The Age of Loneliness

Panellist %
Rosemary Kayess 23
Sarah Wilson 26
Hugh Mackay 18
Gus Worland 22
Michelle Lim 11

HAMISH MACDONALD

Right now, you could pick up any device and contact anyone you know or love just about anywhere in the world. You might send them a message, contact them via video or drop into their inbox. So why is it that so many of us feel so lonely? One in four of us, in fact, and that was before this pandemic and imposed isolation hit. Some of us are cut off in ways we never imagined, so tonight we’re talking about loneliness – the causes, the costs and the remedies. You’ve got loads of questions on this, so let’s get you some answers. Welcome to Q+A.

Hi there. Welcome to the program. Joining me tonight, a man who is not afraid to talk about how he feels or ask you repeatedly how you feel – long-time radio host and mental health campaigner Gus Worland. Also clinical psychologist Michelle Lim, who chairs an organisation called Ending Loneliness Together that’s calling for a national response to address loneliness. Rosemary Kayess is a leading human rights lawyer, she’s the vice-chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and, to top it all off, she was also awarded last year’s Human Rights Medal.

Psychologist, social researcher and author Hugh Mackay, who believes it’s up to us as individuals to combat this. And author and activist Sarah Wilson, who has written candidly about her struggles with loneliness and anxiety. Please make all of them feel welcome. And remember, you can join the conversation on iview, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. #QandA is the hashtag.

Each week our panellists engage in a robust and respectful debate, so if you are getting involved on social media, we ask that you are also respectful. Our first question tonight comes from Jane Hasler in the studio audience.

JANE HASLER

Thanks very much, Hamish. Research has found that the impact of loneliness on our physical health is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and can increase the risk of death by 26%. Our harsh COVID-19 restrictions are increasing loneliness across all ages. What changes and support need to be made to address this harm, particularly for our fellow Australians in Victoria?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Michelle, I want to start with you. Can you just define what loneliness is for us?

MICHELLE LIM, LONELINESS RESEARCHER, SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY

So, loneliness is defined as subjective social isolation. So it’s a subjective feeling where your social relationships are not meeting your social needs. So, in this case, it’s different from social isolation. So social isolation, more crudely, is defined by objective indicators. So, if you’re living alone or you know fewer people, that’s being socially isolated.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, Sarah, it’s not about being alone necessarily, but what does loneliness feel like?

SARAH WILSON, AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST

Oh, gosh. Look, I really like to distinguish between aloneness and loneliness. I am somebody who has lived alone for a long time. And, as you mentioned, I think the pandemic actually created aloneness into an issue because we were shut off from the biological mechanisms required to deal with a crisis. So, during that time when I experienced loneliness, it felt like an ache, it felt like an ache for something that was almost indistinguishable and indescribable. It also felt like a deep itch.

And I describe it as an itch because it was also a sense that there was a missingness, there was something missing that wasn’t just people, but a disconnection from meaning. And I think that that’s the harshest part of loneliness, if we drill it down to what it really is, which I feel is a disconnection from meaning, a meaningful relationship.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Can it be physical pain?

SARAH WILSON

Absolutely. It plays out very much like anxiety and depression does. So, at a biological level, what happens when we experience loneliness, it’s very much like when we’re hungry, we go in search of food, when we’re thirsty, we go in search of water. When we’re in a crisis, we go in search of other humans. And we need that to actually downplay or regulate our nervous systems so that we can process a lot of what’s going on in a crisis. When we’re denied that, when we’re isolated, as Michelle says, we are actually denied that physical outlet.

And so it builds up much like anxiety does – it feels like shortness of breath, heart palpitations and a real sense that we are in a flight-or-fight mode yet we have no release for it, we have no ability to go and satiate that urge, so it compounds.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, Rosemary, during this pandemic, during the initial lockdown, how did loneliness take shape in your life?

ROSEMARY KAYESS, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DISABILITY INNOVATION INSTITUTE UNSW

In my life, I suppose it was more a disconnect from my family, because it was more the disconnect from the outside world, and for lots of people with disability during this time there was actually greater connection because so much of the rest of the community all of a sudden could go online, and so you could participate in things from your own home. Now, people with disabilities struggle to be able to access the wider community for a variety of access issues.

And so, in a perverse sort of way, the beginnings of the lockdown and COVID has actually opened up avenues where people with disability can actually participate a little bit more. I suppose for me personally, as I say, it’s about my family and my very close relationships that you weren’t there for the physical bond that you can have with people. I mean, being a person with a disability, and especially a person who uses a wheelchair, I have structural barriers around me, and there’s lots of structural barriers within our community that separates me from engaging with people.

But, yeah, it was the cut-off from my family, but, strangely enough, the connections more broadly with the outside world were opened up for myself and for lots of other people with disability.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Gus, I think you felt some loneliness as a young guy, as a teen.

GUS WORLAND, FOUNDER, GOTCHA4LIFE

Yeah, no doubt about it, I definitely felt myself at times feeling very lonely and not feeling as if I had the right connections and so forth around me, but it took a little bit of time and it took education and eventually we got there. And I certainly feel now there’s a bond that I have with certain friends and family which I’ve learnt and had to sort of work out over time.

And I suppose for me, through the pandemic, I had my daughter in Japan initially, so I wanted to get her back and eventually she decided to go to England ‘cause she thought it was all going to be over because she’s 18 and she was positive. And now she’s back with us. To get everyone back in together again was brilliant, but then I worry about my mum, who I couldn’t go and visit and be with.

