Some Australians are having more conversations at the self-checkout this month than with friends. This sounds like a joke, only up until you realise that there may be more people experiencing than you realise. 

The theme for October Mental Health Month in Australia is, “Together we Thrive”, directly relating to this exact problem.

How disconnected are Australians right now?

Mental Health Australia opened the month with a survey that makes for slightly grim reading. Only 21% of Australians feel very connected to friends, family, neighbours or community, and 64% think society is drifting further apart.

One in five. Not great.

The more interesting figure sits a bit further down. 57% said feeling included helps them cope under stress, so people already know connection matters. They’re just not getting much of it, and the reasons tend to be ordinary ones: a move across town, a second baby, three years of working from the spare room.

If you need to reach out to someone, True North are a team of psychologists in Brunswick who are always looking to help. They have both mental health social workers and counselling psychologists with a wealth of experience across all age groups.

Disconnection rarely shows up looking like loneliness

Ask a psychologist how often a new client opens with “I’m lonely” and you’ll probably hear it’s rare. Sleep problems come up far more often. So does snapping at a partner over the bins, or a grey sort of mood with no obvious source.

Sketch out an ordinary week and it gets clearer. The uni friend nobody has messaged since 2020. Saturdays lost to Bunnings and the couch. A partner who has become the only person you properly talk to (a big ask of anyone).

Then there are the invitations turned down because you’re wiped out by Friday, until they stop arriving and that stings more than expected. Clinicians would file a lot of that under avoidance. It compounds quietly, one skipped dinner at a time.

When one relationship is carrying everything

Couples run into this more than you’d think. One partner’s world shrinks after a job change, say, and the other ends up as entertainment, therapist and sounding board by 8pm on a Tuesday. Leaning on each other is okay. You wouldn’t think that this person is lonely because at least they have their partner. The rest of their world matters too. Trouble starts when nobody else is in the picture at all, and the strain leaks out as fights that are supposedly about the dishes. 

What actually helps

Boring, regular contact. A weekly walk with one friend will outlast a grand plan to reconnect with everyone by Christmas, and most grand plans are dead by mid-November anyway.

Start with one name. Not a group chat. An actual person and a day of the week, since “we should catch up soon” is how friendships go missing to begin with. It’s also worth counting how often “too tired” gets used as the reason to bail.

A Saturday parkrun works. So does a pottery class in Northcote, or the community garden down the street. You go because it’s Thursday.

You will often never feel ready to go. But once you are out, the mood usually shifts somewhere around the second coffee.

When it’s worth talking to someone

If the flatness has hung around for weeks, or a barbecue starts to feel like an exam, or you and your partner are past what a few dinners out will fix, a list of tips won’t shift it.

World Mental Health Day is on 10 October, which is as good a prompt as any to take action. True North in Brunswick East sees individuals and couples, face to face or via telehealth, and plenty of their clients first come in because life has quietly narrowed. Booking a session with a psychologist is one way to start working out what changed.