One of my New Year’s gifts was re­ceiv­ing good news from my friend with whom I had been jour­ney­ing, vir­tu­al­ly for months, try­ing to sup­port her through her per­sis­tent lone­li­ness. I will call her ‘Ann’.

Ann and her hus­band had one child, who died in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent five years ago. In their ef­forts to over­come their grief, they de­cid­ed to mi­grate to Spain. Sad­ly, her hus­band died of can­cer two years ago. Al­though she had friends there, she missed her ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly and friends in the UK. Over time, lone­li­ness “set in.” Through­out the Christ­mas sea­son, all the jol­ly mes­sages she re­ceived on so­cial me­dia deep­ened her feel­ing of lone­li­ness. Even when she at­tend­ed so­cial events there and was sur­round­ed by peo­ple, she still felt lone­ly. These are com­mon ex­pe­ri­ences of many who suf­fer from lone­li­ness.

I con­vinced her to seek coun­selling and li­aised with some of her rel­a­tives in the UK, who joined me in sup­port­ing her. She rang me on New Year’s Day. I was thrilled to dis­cov­er that she has fi­nal­ly sold her prop­er­ty in Spain and will be re­turn­ing to Lon­don soon to live near some of her sib­lings. Al­though she is in a much bet­ter place now - men­tal­ly, she recog­nis­es that she may still need pro­fes­sion­al help for a while.

Pope Leo re­mind­ed us in No­vem­ber that we can fall ill with lone­li­ness. Pope Fran­cis saw lone­li­ness as “a se­ri­ous mod­ern epi­dem­ic.” Lone­li­ness is not the same as be­ing alone, and it is not just sad­ness. It can af­fect every as­pect of our well-be­ing.

Re­search shows that there is a strong cor­re­la­tion be­tween lone­li­ness and men­tal health con­cerns. Hav­ing a men­tal health prob­lem can in­crease feel­ings of lone­li­ness. The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion de­clared lone­li­ness a ma­jor glob­al health con­cern and a pub­lic health is­sue, with 1 in 6 peo­ple glob­al­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it. It in­creas­es the risk and sever­i­ty of is­sues like de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, and even sui­ci­dal thoughts. Men­tal health con­di­tions can al­so cause so­cial with­draw­al, lead­ing to more lone­li­ness in a harm­ful cy­cle. It is linked to in­flam­ma­tion, chron­ic stress, cog­ni­tive de­cline, and poor­er phys­i­cal health out­comes, in­clud­ing in­creased risk of heart dis­ease, de­men­tia, and ear­ly death.

Re­search al­so shows that ado­les­cents, young adults and peo­ple in low­er-in­come coun­tries are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed, though it im­pacts all ages and all so­cial stra­ta.

Fratel­li Tut­ti, Pope Fran­cis’s en­cycli­cal on fra­ter­ni­ty and so­cial friend­ship (Oc­to­ber 2020)—writ­ten and pub­lished dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ad­dressed the epi­dem­ic of lone­li­ness by ad­vo­cat­ing for uni­ver­sal fra­ter­ni­ty/glob­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, so­cial friend­ship, and “open bor­ders” of love, con­trast­ing it with “a cul­ture that iso­lates in­di­vid­u­als and cre­ates walls of in­dif­fer­ence, lead­ing to fear and aban­don­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for the vul­ner­a­ble.”

He re­mind­ed us that we are made for com­mu­nion, not iso­la­tion. He used the para­ble of the Good Samar­i­tan “as a mod­el for ac­tive­ly car­ing for oth­ers, tear­ing down bar­ri­ers, and build­ing bridges through di­a­logue and en­counter to heal wound­ed so­ci­eties.” In a world in which self­ish­ness and in­di­vid­u­al­ism threat­en to over­whelm us, let us re­mem­ber that we are all in­ter­con­nect­ed.

He wrote: “God has cre­at­ed all hu­man be­ings equal in rights, du­ties and dig­ni­ty, and has called them to live to­geth­er as broth­ers and sis­ters ... in to­day’s world, the sense of be­long­ing to a sin­gle hu­man fam­i­ly is fad­ing, and the dream of work­ing to­geth­er for jus­tice and peace seems an out­dat­ed utopia ... If on­ly we might re­dis­cov­er once and for all that we need one an­oth­er, and that in this way our hu­man fam­i­ly can ex­pe­ri­ence a re­birth, with all its faces, all its hands and all its voic­es, be­yond the walls that we have erect­ed ... To­day we have a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press our in­nate sense of fra­ter­ni­ty, to be Good Samar­i­tans who bear the pain of oth­er peo­ple’s trou­bles rather than fo­ment­ing greater ha­tred and re­sent­ment” (FT, nos 5, 30, 35, & 77).

If feel­ings of lone­li­ness per­sist and af­fect your dai­ly func­tion­ing, turn to God/spir­i­tu­al ad­vi­sors with­in your faith com­mu­ni­ty, and find out about men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als who can as­sist you. Psy­chol­o­gists and men­tal health re­sources in T&T rec­om­mend a num­ber of strate­gies eg reach­ing out to trust­ed peo­ple, en­gag­ing in so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties, fo­cus­ing on self-care, and con­sid­er­ing ther­a­py.

• Life­line Trinidad & To­ba­go: Of­fers free, con­fi­den­tial 24/7 sup­port via hot­line at 800-5588.

• Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion: Hot­line at 628-2333.

• Child­Line Trinidad & To­ba­go: 800-4321.

• Min­istry of Health’s Find­CareTT - Di­rec­to­ry of men­tal health ser­vices and psy­chol­o­gists across T&T

• Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists (TTAP).

Let’s bring hope and heal­ing.