So, yeah, it’s been a real up and down last six or seven months. And, of course, the work we’re doing at Gotcha4Life around prevention of suicide, for me, I believe suicide is a death of loneliness, so that’s what I’ve been so worried and concerned about, those numbers.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Alright. Let’s take our next question tonight. It’s a video from Amelia Pace in Glen Waverley, Victoria.

AMELIA PACE, GLEN WAVERLEY, VIC

As a millennial, I know how many of my peers feel a sense of loneliness. My generation often associates being alone with being lonely. My question for the panel is – in a world in which we are ever more connected, why is it that so many of us feel so alone?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Hugh?

HUGH MACKAY, PSYCHOLOGIST AND AUTHOR

Yes, “connected but lonely” has become a kind of popular phrase to describe this thing that we perhaps didn’t anticipate, that the information technology revolution that promised that we would be more connected than we’ve ever been in human history, and that’s true, didn’t also mention that it would be easier than ever in human history to stay away from each other.

So, I think we shouldn’t be at all surprised that “connected but lonely” is a phenomenon when you think about the species that we belong to, Hamish. I mean, we humans, like many other species on the planet, are essentially social beings, we’re herd animals. We absolutely need each other. We’re hopeless in isolation. We congregate.

We form families, neighbourhoods, workplaces, choirs, football teams, etc – that’s the kind of people we are. Now, all of those kinds of connections that are typical of herd animals involve being in the same place at the same time. They involve face-to-face contact, eye contact, sometimes touch, picking up all the nuances, all the subtleties of interpersonal conversation, rate of speech, turn of voice, posture, gesture, all of those things.

Now, the information technology revolution, which of course has been a bit of a lifesaver for many people through the pandemic, the kind of connection that it offers is of a completely different kind which is not consistent with the sort of connection that members of a social species need.

So, in other words, when you go online, there’s no more eye contact, there’s no more subtlety, all those complexities, all those nuances, there’s no touch, and so it’s a completely different experience. Yes, we’re transferring, we’re exchanging a lot of data with each other on social media and via emails and even visually on Zoom, but it’s in a completely different category from what happens when we’re actually face to face.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Can I ask, though, because we’re sitting in a TV studio, you’re in Canberra via a video link. You’re right next to Rosemary when I look towards you. Are you saying that I’m connecting with Rosemary and Sarah and Gus in a totally different way to what I’m able to with you simply because of the way in which you’re talking to us?

HUGH MACKAY

Yeah, I’m afraid that’s true. And I can feel the disadvantage from this studio. But at least we’ve got all this technology that we can at least see each other. You can see me waving my hands around, etc. Many of the social media messages that are used as a substitute for face-to-face contact, of course, don’t have this at all. And even in this setting, it’s not anything like... You can’t reach out and give me a reassuring pat on the shoulder the way you could with Gus.

HAMISH MACDONALD

I’m not allowed to do that with any of these people either under COVID restrictions. Sarah, you have talked, though, about the positive side of social media, a sort of antidote to loneliness.

SARAH WILSON

Yeah.

HAMISH MACDONALD

What can you get there that’s harder for you in real life?

SARAH WILSON

Technology is always an enabler, it’s not the criminal that we set it out to be. So, it can actually be used in wonderfully positive ways. For me, much like Rosemary, I lived on my own during the pandemic and the shutdown here in New South Wales, and I’ve lived on my own for 12 years. And so it’s been a way for me to connect, and I have been isolated to a certain extent with my mental health.

So it has actually enabled me to connect in a very meaningful way. And I think that’s the key issue here. And that’s what distinguishes things in this conversation, with Hugh and Michelle online, so to speak, is that we’re actually having a meaningful discussion. What technology often enables is a lack of meaningful conversation because of the disengagement. So I’ve been able to use technology, mostly because of my age. I straddled the era when Twitter didn’t exist and it came into play when I was in my 30s, and I was able to actually deal with it in a mature way, same with Instagram, Facebook, etc.

And I was an early adopter but I was actually able to engage it in a way where I wasn’t as addicted, I knew a time before, and I was able to use it in meaningful ways. So, during the COVID era, I’ve actually found technology to be wonderfully beneficial because I’ve found, much like Rosemary has, a lot of my family and friends have all suddenly had to interact the same way I have. And we’ve all done it in quite a meaningful way.

We’ve been forced to. We’ve been forced to slow down. So I don’t think that technology is the devil, it’s an enabler. Unfortunately, however, technology has, over the last 20 years, been all about getting rid of discomfort. The bigger issue that technology raises, it’s made us very unresilient to discomfort, including being able to be on our own, including having to face difficult and therefore meaningful conversations with others. That’s where I see the issue lies.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, Gus, on this... Please feel free to applaud.

SARAH WILSON

Thank you.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Gus, on the slowing down, on the meaningful conversations, you’ve got three adult children, I think – they’re all at home, there’s some partners in there as well. What do you do to sort of force the meaningful conversation with them?

GUS WORLAND

Look, it is difficult at times, and I suppose you want to have the house a safe place for kids to be around, and as you said, and I’ve got a son 20, a daughter nearly 19 and a daughter 17. They’ve now all got partners, so it is full, and I love the fact that our place is full. But even in a big house with a lot of people, sometimes people can feel very, very lonely.

So the most important thing for me, and all the stuff we’re doing at Gotcha, is that people will have a conversation if you build a safe environment to have it. You can’t force it. You’ve just got to allow it to happen properly. And if you feel safe enough to have a chat, you’ll probably have it. And I think that’s something that’s built over a period of time. You feel as if you’re a safe place to have a chat, so I’m going to have a chat.

HAMISH MACDONALD

But you also sort of talk about the value of an awkward silence.

GUS WORLAND

No doubt about it. Like, we’re taught as blokes to fill that silence all the time – a smart-arse comment or a joke or whatever. To actually sit in some vulnerable...

