Get a Grip: Social ties, friendship boost mental health

The first comment about a school shooter, home-grown terrorist or other malcontent that makes headline news is from people who knew him who cluck their tongues and shake their heads. "He was always a loner," they say.

We are meant to live with others. Our very humanity, the ability to empathize, bond and succeed in life all depend on our ability to connect meaningfully with others. When we are infants, the first thing our parents notice is whether or not we make eye contact with them. Do we smile back when they smile at us? If so, we have met the first of a long list of important milestones. If we don't smile back or make eye contact, our worried parents take us to the pediatrician who mentions Autism Spectrum Disorder.

By the time we are ready for first grade, we probably already have a "best friend," our first outside-the-family meaningful relationship. Friendships help us to define what is important in relationships and in life. When we are 6, we value puppies; when we are 10, it's baseball (which falls in importance until we are in our 70s and the Cubs make it to the World Series). If we fail in any of these endeavors, our parents may take us to a counselor to see why we are not learning basic social skills.

As we grow and begin to spend more time away from our family, the groups and larger associations we are a part of help to define us. If we do not fit into any clearly defined group, and if we cannot find others of our ilk, we eat lunch alone and read a book, pretending we haven't noticed our loneliness. If we are lucky, someone else who likes to read will join us. We will exchange our favorite books and create another group based on shared interests. But, if we do not, people start referring to us as loners and looking askance.

We travel in our adolescent packs until we find our perfect mate, and then we associate only with other couples. Again, we select other couples who are like us ? a part of the same social groups, special interest groups and so on. Or, we fail to find the perfect mate, and people began to wonder why it is we aren't doing what everybody else in the world is doing at our age. Maybe we seek out therapy for ourselves at this point. Our therapist says we are depressed or having social anxiety or some other mental health diagnosis.

If we have met all these milestones and then suddenly change, stop interacting with others and stop paying attention to our hygiene or dress so we no longer fit with our community, our friends and family become alarmed and insist we see a psychiatrist to be evaluated.

So, you see, a great deal of importance throughout life depends on our ability to connect with other people. That is why, when clients come to see me, I want to know about their associations, relationships, where they turn for support and how they feel about their connections to the human family. I want to connect them to support groups, to community resources and to others who share their interests.

People who are not connected are more likely to commit suicide. People who are alienated also are more likely to hurt others, to abuse drugs and alcohol and to engage in dangerous or criminal activities. Happy, well-adjusted, mentally healthy people do not cause mischief, generally, whereas unhappy, mal-adjusted, mentally unstable people may.

Loneliness is not obvious. You may never know the effect of a friendly word, a shared smile, a kind gesture. But more than once I have heard from one of my clients the only reason they are alive today is because someone noticed them and included them, however briefly, in their life, and that was enough to give them hope.

So, go out there and make eye contact. And, play nicely in that sandbox. We're counting on you.

? Gale Harris is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience in the mental health field. Contact her at tpgaleh@yahoo.com.