NO! Not Isolation!
Isolation is when you are separated, mentally or physically, from others or new people. During COVID-19, almost everyone was in isolation. We weren’t able to go to school, parties, birthday celebrations, or anywhere, let alone talk to our friends or some of our family unless it was on Zoom or other virtual methods. We call this social isolation because you don’t have any or only a little contact between you and society. Also, it usually happens because you choose to isolate yourself. But now… imagine you’re stuck in a dark room, no windows, no doors, and no way to communicate with anyone from the outside world. This is called total isolation. Believe it or not, many prisoners in jail go through this type of isolation. Isolation of any kind always ALWAYS has some negative consequences.
Experiencing Something Not There
For your mental health, isolation can sometimes cause you to get hallucinations, experiencing something you think is real but was actually created by your mind. You and I (and every other human) are born as social creatures, whether we sometimes feel like we don’t like people. We basically need at least some human contact to survive and if we do not have it, we try our best to find it. So, when you are all alone for long periods of time, you start imagining something is there with you, like a friend, even though they are not. Your brain tries to make up imaginary things/“friends” to make you feel less lonely. When we were little, or even now, we might have/had imaginary friends or someone we made up in our mind, so we could talk to someone when we were bored. Personally, I had a fun imaginary friend called “Stella Squishies” (weird name, I know… don’t judge seven years old me), who was able to be one of my best friends for a very, very, very, very long time!
I Feel Stressed
Not only this, but isolation makes it more difficult for us to deal with stressful situations. We don’t have anyone to cope with, we are stuck to deal with all situations alone. If you’re isolated for a LOOONG time, you also get more paranoid, or suspicious of the people and things around you, with stuff that would usually seem normal to you, like a door closing or a faucet running. You might start thinking, “Someone must be there…” and you might be extremely creeped out.
What Time Is It?
Isolation also causes you to lose your perception of time, especially if you are constantly in a dark room. What does this mean? It means you slowly start losing track of time. What feels like 10 years to you could actually be just 10 minutes. You wouldn’t even know when the day started or ended. Your version of a “day” in isolation would feel like an eternity! Honestly, to you, you definitely wouldn’t feel as if there were “days” anymore!
But what exactly does isolation do to your brain? Guess what! It actually makes your brain smaller. Weird, right? Your prefrontal cortex (in charge of your decision-making and emotional responses, like crying, anger, fear, etc.), amygdala (in charge of processing emotion), hippocampus (in charge of learning and memory) in your brain are found to all get smaller!! Once again, what does this mean? Like I said before, you would have a harder time trying to make decisions in stressful situations and you wouldn’t know how to respond to other situations. Think about it. If someone told you something sad and heartbreaking, you would usually cry or at least, feel very upset. However, if you went through isolation, you might not cry and feel upset because it would be hard for you to do so :( Your brain is also less able to repair itself quickly, especially if your brain cells die or malfunction, or do not work properly. Brain cells, or neurons, naturally die and replace themselves throughout your WHOLE life. But… if it couldn’t replace the missing neurons, you would have fewer and fewer neurons each time they die and you wouldn’t function correctly!
I understand that sometimes we just want to be alone because people can be annoying or mean. But make sure you do not completely isolate yourself and not talk to anyone, or else, it would be very bad for you!
Risks of Isolation
Picture Source: APA.org
