Project UnLonely by Jeremy Nobel MD;

Author:Jeremy Nobel, MD; [Nobel, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2023-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

THE TROUBLE WITH BEING DIFFERENT

My earliest memory of experiencing societal loneliness was when I was seven, after we’d moved from a New Jersey shore town to Pittsburgh. Time spent in those early Pittsburgh days with my parents and sisters had the spirit of eager exploration, especially with my mom rejoining the workforce to supplement my dad’s graduate school stipend. We were latchkey kids ahead of the trend, with the complex experience of self-supervision that came with it. Our new neighborhood was a close-knit community, and we were from someplace far away. Some neighbors were warm and welcoming, but many were not. I’ll never forget the blank stares, or worse, the utter lack of regard, as if I were invisible. This is the experience of societal loneliness we all have at certain junctions in our lives, and it is usually a transitory experience. The pain is real, but it almost always passes. In a few months, in part because of my parents’ efforts to integrate us into Pittsburgh’s vibrant Jewish community, I had made new friends. By the time six months had passed, I was no longer seen as the new kid.

The impact of the move was much worse and more lasting for my oldest sister. She had been diagnosed in early childhood with cerebral palsy, which gave her impaired hearing and certain problems with the fine motor skills required for tasks such as handwriting. But no one in our local New Jersey school administration recognized that my sister’s problems with speech were related to her hearing loss. Instead, they labeled her “mentally retarded,” the term used at the time, and placed her in “special education” classes, where she truly did not belong. Fortunately, my parents weren’t at all comfortable with this approach and succeeded in getting my sister more thorough medical and behavioral evaluations, in which the underlying cause of her delayed language and social skill development was eventually recognized and addressed. By the time we made the move to Pittsburgh, she was no longer categorized as mentally retarded but still was not fully mainstreamed into routine classroom activities.

I have a distinct memory of walking alone down the hallway at the end of my first day in second grade at Colfax Elementary School, two blocks from our newly rented duplex. As I passed by one darkened classroom, I saw someone sitting by herself amid the rows of chairs and desks. It was my sister, with her back turned to the door, and I could see that she was sobbing. I stood at the doorway, momentarily frozen with fear and sadness, and then I turned and walked away. When I returned home, I told no one what I’d seen. How could I? I would have needed to explain why I didn’t go into that classroom and comfort my sister. My cowardice in that moment is a source of shame that I feel to this day, some sixty years later.

I tell this story because it underlines the pernicious nature of societal loneliness. The shared experience of being in a new school did not strengthen the bond between my sister and me.

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