Published: January 6, 2026
Introduction
In this article, I want to talk about my depression and how it impacted my ability to form friendships. Not just healthy friendships, but friendships at all. My goal is to help people understand why a boy or young man with depression might seek to isolate himself. This seems counterintuitive. It’s not what they need, necessarily, but you may see a strong, almost compulsive urge to isolate. Even an unnatural urge. I certainly had that as a young man.
I want to help people who see that behavior understand what motivates it. It’s actually a very logical response to a specific type of pain that I want to explain. I can also talk about what helped me finally build some friendships. That came much later in my life than it does for what I would call “normal people.” That means this can be overcome to some extent.
I like to tell everybody at the beginning of these articles that depression is not the same for everyone. Depression is like fingerprints. Everybody’s depression is unique to their mind and their life, but there are common patterns. I’m not a doctor or counselor. I’m sharing things from my own experience in the hope that they will be helpful. They may not broadly apply. But if you have a boy or young man in your life who is depressed, you may recognize some patterns I’m going to talk about, and it may help you understand them.
The Boy on the Playground
I don’t remember exactly how old I was. Third grade, maybe fourth, somewhere in there. I know I was in elementary school, and I didn’t have any friends. When I say any, I mean zero.
When we would get let out for recess, two or three times a day, I would walk out to an empty area of the playground. We had a huge playground. I would sit down on the ground cross-legged, and I would wait for the bell to ring. All the other kids were playing. I would just sit there. When the bell rang, I would get up and walk back inside. The next recess, I would do the same thing. I did that over and over for years.
When it was raining or snowing, sometimes I would build dams and canals in the mud puddles, which usually got me in trouble with the yard duties. But that was basically it. I didn’t have normal social interactions at school like a young boy normally would.
It’s important to understand that I knew I was different. I could see the other kids with friends. I understood I was different, but I didn’t understand there was anything wrong. I’m still not sure why my behavior was never flagged as a concern by any of the yard duties or teachers. I guess I was just one kid of a couple hundred, and people thought he’s just weird. Nobody ever talked to my parents. Nobody ever talked to me. I just repeated that practice of sitting alone on the playground.
Growing Up Isolated
In junior high, I started to interact a little more. I had some casual friends, mostly girls—I remember BJ and Jackie—but no friends who were boys. Some of that was because I got picked on a lot. I was the second smallest kid in my eighth grade class. In sixth or seventh grade, I was 70 or 75 pounds and four feet tall. I was a shrimp. I learned that peers my age were a physical threat. They also carried the threat of social humiliation.
That pattern continued until I was about 16 or 17, when I finally hit my growth spurt—two or three years later than most boys. In six to twelve months, I went from five foot four and 80 pounds to six feet tall and 145 pounds. It was disorienting to go from the body of a small boy to the body of a relatively tall man so rapidly.
As I made that physical transformation, people started to interact with me differently, primarily at work. I had a job at a ski resort and at a grocery store. I wasn’t getting bullied as much. People started to treat me more like a person. I was a hard worker, and because I’d been bullied, I was kind to others and patient. My older co-workers respected me. For the first time in my life, I started to establish some real friendships. My buddy Tim at the ski resort called me Lando the Commando. I became friends with Ron and Chad at the grocery store, and with older mentors like Jim, Paul, and Doug.
But here’s what’s important: those friendships didn’t arise organically. I was put in a structured environment where social interaction was required. I didn’t have a choice. At the grocery store, I had to learn to greet customers, ask if they needed help, show them where the frozen bread dough was. It was terrifying. But I learned, and I got good at it. I learned social interaction as a skill, the way other people learn carpentry or accounting. (See the sidebar on autism below—this is relevant.)
Even then, I had almost no friendships outside of work. I didn’t go to barbecues or bars. I worked two jobs and went to college and gave myself no time for social interaction.
