"Self-sufficiency feels like, and is often portrayed to be, a strength, but research suggests that overusing it might lead to diminishing returns. Relying on no one but yourself under all circumstances, especially in matters relating to your emotional or social life, can quietly erode your well-being, relationships, and mental health. What might look like resilience from the outside may actually be a survival strategy with hidden costs."
"Social support, be it emotional, practical, or relational, is a core human need that cannot be bargained with. A large 2022 meta-analysis, combining 177 studies involving more than 113,000 people, found a strong negative relationship between perceived social support and feelings of loneliness. What this means is that when you habitually rely only on yourself, rejecting help or support even when you need it, you drastically increase your risk of loneliness."
Many people admire extreme independence, but excessive self-sufficiency can produce diminishing returns and harm mental health. Overreliance on oneself for emotional and social needs erodes well-being, relationships, and increases risk of burnout. Overvaluing independence deprives individuals of shared, renewable resources like social connection. Habitual refusal of help leads to isolation: perceived lack of social support strongly correlates with loneliness in a meta-analysis of 177 studies with over 113,000 participants. Loneliness and poor social support predict worse depression, anxiety, and psychiatric outcomes over time. Chronic over-functioning can induce prolonged stress and amount to social self-neglect.
Read at Psychology Today
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