HAMISH MACDONALD

I mean, you did do commercial radio for quite some time, Gus.

GUS WORLAND

Well, that is right. It was 2,500 shows of that type of stuff. And, of course, dead air on radio is literally dead air. So for me to sit in some vulnerable silence and to teach blokes to have that conversation where you don’t have to flow all the time and not everything is just moving and grooving, having that type of discussion where you might actually be having tears coming out of your eyes, snot coming out of your nose and you’re just trying to get stuff out, that vulnerable conversation of gravity is the conversation we should be having more of.

And we never quite give ourselves a chance to do that. Blokes then, even if they’re together, they’re lonely, because they’re not talking about what truly means something to them.

HAMISH MACDONALD

I can see Rosemary is trying to get in. We’re trying to find some dead air, Gus.

ROSEMARY KAYESS

It’s more the fact that it’s nearly the old six Yorkshiremen – “That’s luxury.” I mean, lots of people with disability don’t have that space, they don’t have that safe space. The people that they connect with are paid employees, they’re staff members of services and their lives are built around the disability service system. And that’s all they know and that’s the only space they have. And we’re now having a royal commission that’s examining the abuse and neglect and exploitation that happens in those closed, segregated environments.

And so where can those people with disability find those safe spaces, find those connections? I mean, loneliness, if it’s about the subjective quality of the relationships you have, if your only relationship is a paid service relationship, well, then, that’s not going to fulfil the intimate, the meaningful corners of your soul.

HUGH MACKAY

Hamish, could I jump in at this point?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Sure.

HUGH MACKAY

It seems to me that what Rosemary’s just said and also what Sarah said about being alone at times when she was struggling with mental illness, this is our problem. It does seem to me that we talk about loneliness sometimes as though the people who are lonely have this problem and maybe they should be doing something about it. When we talk about – as we now do talk about – an epidemic of loneliness, it’s our epidemic, it’s the result of ways in which our society has changed.

We’ve become more socially fragmented and we are less attentive to neighbours. An alarming number of people don’t know their neighbours. I think some of Michelle’s recent research showed that about 50% of Australians say they don’t feel they could call on their neighbours in a crisis. Now, what should we take out of this? It seems to me those of us who don’t feel lonely need to re-examine the role of neighbour.

We need to understand that there’s probably someone in our street who is struggling with a disability or is a frail elderly person living alone or is a single parent having trouble getting out and socialising or is a person struggling with some form of mental illness. That’s our responsibility to be better neighbours to those people.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Hugh, I want to take us to our next question because it will take us on from that point. It’s from Malcolm Pryor, in Ashwood, Victoria.

MALCOLM PRYOR, ASHWOOD, VIC

Does the panel think that because, A, so much speech is now ‘forbidden’, i.e. offends certain minorities, contains trigger phrases, etc, etc, and, B, we’re so quick to write off people we disagree with – Twitter, anybody? – we’ve become incapable of having real conversations about real issues, thereby contributing to our own loneliness?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Michelle, some academics write about social media actually sort of dividing us, pushing us into corners and therefore actually making us feel more lonely because we’re less likely to reach out and talk to someone that we might not agree with.

MICHELLE LIM

Look, I just think of the term homophily, so we tend to hang out with people that agree with our own opinions and we tend to relate and function in circles in which other people are similar to us. So this is actually, with or without social media involved, and we tend to...

HAMISH MACDONALD

But doesn’t social media accentuate that? Because in normal life you meet people from all walks of life. You might sit next to them on the train, you might have a child playing sport with them, so you have these conversations with people that you may not agree with just by being there. Whereas social media tends to sort of put people into corners.

MICHELLE LIM

Look, I think one of the things about social media is that it’s easier to hide behind that screen. So it may come across as a little bit more aggressive or a little bit more disconnecting in some way. But I actually agree with Sarah – it’s not social media per se, it’s about how you use it that’s more important. And, you know, if you’re using it to be combative or you’re using it to, you know, create conflict, you know, or you’re using it to compare yourself with other people, those are unhelpful intentions of using social media.

But if you’re using it to actually reconnect with people that you care about, you know, your friends from the other side of the world, you know, those things can really reduce loneliness. So, for me, it’s about how you use it as opposed to the technology itself.

SARAH WILSON

Look, Michelle, I think that’s a really great point and I might just add to that to speak to Malcolm’s question a little. I think what a lot of this boils down to, when we’re talking about when aloneness or disconnection or social isolation becomes a problem, it’s when that meaningfulness piece comes in. And a lot of philosophers throughout history, since, you know, the Greek philosophers through to, I think, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, but also psychologists today talk about the far more dangerous and disconcerting loneliness which is moral aloneness or moral loneliness, and I think this is what we’re actually straddling at the moment.

And I think that is at the core of the real pain of the loneliness that we feel. We can deal with aloneness if we feel that we have meaningful connections on Zoom or with family in whatever form it might take. We can deal with technology and the limitations it has if we are engaged in some kind of meaningfulness. Now, we are in a world where COVID revealed a lot of this for us, revealed a lot of the redundancies in our culture that the neoliberal system has set us up for. But we also had the bushfires, we also had the Black Lives Matter riots and protests.

All of this has been happening at a time as democracy has gone dramatically downhill. We’ve got political fragmentation, and to Malcolm’s question, we’ve got people who can’t talk straight. We don’t get straight answers from politicians, and we are feeling dreadfully morally alone, where the general moral umpires that used to guide us in life – whether it was the Church that ordained a Sabbath, whether it was the trade unions that ensured things were fair, whether it was leaders or even the media that kept everything a little bit honest – they’ve all fallen apart.

