Social Isolation

Isolation caused by the multiple aspects of poverty can take many forms. Some people living in poverty do not have a social network of family or friends they can call on when they need support. Some people may be ostracized by others in their community who perceive them to be lower in socioeconomic class. Some people might selfisolate because they fear being found out as being poor if they cannot contribute financially to community events or because they fear casting shame on their entire family. Respectability politics creates divisions between people living poverty. Geographic segregation isolates people in poverty from society at large, limiting the diversity of the social and economic groups they can interact with.

Such isolation can be a double punishment:

"The more you need people to count on, the less they are here."

Some people in poverty have alienated their family and friends by asking too often for help. They are considered to have character flaws or to be unwilling to provide for themselves, and their friends begin to avoid them.

"If you are poor, it is on you."

Social isolation also comes from the instability created by the multiple hardships of poverty.

"People in poverty also bounce around, going from family relative to family relative. They are evicted, or in shelter, or living in a car. That’s not a stable enough [living environment] to build a support network."

This creates a vicious cycle of people in need not having anyone to turn to and becoming more deeply in need and further isolated.

Feeling abandoned in a time of need adds to the emotional component of social isolation, the feeling that no one cares. People in poverty feel they are unable to connect with others or to be present in relationships as they would like to be.

"People isolated us because of our poverty, and once you are isolated, you started to self-isolate."

"You start to get depressed and then you don’t want to be involved with people, so you get even more depressed and more isolated."

"Why do we isolate ourselves? I don’t know, but it is maybe something that keeps poverty rolling. On the other hand, for some of us, isolation is self-preservation, in order not to lose our sanity, our identity. It is to survive and to not completely lose ourselves. It is part of our coping mechanisms too."

For some, this cycle can lead to self-harm, while others might selfmedicate with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.

In some isolated rural areas, families in poverty depend upon one another just to survive. These strong family bonds sometimes serve to further isolate the family members from those outside the family circle. They do not want other people to know their level of hardship because they fear that the entire family might be shunned by the larger community. Instead, they suffer in silence. They fear being shunned because of prejudice in the community. It may be against a smaller unit of their family or an individual family member. People may say "They aren’t like us." Even extended family members may shun the family to protect their own social status: "People don’t want to bother with ‘people like us;’ they think they are not like us." This also happens in urban areas, but it has a greater effect in rural areas where geographic isolation demands that people rely on one another more.

Social isolation is also rooted in the low self-esteem associated with the multiple hardships of poverty: people are ashamed, not able to participate, or fear being found out as poor. This leads to feelings of insignificance and worthlessness. And when they don’t have family or friends around, they feel isolated.

"We are always, in a way, outsiders — like we don’t belong."

A U.S. research team activist said,

"In poverty, we have to learn some emotional disconnection as a way to protect ourselves from the stress of the situation. As kids, we learned ‘Don’t feel too much.’ If we don’t allow ourselves to be connected with our feelings, how can we express them? Isolation takes away our sense of agency."

This disconnection has long-term consequences; social isolation can result in short- and long-term physical and mental health challenges.

Social isolation may also occur when people in poverty do not have the means to contribute to social life, the means to belong.

"There is a duality between our identity from within and our identity from outside. And there is a disconnect between them. Therefore, the material deprivation comes to confirm the identity from the outside perspective, leading [you] to silence your inner identity"

This troubling dynamic increases anxiety because people are torn between satisfying their basic needs and satisfying the imposed expectations of socializing to ensure belonging and eliminate social isolation:

"Here in the U.S., who you are is defined by what you have. When you have not much, you are not much. And then, you are not treated like you belong.”

The limitations of language make it nearly impossible for some people experiencing poverty to describe their lives:

"It is like you are locked into what you live because you can’t share it with others. There is a lot of contempt in my head and I don’t have the means in English to make sense of it. And because of the fact that we don’t have the words, others can put their words, and impose what they think is our identity on us.”

This labeling is the start of othering and intensifies social isolation.