[bencollier49]

I can sympathise. A lot of the time you don't even spot loneliness. Years later you realise it was eating away at your mental health.

I think cultures which move their children directly from the family household into a marriage may be on to something.

[occamschainsaw]

Also cultures where multiple generations living under the same roof is the norm. I left home at 18 for university and had given up any expectations of living with my family for meaningful amounts of time (a couple of weeks a year is not the same, felt like a guest in my own home). Because of covid, I have been at home since a couple of months. My mental health has improved drastically. I didn't even realize the ways in which I was in a dark place when I lived by myself. I am really debating if achieving 100% of my professional goals is worth it, or if I could be satisfied with 80% but living with/close to family.

[bencollier49]

Hopefully cultural changes as a result of lockdown will mean you don't have to make that choice.

[uallth00]

Neuroscience has collected enough evidence to argue we crave social connectivity from the start, as our birth and early nurturing itself puts the habit into our daily working memory.

Given that, it could be a gap from family to 20s single life may cause a shock to the system to be better understood.

Is there such a thing as too harsh an emotional break to self reliance and does it have an epigenetic or other measurable response?

And consider elites almost always have a big family watching their back, so to speak. Often nurturing and supportive in ways the hip youth find stifling and cowardly.