And so we’re expected to navigate this on our own, and that, I think, is at the core of a lot of our existential loneliness.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Rosemary, do you agree? Do you think the sort of political, social fragmentation actually has an impact on individual feelings of loneliness?

ROSEMARY KAYESS

It must, because it isolates you from what Hugh was talking about, that herd that we all want to be part of. And, I mean, I speak to it in terms of physical segregation. But people with disability, and to a certain extent myself, even though I have the opportunity to engage a hell of a lot more than what lots of people with disability do, it’s that specific segregation that is structurally embedded for people with disability, the way they’re segregated in education, the way they’re segregated in terms of residential care and services.

And it’s that structural segregation that disconnects them and really does see them as different. And so they don’t understand what the community is trying to achieve by making them so isolated. And so it’s a confusing moral compass more than anything.

HAMISH MACDONALD

And that was worse during COVID from what I understand, you say, because of, you know, these sort of statements that were made about the way service or health care would be prioritised – people effectively being sort of left off the list of care.

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Yeah. Look, there was a situation that arose, and it started in Italy, its healthcare system was under incredible stress. And this is what health pandemics do and this is what, you know, the whole physical distancing was about – to try and keep the pressure off the healthcare system so the death rates didn’t escalate. And so in managing that pressure on the healthcare systems, various countries – Italy, Spain, Canada, Britain – all started to develop what they were calling critical care triage systems.

And we’d started the pandemic where everyone was going on and saying, “Look, for the most people, it’s just going to be a mild flu, but it’s really only a concern for the people with pre-existing conditions, and the elderly. So, you know, most of us will be OK.” And that sort of, you know, started the concept that “Oh, yeah, well, we’re just the collateral damage.” But then the critical care stuff started to come out. I mean, I write about ableism, I teach human rights, I deal with that on an academic level day in, day out.

And I was asked to do this statement of concern around the critical care triage. And there was examples from various countries where they were just singling out diagnostic groups, not based on any clinical analysis, just diagnostic groups that were being listed that wouldn’t receive critical care.

HAMISH MACDONALD

How do you feel as an individual about that?

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Well, it was such a visceral reaction that I had. It was so in my face that I was dispensable. My life wasn’t valued and I was dispensable. Now, I had this illusion that I was this... I thought I was doing a pretty good job with my life, you know, working and, you know, I own my home, and I love my family, and, you know, I’ve got friends and thought I was contributing, but when it came down to it I was dispensable. I was not one of the real people. And, yeah, it hit me in the face.

HAMISH MACDONALD

I’m really sorry to hear that. It’s awful.

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Look, I was not alone. I mean, I think you speak to anybody with a disability, when that triage stuff was happening. And how do you think older people feel? I mean, older people are really only ending up in aged care systems because of their impairments. And so, yeah, from the word go, it’s been reinforced to them – they’re the collateral damage.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Right. Let’s take our next question tonight. It comes from Stewart Lung.

STEWART LUNG

Thank you, Hamish. Good evening, panel. I’m single and in my experience, society perceives us as lonely, but couples aren’t because two is company, one is not. I enjoy my own company. Is there a misconception that single people are lonely and married people aren’t?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Gus?

GUS WORLAND

Yep, I definitely think there’s that misconception, 100%. I know a lot of people that are single. My mum, for instance, she’s not lonely at all, she’s got a very good life. She’s worked out her own way to get things done, she’s got her friends when she wants to see them. She goes to the movies, goes out for a curry, that’s what she does. And she loves having her little routines. Loves being up early and then going to bed early, and that’s what she does. And there’s lots of married people, especially blokes that I speak to, who are extremely lonely and don’t feel like they’ve got any real connection with their partner. So I think you’re absolutely onto something there.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Hugh, what’s your view on this? Can you be in a relationship and still feel lonely? Because the statistics show that you are less likely to feel lonely if you are in a relationship.

HUGH MACKAY

Less likely to, that’s right. I mean, we can’t generalise about this, we have to look at individual cases, of course. But this is absolutely right. You can be alone, you can be socially isolated and not feel lonely at all. In 25% of Australian households, there is just one person living. But as with the point Sarah was making about social media, I mean, people will respond to social media in a totally different way according to whether they’re in touch with people they know, in which case it’s an augmentation of an actual friendship, a relationship, versus people they don’t know.

Now, in the same way, when we’re talking about people who live alone, there is a huge difference between people who have chosen to live alone, who are voluntary soloists, and who will typically say, “I love living alone. It’s a symbol of my freedom and independence. I can find people when I need them. I love coming home, shut the door, punch the air and say, ‘Alone at last.’ Now I can watch daytime television and eat baked beans out of a can and no-one’s going to criticise me.”

Versus the people who have been pitch-forked into living alone, involuntarily, because of bereavement, or a relationship breakdown, or because of some circumstance in their lives that’s caused them to be living alone unwillingly, and those people are much more at risk of aloneness morphing into loneliness. In the years of research, when I’ve talked to people who do live alone...

HAMISH MACDONALD

Hugh, I particularly want to bring Rosemary in on that point ‘cause I can see you nodding. And I know that circumstances in your life changed dramatically just before you turned 20. And I wonder how loneliness has changed for you as a concept since then.

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Um... Well, I mean, loneliness for me when I was a kid, I grew up on the outskirts of Sydney and it was still...you know, we were in and out of, you know, the neighbour’s place across the paddocks, had the dog, you know, had our bikes. I had three brothers, all older than me, you know, and a really, really close family, an incredibly lucky upbringing. Yeah. And the same, had friends right through.

