As adults, we tend to emphasize self-control. We think of ourselves as _responsible_--to ourselves, our parents, our employers, our children. All this responsibility can sometimes be a heavy load! During periods of illness or emotional crisis, the emphasis on _control_ can be excessive. It can create the bars of a prison, a grillwork of defenses that stands between us and others who are able to offer encouragement, warmth, understanding, and direction. There is no lonelier person than someone who has decided to take his or her own life. The decision is the ultimate form of self-isolation. It is the ultimate admission that one's imprisonment is final and that there is no escape. Fortunately, the decision to take one's life is reversible, if the person is helped in time. The help may come from within or from without, but it always involves the _recognition of hope_ that the self-imprisonment may not be final, that there are others who would help, that, even for someone who is terminally ill, there may be periods of satisfaction and joy that make living worthwhile. Western European, American, and Japanese societies are very control-oriented. There is much evidence that when members of these societies are emotionally troubled they often perceive a fault within themselves. They see their troubles as springing from a loss of self-control: "Just pull yourself together!" "It's just a matter of self-discipline, of _will_!" The greater our sense of responsibility--the more we emphasize personal control over our inner and outer affairs, the more we see ourselves as individualists whose individualism is based on strength of will, discipline, guts--the more we are _trapped by the myth of self-sufficiency_. {13} People who as children were forced to become independent too early, who lacked a long enough period of closeness to their mothers, whose parents were immature and self-absorbed frequently develop what is called _pseudo-self-sufficiency_ or _premature ego development_. Such a person is the neurotically extreme form of the "do-it-yourselfer." He or she refuses to relinquish control, whether to the car mechanic, the sewer cleaner, or a lover. There is an urgent and obsessive need to maintain control, never to be "out of control." For such people, anxiety, depression, and loneliness can be especially devastating because they have walled themselves in to such an extent that emotional growth and change are blocked. Yet most of us share, to some extent, this belief in self-sufficiency. It is one of the most tenacious forms of self-imprisonment that we have available to us, literally at our own disposal. It is a prison we often take great pride in. Pride, control, and self-sufficiency are usually close friends. They keep us from having _real_ friends and stand in the way of our being good friends to ourselves. THE FEAR OF BEING LABELED EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED