Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general, on why he chose to share his own struggles with loneliness.
Times Opinion on Sunday published a powerful essay about one man's struggle with loneliness and isolation — about how a change in his professional life led to disconnection from the people he cared about, and how after a while he began to feel like he didn't even deserve their company in the first place. |
That experience is, sadly, not so exceptional. The person who wrote about it is: Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general. |
Yesterday, Murthy's office unveiled an advisory titled "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation," which lays out the vast toll — in health, productivity, education, civic engagement and more — caused by our increasingly atomized lives. "Given these extraordinary costs," he wrote in The Times, "rebuilding social connection must be a top public health priority for our nation." |
I asked him why, in an essay about this public initiative, he chose to reveal so much about his private emotions. "Having struggled for many years with the shame of loneliness myself," he said, he "felt it was important to share with the broader public that this isn't something we need to keep in the shadows." |
He added that "part of the reason it felt cathartic is not just what I hoped the story was doing for other people, but what it did for me, too." |
I asked him what he meant by that. "This is a time when so many people feel like we have to be a certain person, to build a certain brand, to meet other people's expectations," he said. "I think to not be able to be who you are takes a real toll on people." He wants to promote "a culture that allows people to be who they are without making them feel judged or ashamed," in which people can practice what he calls radical authenticity. "I thought it was important to do that if I'm asking people to do the same." |
He has been gratified by the response. "I've been really touched by many of the messages I've gotten since then from people who've shared their struggles," he said, including "people who are in fancy jobs and important positions but they feel like the relationships they have with other people were transactional." |
If you'd like to share your own experiences with loneliness and isolation, there's a form at the bottom of the essay where you can do so. We plan to use a selection of responses in a future project. An Opinion editor will contact you before publishing your comments if they are selected. |
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