And then, all of a sudden, I broke my neck and... you know, I went into this as an able-bodied person. So, I carried with it all those... prejudices and stereotypes about people with disability. And so... just after having my accident, it was lonely because I didn’t want to fulfil those stereotypes that I was going to be a burden to everybody.

And, of course, you know, the classic is, people with disability aren’t seen as sexual beings. And...I was having a joke with Sarah. She was talking about how long she had been single, I said, “Don’t even try. I am going to win hands down.” I am going to win hands down.” And, yeah, I, like... I’m intimately lonely because I’ve never been in a long-term adult relationship since my accident. And... So, yeah, there is that sense of intimate loneliness rather than just being lonely.

Because I get time to myself and I love having time to myself. It’s not hard for me to have a lot of time to myself because I can’t eat or drink by myself, I need assistance and support for that. And I adore the time that I do get by myself. I actually, you know, quite happy with my own company. But I am intimately lonely. But people with disability don’t often get to choose who they live with. You know, especially people that are in group homes. And they actually don’t get to choose sometimes, a lot of the time, who works with them. And so the concept of being alone for them is a bit of a luxury-type concept because they haven’t had the chance to choose.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, Michelle Lim, loneliness has a lot of different shapes?

MICHELLE LIM

That’s right. So, I think what Rosemary’s saying is basically that, you know, there’s different elements of her and her social needs are very complex. So, for her, intimate loneliness is something that is very real but, you know, socially, for example, she may be, you know, feeling more socially satisfied with friends and family. So, I think the differences around how we would feel about different relationships, and it really just is a demonstration of how complex our social needs are and a lot of people, for example, in lockdown would say, “Look, you know, I’m locked down with my family and my kids and I love them dearly, but I really need my girlfriends to talk to, I really need my friends to hang out with,” and it’s, again, a different kind of social need. And just because we are with people doesn’t mean that we don’t feel lonely at some point.

HAMISH MACDONALD

OK, let’s take our next question tonight. It’s from Christopher Zinn in the studio.

CHRISTOPHER ZINN

And, yes, thank you, Hamish. It’s the panel, look, when I was growing up, I had a real fear of loneliness and spent a lot of effort in terms of making friends. Now I’ve got on a bit, I’m a bit more comfortable with myself but still realise you’ve got to put work into friendship to keep loneliness at bay. So, I’d ask the panel, how do you find the balance, where you have control between the sort of Greta Garbo “I want to be alone” and the realisation that, ultimately, we are by ourselves?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Sarah?

SARAH WILSON

Um... Yeah, that’s a question that I ask myself often, Christopher. I had to ask that question in the writing of a recent book where I tackled loneliness and realised that I am a writer, I’ve worked at home on my own for 12 years. There’s not a more lonely profession. And I then, when I’m not quite lonely enough, fling myself off into the world. I’ve been nomadic for 10 years. I lived out of one bag around the world, going from place to place. And what I realised was that I was actually seeking out my tribe.

A lot of the behaviour that would seem to be lonely or alone behaviour and actually isolated me in certain contexts, I realised was actually me finding meaningful connections and my meaningful connections were with various big minds around the world – philosophers and poets and kind of thing – and I’ve been able to live that kind of life. And I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to do that. So, it’s a reframing of things, actually. I used to think I was lonely and I used to think I was running away. And then I realised that that was me actually seeking out more meaningful connections.

And I think that’s the discussion that is missing from this. There are a lot of problems that have been slapped with the loneliness label. And I think that some of the nuances that we’ve all discussed here this evening are not being discussed. And they’re the more interesting, juicy aspects of things. That one-quarter of the Australian population that are living in single-people households, you know, aloneness wasn’t necessarily a problem until COVID came about, for many of us. Because, of course, it actually made living on our own a real problem because we couldn’t go and seek out those communities that we seek out when we’re living on our own. That, to me, is my meaningful connection, more meaningful than living with somebody in my own home. So, they’re the discussions we need to be having. And unfortunately, in a fragmented world with fake news and truth decay, it’s a...

HAMISH MACDONALD

None of that here. You’re on the ABC tonight, Sarah. Gus, do you fear loneliness, fear being left alone or do you sort of start to embrace the quiet time, the solitude more... not that I want to say you are getting old, but as you get on a bit?

GUS WORLAND

Yeah, I mean, I’m 52 in December and I certainly don’t feel alone at all. As I’ve said before, my house is full and I feel it’s going to be full....

HAMISH MACDONALD

Do you ever crave it?

GUS WORLAND

Oh, definitely. And I have my moments. My mates I walk with every morning and just the drive down there, looking forward to chatting to them and sometimes we walk for minutes without saying anything at all. I think that’s all of us, just...we’re in our tribe, we found ourselves, but then we don’t have a lot to say and then all of a sudden something will spark a conversation and stuff. So, I know that I like my own company. I don’t get a lot of time to myself so I love it when I get it. But at the end of the day, for me, I know that most blokes are out there talking about changing the way that we talk to each other – there’s way too much banterland in this country, not enough people actually knowing how to have a conversation of gravity, a conversation that could actually make a difference to you and being able to have the space to have the convo.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, how do you steer that... I mean, if what Sarah is saying is correct, sometimes, in those conversations, you’ve got to steer them away from talking about the footy or whatever it is, into something more meaningful. How do you do that?

GUS WORLAND

Well, when I talk to a lot of Aussie blokes in particular, they say, “I don’t want to be that guy that drags everyone down. I don’t want to be that guy that is not the fun guy.” I said, “You’ve just got to pick your moment.” And it’s not like you stand up and you go, “Right, to all my friends, let’s have a deep and meaningful conversation, let’s burst into tears.” It’s about finding one of those guys in your tribe and saying, “You’re my gotcha-for-life mate, you’re the guy that I’m going to have that special bond with. And after tonight, can I have a cup of coffee with you tomorrow because I’ve got to tell you that I’m going down a bit of a path that’s a bit dark?” It’s about having that type of conversation. And knowing you can have it is going to be the key for blokes, because at the moment there’s a lot of people out there worrying alone. And I think if you worry alone then that’s when we get some really tough times.

