Direction: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

No one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone, either. Yes, you might feel an excruciating loneliness after one of life's hurtful blows. But we are simply not built to survive solo. Isolation will kill us, not protect us. We humans are social animals made for community. Even when family and friends annoy the hell out of us, they remain an essential part of our survivorship.

One must find peers, friends, and family to break the isolation and loneliness that come in the aftermath of crisis. We have to let the people in our life info our life. In our hour of need, we may even depend on the grace of mere acquaintances or total strangers. Some will surprise us, coming out of the woodwork to help. Others - very often our best buddies and closest siblings - will disappoint us terribly.

I often told myself during points of crisis when I felt tempted to isolate, "Dammit, just make a call to someone..." To survive, we must find empathetic souls - sympathetic surrogates. Our inner victim may shun this, preferring to retreat into a shell. However, our inner survivor craves people. We need to find people who understand what we are going through. Social support is absolutely essential.