SEATTLE — Kay, 81, didn’t hug anyone for months. Richard, 67, started drinking heavily, ending six years of sobriety. Kathy, 82, would read news stories out loud — then remember no one was around to listen.
For more than a year, the Seattle-area older adults had their own worlds shrink as the world outside their homes descended into virus-stricken chaos. Told to shelter in place to slow the spread of COVID-19, they grappled with loneliness, a pain that permeates even as society reopens and the general population might consider themselves nearing a post-pandemic environment.
“You feel it in your bones,” said Richard, who lives in Snohomish County and, like others interviewed for this story, didn’t want his last name used because of what he considers a stigma surrounding feeling lonely. “It’s an enveloping depression, because you are alone. The loneliness, it’s like a dark night without any stars or the moon.”
The effects of social isolation during the pandemic have hit all ages — some studies, for example, show teens have fared worse than other groups — but older adults already were a population vulnerable to loneliness. And for many, the pandemic was the first time they felt deep, sustained loneliness. It’s a feeling that can impact physical health, creating greater risk for some illnesses and hospitalizations; and mental health, potentially exacerbating symptoms of or leading to clinical disorders such as depression.