HAMISH MACDONALD

OK, our next question is from Sue Martin in the studio.

SUE MARTIN

Thank you. At 41, our independent son took his life in December 2017. He had numerous neighbours, friends, various organisation that he was in. It appears that he kept his worries to himself, not really opening up to anyone. Deep loneliness, even though often surrounded by friends. It’s all very well to say, “Are you OK?” But the standard Australian male is, “Yeah, mate, I’m OK. How about you?” It just bounces a question right back. So, my question is to the panel – if concerned about someone and respecting their privacy, how can we raise the alarm? Or what can we ask to really help when we’re worried about someone?

HAMISH MACDONALD

And, Sue, thanks for your question. We’ve got a picture that you provided us with of your son, Paul.

SUE MARTIN

One of my favourites.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Yeah. I’m glad you sent one of your favourites. Are you asking this from your own experience? This, you know, “What do you do when you’re not getting the answer?”

SUE MARTIN

Um...how to get that answer. We were unaware of how dark he had become. We knew that some things were not quite right in his life. But we heard from other friends later, you know, “I thought he was acting strangely. I told him he needed to get help.” But you can’t just do that. You can’t grab someone by the collar and drag them off to a psychiatrist or something. Um...how do you open that conversation up?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Gus.

GUS WORLAND

Firstly, just please take our condolences from all of us, no doubt, in the world and love to give you a big cuddle right now. I hear that... Yeah, big hug. Um, I hear that a lot from people and so forth. And you said when you’re worrying about their privacy, I think it’s a certain time you’ve got to throw that out now and just say, don’t worry about the privacy, you’ve just go for it and have those conversations that are really awkward and really vulnerable. And people that see someone that’s going through something like that, they’ve got to man up and speak up. That’s what the Man Up program that I did all those years ago on the ABC was about. We’re not manning up and shutting up anymore, we’re manning up and we’re speaking up. And you need to have those uncomfortable, vulnerable conversations.

HAMISH MACDONALD

I think the point Sue’s making is that it’s sometimes very hard ‘cause the shutters go down, right?

GUS WORLAND

There’s no doubt it’s hard. It is the most difficult thing on the planet, but we have to do it. We just have to... It’s just... I like to talk about mental health as mental fitness now. So just like you’re getting yourself physically fit, we have to get ourselves mentally fit and just grind through those moments. It’s going to be uncomfortable, you’re gonna feel sore, and you’re not quite sure if it’s ever going to work but you’ve just got to keep going and that’s sort of the message that we’re trying to get out there now.

SUE MARTIN

In this particular case, I think... And I think we are isolated to a large degree. We have our own communications and friends and so on. But if I’m concerned about somebody else, I don’t necessarily know their relatives, their partner, somebody that’s really close to them to be able to contact and say, “I’m concerned about your wife or whatever,” to actually do that. We don’t know people’s near and dear people that we can help to get on side.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Rosemary, how do you force people to have those difficult conversations?

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Oh, it’s the age-old question, isn’t it? I mean, um... It’s very difficult to... You need to respect someone’s autonomy. You need to be able to do that, but you need to be able to also feel that... those questions will be respected if they’re honest questions. And, again, it’s about what Gus was saying, it’s the space and the trust that you can create that will open someone, hopefully, to having a real conversation about how they’re feeling and what they’re doing. And, I mean, with Gus, my condolences to you and I don’t suggest that your son felt that he didn’t have that trust. I don’t know what is... I honestly don’t know what makes it special, but it’s worth to try... to try and get that space, to try and have that honesty.

And it’s the sincerity that you go into it with that’s the important thing. And that comes back to the quality of our relationships and, um...and that space, that trusting space, that’s... I mean, it’s not my area of expertise but, I mean, I have friends in my life that I know create that space for me. And that is all so important.

HAMISH MACDONALD

OK.

SARAH WILSON

Just to... I was just going to say, in terms of what to do if you feel that you don’t know a direct connect, I can just speak from experience that it’s often been the kindness of strangers, or friends that are a couple of times removed, that have saved me.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Why is that easier than someone closer?

SARAH WILSON

I don’t know that it was easier. They were the ones brave enough.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Right.

SARAH WILSON

And maybe it is easier when you’re not intimately connected. But absolutely, I have appreciated it and I would say it saved me several times. Um...and the one other thing I would say is when you’re in that position, sometimes you do need to be told what you need to be asked. And so I wouldn’t be afraid of asking the question because quite often you’re in a space where you can’t make those judgements for yourself, so you feel very safe that somebody has made that judgement for you.

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Lots of times you don’t want to hurt the people that are closest to you. I mean, it’s a bit like I was talking about before after my accident. I didn’t want to burden my family. And you don’t want to burden your family with your pain. And so sometimes I’d say that bit of space...

SARAH WILSON

That’s true.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Michelle, do you have a view on this, on the right approach?

MICHELLE LIM

Yeah, look, I think it’s a very difficult position to be in, but I think that this idea of burden and not actually putting that on your loved ones is something that is a common theme. And a lot of people have gone through depression and suicidality. So, I think it’s about us as a community to actually look out for each other as well. You know, as people say, you don’t have to know someone very well but to be able to create those safe spaces, to be able to direct them to people, professionals that could help, those things are very important.

