YOU ARE NOT ALONE

     No. This is not a warning that there are ghosts and spirits surrounding you, haunting you.Perhaps you might feel the presence of a departed loved one, but this is not the loneliness of which I write today.
     Yesterday we saw yet another excellent production of a Broadway play at the Broward Center. It was Dear Evan Hansen. This is a play which my grandchildren told me that we must see and as it was in the subscription program, we did. I had not a clue as to what it was about. I just noticed that there was an exceptional amount of preteens and teens in the audience and many, many women. Curious indeed.
     Well, the theme of the play is right there in the title and well explains the composition of the audience. Loneliness and the depression that often accompanies it, the urge to end it all, the torment, the feeling that one is a ghost in life, speaking with no one, friends with no one, drifting through the halls of the schools or working places with nary a glance or greeting.
    The surprising thing is that we never realize how big, how deep this problem is and goes. Most adolescents feel alone, at least to some degree. I cannot count the times I had to counsel and console kids who felt this way, who were desperate in their emotions, clinging to the ledge with fingertips. And this included the so called 'popular' kids who had the same issues of feeling ignored, friendless, alone. The cheers and strong clapping of the audience attested to the strong appeal of this play, and the very excellent actors along with the songs. As I sat there, at times with tears in my eyes as I remembered the hard journeys for so many, and even for kids and grandkids to differeing degrees, I wondered why this is never addressed properly, why so many adults just do not see the problem, or assure them time will heal all wounds and problems. It does not! Not without help. Nor do the kids who appear to be so involved and so capable of achievement truly all feel so great. How many are the suicides of kids like this and then everyone wonders why, why?!
     Loneliness is a killer in many ways. It ruins lives and why the women? Because so many women are still sidelined in their careers or in their homes where adult conversation is rare. They feel alone in their pressured lives, alone as they call out for help, signal a need for a friend, for a willing ear, for an unselfish person to befriend them. Loneliness is hard.
     To the kids again. One hopes that adults will find a way, having had life experience, but not always are they successful, but these kids, well, they are in a more striking situation for to whom do they turn? Mostly, they hear the stupidity that high school years are the best years of their lives and how dumb is that. They are often the worst years as friends desert, as friends actually turn on former friends, as fellow students in their own needs become cruel and destructive.
     This play, which you must see, and take your grandchildren to it with you, at least presents some hope for this loneliness, the alone theme that runs throughout and the desperate steps one takes to remedy it, the cluelessness of parents and the helplessness of those same parents for they are cut to the quick at this whole scenario.
     We must all dig deep down and stop mouthing platitudes. Yes, we can certainly encourage kids with a better future, that things can get better, but we must accept that their pain is real and not ignore nor discount it. Somehow, we must ease their loneliness, ease their depression, cut their anxiety and avoid terrible consequences that arise from neglecting this issue. They must feel NOT alone, not there in all their invisibility. They must be reassured that they are going to be found, to be seen, to be valued. The other path is not acceptable and will only lead to horror.
     So yes, reassure your kids, your students, that they are indeed not alone, not unique in their feelings, in their desperation, in their anxiety and depression. Help them see the light at the end of the tunnel and to KNOW deep down that there will be people for them, they will be seen and they will be found. It is not easy, a task which will be forever ongoing, but a task that must be undertaken. To not do that, is to court peril and horrible outcomes.
     The current atmosphere in the country does not help. Lonely people must be met with kindness, with soft speech, with inclusion, and not with the hate filled rhetoric of the day, a rhetoric whch often leads alone and loneliness to add up to terrible deeds performed under desperate feelings. It is up to us, the adults, to recognize this lonelinees, this feeling of being alone and do something to alleviate it. If we do not accept the reality of this and the reality of needing effective and realistic measures, then on us be the consequences. On us be the shocked thousand yard stares of children , often teens who should not be in that place. On us be the suicides, the loss of humans, the lack of integration of all into a productive life in society. On us be it all. 
     We should not feel alone. We should be able to deal with loneliness and by the way, all of us senior citizens can feel this same
loneliness  as our friends pass, as our families grow and divide, living far away, as we begin to lose acuity, as we are pushed more and more to a sideline of society. We, too, must fight against the loneliness that can arise. We, too, must know, must make sure, that we, too, are found.
     It is a terrible and desperate state of being, to feel alone, to feel invisible. The need is there. The action must follow.