The Physical Pain of Loneliness
Why did I have such a strong desire to isolate? Part of it is that I learned early that having connections with people gave them the power to hurt you. I got bullied and picked on, so I learned not to let people in. That was reinforced by the child abuse I’d gone through. The people who were supposed to love and protect me hurt me instead. I learned that connection equals vulnerability.
But the other part is more important, and harder for people without depression to understand: being around people made me lonely.
When I was around people on the playground, at religious conventions and assemblies, I felt terrible loneliness. In an irony, I felt much more alone in crowds than I ever felt in isolated wilderness. Still today, I crave time in the deserts, the mountains, the forests. When I’m in those places with no other people, that’s when I don’t feel alone. When I’m around other people, I’m always aware of my differences. The more people I’m around, the more lonely I feel. I am loneliest in a stadium full of people.
That loneliness was intense enough to cause physical pain. Not just emotional pain. I would feel physical pain in my throat and in my chest. An ache. The only way to alleviate it was to leave the environment with all the people.
Some of my urge to isolate was a response to reduce or eliminate physical pain. I don’t think people without depression can fully wrap their brain around that. When you see a boy with depression who has a compulsive urge to isolate, and you don’t understand what’s happening, it’s very possible he’s trying to alleviate the physical pain of loneliness. You’re thinking, “But being by yourself would make you more lonely.” What I’m telling you is that’s not true. You are most lonely when you are around many people.
What boys and young men like that really need isn’t superficial friendship or belonging as part of a crowd. What they need is real, genuine human connection. That’s not something you buy in bulk.
The Logic I Followed
When I was young, I would tell myself: normal people have friends—that’s a normal human thing. I’m not normal. Therefore, I don’t have friends. Wanting friends but not having them causes pain. So I’m going to make myself not want friends.
That was the logic chain I followed. Now that I’m older, I understand that some of it was true. Normal people do form friendships much easier than I do. I’m not normal. That’s also true.
But here’s where I’ve changed the logic: even though I’m not normal, I can still have friends if I put in the right effort. And I’ve had to recognize that making myself not want friends was an unhealthy behavior that ultimately robbed me of the opportunity to help others.
My wife has been a huge help. She’s a social butterfly with many friends. She helped me understand that people need me, that I’m important to other people, that I have the opportunity to make a difference for them. If I keep myself isolated in the mountains, those people aren’t going to benefit from my presence and my friendship.
The Self-Reinforcing Cycle
This is probably the most important part of this article: isolation can be relief from the pain of loneliness. But it creates a self-reinforcing cycle. You isolate because it relieves the pain, but the act of isolation perpetuates the loneliness. It’s very hard to break.
I’m 45 years old, and this still happens to me. The pain in my throat and chest, especially around large crowds. I still don’t like weddings, dances, summer barbecues. I still feel that pain. It still makes me aware of my otherness.
What’s different now is that I understand what the pain is. I can identify it, contain it, control it to some extent. I can say, “I’m not going to let this pain dictate my actions.” I understand that sometimes my presence is important to people and that I have to endure the pain and not let it dominate me. But the pain is still there. I still fight the urge to isolate every day. It would be very easy for me to be a hermit. That’s something I have to actively, consciously fight.
Part of what helps is understanding that there are people like me going through what I went through. Young people who are shy and timid and afraid. Teenagers who are awkward and need acceptance and real connection. I look for those people who need a friend, or maybe just a moment of human kindness from someone in a position of strength. I look for opportunities to give that to others because that’s what I needed, and I didn’t get it for a long time. I’m deeply grateful to the adults who finally gave it to me—Jim and Paul and Doug and Tim. They gave me genuine human connection when I needed it.
Now I understand that if I’m isolating myself, I’m going to miss those opportunities. Providing that sense of connection to other vulnerable people is more important than my pain. That purpose outweighs the pain.
Conclusion
If you’re a parent or a spouse or an aunt or a cousin, and you know a boy or young man like me, and you’re looking for these patterns and you see them, you have to understand that the desire to isolate is logical. It’s a way to manage the pain of loneliness. You can’t just force him to socialize. You can’t just tell him, “Go talk to people. Go make friends.” That isn’t going to work.
