Surviving Depression, Together.

A guest post by my friend Leon Macfayden

Conceptually, The Frontier Psychiatrist newsletter was always understood as a community. It was born out of work

Carlene MacMillan, MD

, and I did on Clubhouse, and the name comes from a song by The Avalanches. It was never about actual psychiatrists only, although they are part of that community as well. I was a patient before I was a physician. That experience, combined with that of my Patients, taught me that overcoming any illness is bolstered by community.

We talk about the risks of social media on kids all the time. We spend less time on the risks of loneliness for both children and adults. Feeling alone, isolated, disconnected? It sucks. When I was growing up in the '90s, DIY punks had to create their paper zines, their voice, to amplify each other's voices to connect. We all want to be heard and feel understood. Healing lives in that space.

Although the Internet has changed how we find connections across space and time, it has not changed the fact that we desperately want it. And the upsi…