And for us, too, we’ve got a lot of work to do in terms of building community awareness and, you know, making sure that, you know, someone feels like we’re watching out for them and they feel included and they feel like they’re not a burden. It’s a very, very difficult situation and it’s often a balancing act of not coming across as intrusive, but also making someone feel safe and comfortable enough to kind of reach out in a way that would help them.

GUS WORLAND

I’d turn it around a lot of the time and say, well, you know, if you want to say something to someone, “I’m not quite sure, I don’t want to be a burden,” what if they said it back to you? What would you do in that situation? Well, of course, we’d drop everything and would look after them. Well, exactly, that’s exactly what they’ll do to you. Just have the emotional muscle to be able to ask someone the difficult question. Get away from banterland at least once or twice so at least someone knows what’s truly going on so you’re not worrying alone.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Or go for a walk with Gus.

GUS WORLAND

Yes. Any day.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Sue...

MICHELLE LIM

I was going to add that, as well, I think a lot of people want to help, they want to be able to capture the opportunity to actually help someone else. So, you know, it’s really important for you to give that person the signal for you to actually help.

GUS WORLAND

Yes.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Sue, thank you so much for your question tonight and for sharing all of that.

GUS WORLAND

Thanks, Sue.

SUE MARTIN

I hope it helps someone, yeah.

HAMISH MACDONALD

And I should say that if you or anyone you know needs support, there are a range of support services available to you right now. The contacts for Lifeline, The Coronavirus Mental Health support line as well as the Kids Helpline are on your screen right now. Well, our next question tonight is from Leon Fernandes.

LEON FERNANDES

G’day, there. My name is Leon. I’m an artist in Sydney. And I live alone and I spend most of my time alone in the art studio. I’ve had many years’ experience of depression and suicidality and I’ve been hospitalised many times because of that. As COVID approached, I realised I needed to put some strategies in place, otherwise it could have been a train wreck. And very paradoxically, this has been one of the happiest, healthiest periods of my life. I ask you, what are the positive lessons from this year and how can we embed them in society from today?

HAMISH MACDONALD

Before we go to the panel, what did you do? What did you change?

LEON FERNANDES

I knew wellbeing was my first priority, full stop. I knew I had to make nests, I had to clean my house and make it a nest. I realised that being in a crowded pub was much more alienating than being alone in a studio, having a meaningful time. So, meaning was important. And I had to stop drinking.

HAMISH MACDONALD

OK. And you’re feeling good for it?

LEON FERNANDES

Yes. Absolutely.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Great. Congratulations.

LEON FERNANDES

Thanks.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Hugh, how do we embed all of these changes if they’re positive for us, in the way we live going forward?

HUGH MACKAY

Yes, I think the pandemic, of course, has been appalling for people who have contracted the virus and it’s been troubling for people whose social isolation has morphed into loneliness, but there certainly are some silver linings and I think we can say that one of... Two obvious benefits – one is, we’ve all had a bit more time to introspect, a bit more time to look inside and to examine whether we like ourselves, to examine whether this is the kind of life we want to be leading – the very kind of point that you’ve just made. I mean, artists and writers and so on are peculiarly vulnerable to these dark passages that we’ve just been hearing about, but here’s an opportunity for... has been an opportunity around the world for people to get in touch with their inner self, to get in touch with their inner life and say, “Well, who am I?” And, “Do I like the kind of person I’m becoming? And if not, what could I be doing about it?” I think that’s one by-product of the pandemic.

The other obvious one is that it’s reminded us that we are indivisibly interdependent. That we... We all have a sense of ourselves as unique and independent, and that’s kind of our outer shell, all to do with the differences between us, but below that, beneath it, deep inside ourselves, we know that we are actually interdependent. We belong to a species whose members are completely hopeless in isolation. We need... I mean, you think you’re all alone and then you discover you need a litre of milk and, you know, you haven’t got a cow and so on, so you’re dependent on other people to do all sorts of things to make your life possible.

And the coronavirus, of course, has told us that it’s only interested in the species. It’s not only invading Buddhists or women or rich people or anything else – everyone, because we are an indivisible species. And I think one of the most positive things to come out of the pandemic is for us to realise how profoundly we need each other and in particular, I think, at the very local level. I think one of the great benefits of this experience for us, like the experience of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, was to remind people of the crucial importance of the local neighbourhood. I mean, we wring our hands about the state of the nation and politics and the church and all those things that Sarah mentioned, but actually, the state of the nation starts in our street – this is where we make the connections, this is where we... this is where we remind ourselves that humans need humans and the people we actually live amongst are the most immediate...

HAMISH MACDONALD

Sure.

HUGH MACKAY

..the most obvious example of our interconnectedness.

HAMISH MACDONALD

But, Hugh, if... If you’re in Melbourne right now and have been in lockdown for a second time, that may not be possible. I mean, Sarah, do you understand this need that so many have had, single people particularly, for a companion, whether an intimate one or just a friend that is part of their bubble?

SARAH WILSON

Yeah, I think the situation in Melbourne is problematic because when this first happened, we were all in it together, so there was... the whole of Australia was in the same position and so there was a camaraderie and there was an evenness. I think it’s particularly hard for people in Melbourne because we’re not all in it together, they’re on their own with it at the moment. Um, but in terms of...

HAMISH MACDONALD

But, I mean, we had people that wrote to us with questions this week talking about having only been in the same room as a couple of people since March this year. I mean, it just seems extraordinary that people have been forced to go on that long without any other human contact.

