Companionship

one of the cruelest aspects of mental illness is that it strips us of any ability to believe that other people might be suffering in the way we are. we aren't being willfully egocentric or arrogant; we are condemned by our illness to a feeling that we are uniquely pitiful, uniquely unacceptable, uniquely awful. the central legacy of mental illness, and a major contributor to our suicidal impulses, is a feeling of exceptionalism.

We begin to flee from other individuals. We become proactively scared of the imagined invulnerability and judgmentalness of others we could meet, making social gatherings impossible. When our thoughts are filled with dreadful scenarios and an intrusive voice tells us that we should die, we can't possibly make small talk or concentrate on what someone else is saying. There appears to be no concise or acceptable way to express what we've been through with old friends: they remembered us as lively and upbeat. What do you think they'd think of the troubled characters we've turned into?

We begin to believe that no one on this planet could possibly understand, let alone accept, what it's like to be us. This is especially terrible because company is the most effective treatment for mental illness. Our illness prevents us from getting exactly what we need to be better.

The disappointed souls were first displayed in 1891 by Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler. Five figures are depicted in a variety of depressed states. We don't know what went wrong in their lives, but their boundless talent compels us to speculate what may have been: a marriage here, a social embarrassment there, a depression, a sense of overwhelming anxiety... however horrific the individual stories may be, the true horror of the painting is revealed in the way each crisis unfolds in complete isolation from its neighbours. The despondent figures are barely millimetres apart, but they could as well be in different nations. It should be so simple to reach out and share the weight, to lend a helping hand, to swap experiences, and it should be so life-giving, but no fellowship appears to be conceivable in this isolated hell. Sadness has engulfed each victim in a pitiless sense of their own uniqueness.

Hodler didn't design his piece to be a single scene; rather, he saw it as a metaphor of modern society as a whole, with its lack of community, lonely cities, and alienating technologies. However, there is the chance of atonement in this depiction.

When we recognise that we are always quite close to someone who is just as bad as we are, we will begin to heal. As a result, we should be able to reach out to a broken neighbour and commiserate together. We should learn to gather together for a very specific kind of social occasion, one in which the sole purpose is to trade notes on life's miseries and abrasions.

We would take turns revealing our mental torments to one another in an ideal meeting of the sick in a cosy secure space. Each of us would describe the most recent difficulties. We'd hear of people having restless nights, being unable to eat, being afraid to go outside, hearing voices, and having to resist continual urges to murder themselves. The material would undoubtedly be dark, but hearing it would be a bomb for our bereft souls.

In a perfect world, we'd meet up with the same individuals week after week so that our lives became linked with theirs and we could share mutual support as we journeyed through the valleys of illness. We'd be able to tell who was in particular distress and in need of care, as well as who may benefit from a mundane conversation about the garden or the weather.

It's impossible that we're as isolated as we think we are. Complete one-offs do not exist in biology. Among the seven billion members of our species, there are companions. They're there, but we've lost faith in our ability to find them. We don't feel alone because we are, but because we are ill. We should dare to believe that a fellow bemused soul is currently sitting on the bench next to us, waiting for us to make a sign.