It’s ironic that I’m writing this online but I had lately been thinking about my relationship with my smartphone and the Internet, and the ways in which I use it. Yesterday I finished a really good book called How to Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price, and in the book she talks about the impact of smartphone use on our brains and our mental and physical health. While the statistics of phone use were disturbing, it was refreshing to read a book about how I could get my smartphone use under control. She provides a 30-day plan for spending less time on our phones and being more intentional with our phone use. I read another book by another author named Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism, but reading Catherine Price’s book was a good reminder about how, while technology has its benefits, it’s also a good idea to be aware of how much time we spend on our electronic devices. I have definitely noticed since I left my job last year to take care of my mental health, my phone use has gone up. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us spent time in isolation during quarantine, while many others had to work on the frontlines to deliver groceries and take care of patients dying of COVID-19, and as I reflected on my own challenges with loneliness I realized that human beings are wired for connection. Which is why quarantine was so challenging for a lot of people, even though in reality I can’t actually speak for everyone. As an introvert, going into quarantine at first seemed like no big deal since I usually recharge by spending time alone or with a few people. But I also realized that it was hard not being able to visit my family and friends in other parts of the country and the world, and that even though I was safely ensconced in my house with my books and computer and phone, people around the world were dying at rapid unprecedented rates and I found myself anxiously checking the statistics for how many people were being hospitalized and how many people were dying. All this doom-scrolling had a serious impact on my mental and emotional health, because when I came back into the office for work after having the unexpected fortune of working remotely for over a year, I viewed everything and everyone in my environment from the lens of my own fear and anxiety.
When the rates went down at one point during 2021 I tentatively walked around without my mask on, thinking, “I guess we’re safe since we’re not wearing masks anymore and the vaccines are coming out and rates are going down.” Then the numbers shot back up again with delta and omicron and once again, I found myself in a serious panic mode. Every day at work, I don’t know if I can honestly diagnose myself as having anxiety or panic attacks because I’m not a doctor but it felt like every day I sat in my cubicle I felt a deep tightness in my whole body and my thoughts were racing and even just little stuff set me off. I guess you could say I was having a serious nervous breakdown while trying my best to keep it all together. But then someone did something I didn’t like, a small thing that was really no big deal, they told me to take a breath and calm down, and I exploded at them. I ended up taking a day off, but I still continued to wrestle with my own little mental health crisis. I struggled with loneliness early on as someone with depression, but I didn’t give it much thought until my music teacher and I had a conversation about the pandemic and he mentioned how so many people suffered from loneliness during the pandemic. I found myself isolating from my coworkers during lunchtime often and while I normally love my alone time, I felt so disconnected from everything and everyone in my life. I think that’s what I realized about loneliness; it’s not the same thing as solitude, because there are many people who enjoy solitude, but loneliness is a painful experience and it made me feel disconnected from everyone and everything. It reminded me of when I was in college; I had met a lot of people and connected with a lot of people, but I got burned out within the first few months of my first year of college and started isolating myself from people, eating alone because I didn’t feel genuinely connected to the other people I interacted with. Even when some of my peers encouraged me to join their group for meals, I would ignore their text messages and sit alone by myself. While I need to move on from the past, as I’m grappling with loneliness in 2023 it brought up a lot of past memories and events in which I also struggled with loneliness. Being lonely has brought up some really destructive and unproductive and potentially toxic behaviors, but it has also given me a chance to think about my purpose in life and what I am bringing to my connections with other people.
Checking my smartphone all the time has been one of those unhealthy coping mechanisms, and I’m pretty relieved that I read the book about breaking up with your phone because it reminded me that checking our phones is something people often do when they are bored, lonely, anxious or dealing with other uncomfortable emotions and they want to self-soothe. When I was in the depths of depression a couple of years ago, I would stress-eat as a coping mechanism. I couldn’t be bored, I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t be uncomfortable, so I ate and ate and ate to numb this discomfort. I went to the break room for snacks as many times as I spent checking Gmail, YouTube and text messages on my phone (which is a lot of times.) I wasn’t even eating because the food tasted good; I was eating because I didn’t know how to deal with my stress in a healthy way, so self-soothing with food became my way of handling stress. I nibbled on vegan Hippeas cheese puffs, MadeGood granola bars, fruit, kettle-cooked chips, pretzels, vegan rice-krispy treats, anything that had salt and sugar. I normally don’t drink a lot of Starbucks, but I was running off to get Frappuccinos and lattes every week. I wasn’t even drinking it for the taste; I was just drinking it because I felt stressed. I wasn’t even appreciating the taste of the food; again, because I was using it as a coping mechanism to get through the day, I was numbing myself, so I didn’t even appreciate the taste of the food because I had accustomed myself to eating this kind of food in serious moments of stress. Thankfully I had a meditation practice of chanting that helped me stay afloat even in my darkest moments, even when I didn’t want to get out of bed, even when I felt hopeless. I also was part of a great Buddhist community and continued to participate in Zoom meetings with them as we gradually began to open our community centers back up again. I am still thankfully part of this community and while I am still grappling with loneliness, I am reminded that I don’t have to grapple with it alone.
I think what this experience of loneliness has taught me is the value of asking for help. In 2016, I was reluctant to seek help but then it got to the point where I actually needed to see a professional about my mental health. It ended up being one of the best decisions I have made in my life. But then time passed, I got busy, and stopped going for a couple of years when things went smoothly. Then the pandemic hit, and I gradually without knowing or understanding it, grew overwhelmed with everything but I still wasn’t seeking professional help because I thought I felt fine. But gradually as I started getting lonelier and this loneliness and depression started to affect my daily functioning, it became clear that asking for help wasn’t weak but was rather the best thing I could do to take care of myself. Even though I didn’t see my therapist every week, when I did see her I felt better. She really helped me make sense of my emotions and how to manage them better, and seeing therapy was a reminder that working on my emotional health, showing up for myself, and asking for help is a daily effort. I think that’s why reading Brene Brown’s books during these past few years has helped me a lot because I didn’t understand why I felt this huge range of emotions and also the root cause of why I felt anxious, sad, lonely, and confused but also grateful and happy.
*I know a lot of articles on mental health I read about typically put this in at the end of the article, but if you or a loved one needs help this is the new Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
The Arts Are Life 