SARAH WILSON

It’s particularly... I mean, it is extremely hard and I think that that is an issue that needs to be addressed. We had the mental health recovery strategy and plan being discussed, I think, throughout March and April, and while this was happening, it wasn’t a debate that was happening on the street and for those of us who were living on our own going, “When is this going to end? When can I touch someone? When can I see my family?” And it really came to hit home at Easter when the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, came out and made this announcement to the nation that we should all just stay at home with our loved ones and enjoy Easter with our nearest and dearest, and that left, you know, a large proportion of Australians going, “Well, thank you very much.”

HAMISH MACDONALD

Yeah, how did it make you feel?

SARAH WILSON

That’s when it really got lonely for me, I’ve got to say. That was the moment when I felt... I felt estranged from the nation, I felt left out of the national discussion on all of this. It doesn’t come close to, I think, what Rosemary discussed with us and alerted to us, but it’s that lack of inclusion, I think, that really became a problem. And I think we... And this was all happening when the mental health strategy was being developed as triggered by a discussion around loneliness, so it really does show that we don’t understand the nuances, we don’t understand the deeper debates.

I would say that, for people with disabilities, the issue around the caring system, and the way that we have put the elderly off into homes, that has been exposed. So, coronavirus has revealed all of these things, we lack the language, we lack the nuanced political discourse to get to the heart of these things. I really hope that we learn that language and we learn it fast because these issues have been revealed. It’s like the scab has been lifted and we’re an open wound and it will stay open and won’t heal unless some of these issues are discussed more deeply.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Rosemary, in terms of learning the lessons from all of this, the positives – I know for you, professionally, you’re able to attend conferences overseas now, present papers, in a way that is much easier than what it was pre-pandemic. Are there positives that you hope to retain from this?

ROSEMARY KAYESS

Look, I think... there are heaps of positives that we could achieve if we had the will. And Leon’s point about how important environment is and what Sarah said is so correct – the pandemic has exposed the inequality and the discrimination that people experience. And for people with disability, it goes back to what I was saying, it’s the segregation and this... I mean, they talk about people with disability as if they’re inherently vulnerable, but they’re only vulnerable because of the situation that they’re in, and they’re in those situations because of the inequality and discrimination that they experience, the segregation that they experience, the lack of services.

I mean, in mental health, we seem to get the psychiatry, but we don’t deal well with promoting peer-to-peer services for people. We don’t... We seem to get the psycho but we don’t get the social and, I mean, that’s a bit of a play on the emergence of the term ‘psychosocial disability’ now, but we don’t... We haven’t been able to build a community where people with disability are participating, meaningful members of the community and that will continue to create that disconnect and that loneliness.

And so I think if there’s any positive to come from this, it’s about recognising that inequality and discrimination and trying to address it. And that’s the only way that we’re going to have equitable, sustainable and resilient communities is if everybody is participating in a subjectively meaningful way.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Michelle, do you see anything that we’re going to take forward as a society that we’ve learned or changed during this time?

MICHELLE LIM

Look, I think, especially being the Melburnian here, I think what’s really apparent to us here is that the minute social interactions that we would have on a day-to-day basis, that was really taken away, and we really miss those... you know, some people would say small talk or meaningless kind of social interactions, but those things actually do mean something within our social routines and they do actually add up and actually that being taken away actually has highlighted the importance of the minute social interactions... Not just...

HAMISH MACDONALD

So more chitchat at work...

MICHELLE LIM

Yes.

HAMISH MACDONALD

..around the canteen is what’s going to happen?

MICHELLE LIM

Yes, exactly. And those things serve a purpose, don’t they? You know, they actually do something, they build those... You know, the small talk has a function, it actually opens up, I guess... deeper, more meaningful conversations, almost like a litmus test of, you know, can I actually develop this strong connection with this person? And those little minute social interactions were completely taken away and the value of those are... you know, definitely for me, I really value those little moments now, since the social restrictions have been implemented.

HAMISH MACDONALD

So, Gus, Leon’s not drinking for the moment. He’s put in place a whole range of different behaviours. One in two Australians report feeling lonelier since COVID-19, according to the research that Michelle’s working on currently. Do you see clear indicators of how we might be different on the other side of this? I mean, you’re talking to people all the time that are going through difficulty. Are there positive signs, are there growth signs?

GUS WORLAND

Oh, there’s definitely positive signs, no doubt. And congratulations to you, mate. I think that’s fantastic what you’ve done. And that level of just looking at yourself and working it out, I wish most blokes could do that but most of us don’t have that ability, so that’s brilliant. But, yeah, there’s a lot of positives to come out of it and a lot of people, actually, who are going through a tough time, have been forced, if you like, to actually have those vulnerable conversations and they’re now getting the help that they need because people just don’t realise what people are going through.

Just under the surface, a lot of people in this country are going through real trauma but for whatever reason, we’re told to bottle it up and shove that emotion back down, don’t be the whinger, and don’t let people know how you truly feel. It’s actually forced a lot of us to have those conversations or we can’t hide it as well because we can’t get away, so, all of a sudden, it’s out there and you’re much healthier not bottling it up, so that’s good. And for me, I mean... just being at home with my family was immense and fantastic. I couldn’t ever do the Scrabble boards or anything – I realised my son is a bit of a cheat when it comes to board games and so forth, so I worked out a few things amongst my lot.

HAMISH MACDONALD

You’ve rooted out the cheats in your life, this great news.

GUS WORLAND

Yeah, exactly.

HAMISH MACDONALD

Alright, that is all we’ve got time for tonight. A huge thank you to our panel, to Gus Worland, Michelle Lim, Rosemary Kayess, Hugh Mackay and Sarah Wilson. Please thank all of them. And thanks to those of you here in the studio and to those of you at home for sharing your stories and your questions as well.

Next week, with voting day in the US fast approaching, we look at a possible four more years of President Donald Trump. Get set. Goodnight.