More than likely, he needs structured environments with a defined purpose. He needs patient adults who understand his pain and vulnerability and can give him the safe space he needs to make human connection. He needs the scaffolding that makes connection possible.
People with my depression and my cognitive architecture need a different path to friendship. It doesn’t mean they won’t get there. The path is longer and more difficult, but they can end up at the same destination. They just need a different path.
So what would I tell a young boy sitting cross-legged on the playground right now? Or a teenager feeling the compulsive urge to isolate? If I could go back in time and talk to the boy I was during recess, what would I tell him?
I would tell him:
The world can be cold and empty. You’re not wrong about that. It’s not because people are evil. It’s because they’re focused on their own needs. But eventually you will become strong enough and wise enough to help other people like you. You just have to survive long enough to get there.
You will no longer be isolated. You’ll be the person who reaches out to others who are isolated. From a position of strength, not weakness. From a position of surplus, not need.
You are going to help vastly more people than you can possibly imagine right now. Dozens and dozens of people throughout your life. You are going to make a difference for them. You are going to be extremely important in the lives of many people.
They’re going to hug you. They’re going to cry with you and laugh with you. They’re going to want to share their special moments with you. When you show up at their weddings and their barbecues and their dance parties and their graduations, they’re going to notice you there. Your presence is going to mean a great deal.
I know right now you’re alone. You think you don’t matter. You think you’re not valuable. But that’s not the truth.
As you get older and stronger and wiser, you are going to help many people. People you haven’t met yet. If you give up, if you always stay in the wilderness, you’re not going to see those people. You’re not going to be able to help them.
You have to learn to manage the pain. I know it’s not easy. I know it hurts. I felt it, so I understand. You have to learn to manage that pain of loneliness and not allow it to control your destiny. Because if you can master that pain, you can help a lot of people.
Sidebar: Autism and Social Isolation
After 45 years, I’ve come to the realization that I’m probably autistic. Almost certainly autistic. As difficult as it is for me to have those words come out of my mouth, it’s important to acknowledge because some of what I’ve described in this article isn’t just about depression. Some of it is probably also about autism, and the two conditions can be difficult to untangle.
Here’s how I understand the difference. Depression and autism both push me toward isolation, but for different reasons.
My depression creates the pain of loneliness I described above. When I’m in a crowd, my depression amplifies my awareness of being different, of not belonging, of being on the outside looking in. That awareness becomes an ache in my throat and chest. The loneliness is emotional and relational—I feel disconnected from other humans, and that disconnection hurts.
Autism creates something different: sensory overload and social overwhelm. Crowded environments bombard me with stimuli—noise, movement, unpredictable social interactions happening in every direction. My brain struggles to process all of it. Neurotypical people have a kind of social autopilot that handles casual interaction without much conscious effort. I don’t have that autopilot. Every social exchange requires deliberate processing. In a room full of people, that’s exhausting.
The result is that crowds hit me from two directions at once. The autism overwhelms my capacity to process what’s happening around me. The depression makes me feel painfully alone even while surrounded by people. Both conditions push me toward the same behavior—isolation—but for different reasons.
This is also why I mentioned learning social interaction “as a skill, the way other people learn carpentry or accounting.” That’s an autism insight. Neurotypical people absorb social skills naturally, the way children absorb language. They watch others, they imitate, they internalize the rules without consciously learning them. I had to learn those skills deliberately and practice them repeatedly, the way you’d practice a musical instrument. The grocery store and the ski resort were my practice rooms. I got good at social interaction, but it never became automatic. It still requires conscious effort.
If you know a boy or young man who struggles with both depression and autism—or who you suspect might—understand that he may be fighting on two fronts. The strategies that help with depression (genuine human connection, patient relationships, purpose-driven social environments) also help with autism. But he may also need additional accommodations: quieter environments, smaller groups, more time to process, and grace when social interactions don’t go smoothly.
I’ll explore the connection between autism and isolation more fully in a future article.