The Loneliness Cure: Dr. Ruth’s Practical Wisdom for Connection
The Secret of Connection from New York’s Loneliness Ambassador
Amanda Stern
September 04, 2024
The Loneliness Cure: Dr. Ruth’s Practical Wisdom for Connection
My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out
Many prominent figures throughout history have grappled with a deep sense of isolation and a yearning for connection.
Despite their struggles, they often left behind profound works that continue to offer insight and advice on dealing with life’s most difficult challenges.
Take Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, for instance.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) suffered from extreme social isolation and possibly agoraphobia. She was likely clinical depression and had anxiety, which made her preference for solitude understandable. The legacy she left behind comprises nearly 1,800 poems, resonant existential ponderings, exploring themes of nature, death, and the human condition.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) suffered from clinical depression, suicidal ideation, and marital problems. In her work, she left behind unflinching confessional poetry and a semi-autobiographical novel exploring mental illness.
More recently, enter the late Dr. Ruth Westheimer, beloved sex therapist, who built her career talking openly about sexual dysfunction.
Toward the end of her life, not wanting to be known as only a sex therapist, she turned her attention elsewhere, toward a different significant and equally stigmatized societal concern, isolation and loneliness.
“I don’t want to be known only as a sex therapist. I want to be known as a therapist.”
She was delighted when Hochul gave her the job.
“Dr. Ruth Westheimer has offered her services to help older adults and all New Yorkers cope with the loneliness epidemic…and I will be appointing her to serve as the nation’s first state-level honorary Ambassador to Loneliness.”
An extrovert by nature, Dr. Ruth loved going out, and rarely kept food in the house because she seldom ate there, much less cooked.
Then, Covid came, and it hit her hard.
During the time she was confined to her house, she experienced a profound sense of loneliness and alienation. The feelings were familiar, and she traced their contours back to childhood, remembering that she’d written about this same unpleasant internal state in her journals, growing up.
She went in search of these old writings, and she found them.
Dr. Ruth’s diary from childhood.
Her entries in 1945, when she was 16, included, “I live with 150 people — and am alone,” and how she was “longing for a friend” someone who “loves and understands me.”
She was 10 years old when she boarded a train to Switzerland as part of Kindertransport, a program designed to keep children safe from the Nazis.
It was the last time she saw her parents.
Looking back through her journals, she realized that she understood loneliness and as pandemic isolation bloomed into a national mental health crisis, she felt like the right person to take on this silent and pervasive epidemic. In addition to her traumatic childhood, she was twice divorced and then widowed.
Dr. Ruth’s Childhood Diary
Yesterday, Dr. Ruth’s final book was posthumously published. The Joy of Connections is a list of 100 strategies for building strong, lasting bonds.
Here are 5 Ways to Feel More Connected, According to Dr. Ruth:
To read the list, you must upgrade.
Subscribe to How to Live to read our content
Become a paying subscriber to get access to the rest of this post, other subscriber-only content, and the entire archive.
Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.
Reply