironic since Greater Yellowstone, perceived to be a place where living closer to nature delivers more peace, has instead become a region where people feel uprooted, tense, on edge.
When some individuals confront levels of stress beyond their coping mechanisms one strategy is to stuff emotions, hunker down and withdraw, thus compounding the sensation of anxious loneliness and sometimes it brings thoughts of hopelessness.
Don’t pull away. Get involved and find like-minded folk who share your passions. Sometimes the best form of “self-care” is to express the things you care most deeply about.
Again, don’t think you are alone in this or strange. Loneliness can be heavy, leaden feeling shared by many and eventually, for most, it will pass.
Still, many of us wonder: “What do I do? How do I get off the couch and call a friend and make-arrangements to meet? How can I get my old life and routines back so that I don’t always feel out of place. What can I do to help save the things I love about my community and natural landscape? Why does everything seem like it has to be so much work?”
The antidote is not running away but coming out of hiding. It involves re-embracing our interpersonal dependence, trusting again in our willingness to depend upon one another, even coming together to push back against the unwanted changes of development and growth that often feel as if they have been foisted upon us without our permission.
A hiker moves through a meadow of wildflowers in Yellowstone. There's an expression that amid our busy or lonely lives it helps to slow down, stand still and smell the roses. Taking a whiff and feeling the earth under our feet is good for us. Tate says one profound gift is to help others experience it, too. Photo courtesy Jacob W. Frank/NPS
Years ago, I spoke and wrote on the need to build psychological neighborhoods as a hedge against loneliness and alienation. My little corner of this mountain town is putting it into practice.
Recently, with the advent of spring, our neighbors sat outside their open double garage doors and invited neighbors to join in a game of darts and conversation. The connection, of neighbors pulling up their lawn chairs and carrying on lively, engaging, far ranging, witty exchanges, yielded a warmth of togetherness that dissipates loneliness.
Remember during the worst of these Covid times when we re-affirmed our connectedness by howling every evening at 8 pm to remind those in the medical professions we stood by them as they treated those becoming ill?
Perhaps we should all howl again to remind each other we are not alone?
Here are three modest recommendations I have for trying to re-connect:
If you are a parent or grandparent, do whatever it takes to contain the amount of time that teenagers and younger use video games to socially isolate. Even though they will protest and claim they are connected to others while playing the games, we as adults need to help them find creative alternatives. They can be as simple as horseshoes, bean bag toss, throwing a frisbee or staging neighborhood potlucks and inviting the kids to perform in their own musical hootenannies and poetry slams.
Our active mountain communities, replete with sports activities, also gives us a way back to overcome this mental health crisis of loneliness and isolation. Exercise and conversation do everyone good.
Secondly, recognizing the beauty of our own innate nature and seeking out the company of others are important forms of healing.
These times ask us to be vulnerable and reimagine how to engage or re-engage with others. If you have elderly people in your neighborhood, reach out to them and offer your assistance which is a valuable thing to offer. Who knows, you might be surprised how much your neighbors long for the same kind of personal connection. I can assure you: you are not alone in your yearning.
Lastly, let each of us take a cue from the profusion of flowers, plants, and trees that have withstood the endless winter submerged in snow and now express their own inner resilience in this amazing proliferation of greenness. They show us that dormancy isn’t forever. Like them, send out your own shoots, buds, and blossoms. And show your appreciation of those in others.
Also, try this experiment: instead of spending an extra hour each day on your laptop or cell phone, leave the gadgets behind, turn them off and go for a stroll. Along the way, try to identify as many different natural sounds or natural fragrances of plant life you encounter. If you pass a creek, put your hand in its cold flows. Hug an old tree. Lay in the grass and interpret the clouds. Howl like a wolf or caw like a raven. Activate your senses. At a place that you find most enchanting, close your eyes and then open them, holding conscious recognition that the moment you are in is a gift.
You are living in a symphony and in the glorious present, you are never alone.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you are feeling alone, or have a loved one or friend who could use some help, it isn't far away. You can call anonymously and find someone willing to listen by calling 988. Or if in southwest Montana, click here. For those in Wyoming, click here for info. For Idahoans, click here.
About Timothy Tate
Community Psyche columnist Timothy J. Tate, who lives in Bozeman, Montana, has been a practicing professional psychotherapist for more than 30 years. For decades, he had an office on Main Street behind The Blue Door. He still works with clients downtown.
