Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

by Johann Hari

In other words: in the West, we mostly have an individualistic way of looking at life. In Asia, they mostly have a collective way of looking at life.

You need to have meaningful work. You need the natural world. You need to feel you are respected. You need a secure future. You need connections to all these things. You need to release any shame you might feel for having been mistreated.

Joanne told me that grief is necessary. We grieve because we have loved. We grieve because the person we have lost mattered to us. To say that grief should disappear on a neat timetable is an insult to the love we have felt.

Deep grief and depression, she explained to me, have identical symptoms for a reason. Depression, I realized, is itself a form of grief—for all the connections we need, but don’t have.

If you stay broken up and isolated, you will likely stay depressed and anxious. But if you band together, you can change your environment.