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People are often surprised when I tell them that writing became one of the healthiest things in my life. From the outside, I have always seemed like someone doing okay. I joke a lot, laugh easily, and rarely let uncomfortable emotions sit visibly on my face for too long. Humour became my survival tool long before writing did. Whenever friends tried checking in on me emotionally, I usually brushed it off with jokes.

I want to ask you a question. How many close friends do you have? And I mean close friends - friends you could call at 11pm in an emergency and they’d pick-up the phone. Friends who know the things about you which you don’t post on social media. My name is Tom Stroud, and I’m the co-founder of the Shoulder to Shoulder men’s community. In this article, I talk about why feeling connected to others is the most important factor in long-term health and happiness.

Overnight, at the age of nine, I went from an energetic, sociable child to housebound and isolated as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) and other comorbidities shrunk my world to my bedroom. ME is a chronic, fluctuating disease that causes symptoms such as severe fatigue, post-exertional malaise, pain, sleep problems, and brain fog. It can leave people bed or housebound, and there is currently no cure. As the years passed, I tried every form of low‐energy activity that I cou