Poll: Does social isolation affect you?

Social isolation can be a problem with severe mental illness…

  • a lot
  • quite a lot
  • moderately
  • a little
  • not at all

I voted a lot. Now i have lost my support workers i will see no one most weeks. My social isolation is a product of my social interaction problems, social anxiety, and some might say poor social skills. Also paranoia plays a part. If i am honest i struggle with knowing how to engage with people to make friends with them. It doesn’t help that apart from family i only really feel comfortable with those with first and second hand experience of mental illness.

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It is hard and a catch 22… you have to be around people to develop better social skills… and with no opportunity, I can imagine you feel very cut off.

I’m so sorry you lost that support.

Social isolation would be a down fall for me. I don’t do well on my own. I get through my day because I do have some family and a friend or two who are willing to be patient with me and guide me back to lucid.

I can’t spend the night alone… my paranoia amps up. I’m willing to try and take better care of the money and other things because if I don’t quite make it… my sis will easily come in and take care of the rough edges.

If I didn’t have the help I do… I wouldn’t make it.

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a whole lot. I agree with the above two that it is a skills problem and a catch 22 situation. like surprised j I find it all too difficult to be alone.

judy

That is very true. It also helps to know exactly what you need to improve on. I personally don’t know how to improve them if i don’t have a concrete definition/examples of what they are.

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firemonkey. if you feel more comfortable with people who have first hand experience with MI maybe that’s who you should socialize with, at least for awhile.

there are so many of us with mi and then our families etc. many people with first hand knowledge…

good luck to you. judy

Since the daily drop ins have gone the opportunities are very few and far between.

it affects me a lot its nice to have friends people do go out with and have fun with i dont have any so im going to a place called the anchor project its a drop in for people with mental illness i chose the art class so were not all sat staring at each other i have social anxiety too, its ok to be shy other people like it cause you can listen to them.
you can talk to yourself in your head like your doing really well, concentrating on breathing.
you dont even have to speak if you dont want to.

Your socializing here is darn good.

social isolation affects me the most at the weekend. apart from my parents I stay in.
during the week I do quite well as I do charity work and in September I will be back at college.
but even though I have met pals at college they all have partners and children so I have no single buddies to hang out with or to reduce the isolation

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It does affect me a little. For two reasons:

  1. Real support from my Bible teacher
  2. Community like this does lessen the impact of social isolation

It affects me a lot. The only people I see are my husband every day, my in-laws once a week and strangers in public about twice a week. And my hospital outpatients dept and maybe my pdoc once a month. I don’t socialise a lot, because I don’t care much about it, I like being on my own, and it doesn’t bother me that much, even though I do get lonely. But my husband helps with that.

Isolation plays a big role in my life.

I haven’t always been an urban hermit. Though I’ve been a loner, I had a lot of social interaction throughout the years. I think my social skills are still holding up even though I don’t interact with people in “real life” every day.

There is however another effect of my isolation. When I go outside it feels, because I haven’t regularly been out in the world for a long time, like I’m a prisoner being released from years of lockup. The city has changed and I feel a little out of place, even though I’ve lived here almost all my life.

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I don’t feel socially isolated anymore now that I’ve admitted to what is going on with me, I find alot of support in friends. the problem is my friends are all at the office while I’m at home trying to line up surgery. people at work have friends at work, or at least social contact of some kind, I miss that.

Yes isolation effects me.

I tend towards it too. I’m not an isolated individual but I have been in the past. I get all wonky up in the old head if I spend too much time alone. Things begin to feel a little foggy and disconnected. Difficult to get back into the socialization game again if I do that.

When I spend time with people or talk to them I get fragmented…disintegrated. Sometimes it takes me several days to recover. I think I’ve isolated myself for a reason. I’m lucky to have my two brothers - what’s left of my family. I have to recover from them, but not as much, and there’s also a good feeling that comes from being with them.good