Loneliness. For many it is their own. Some people suffer from this phenomenon in a crowd, while others suffer from the absence of loved ones nearby. One thing is clear - it can drive you crazy and cause fear. What is the fear of loneliness and how to deal with it? We figured it out especially for you.
We are sure that you have often come across the thought: “What am I going to do alone?” Yes, most people often cannot be alone with themselves. Often this condition affects their emotional stability and life in general. The fear of loneliness is especially evident in women. So let's look at this issue in detail.
In psychology, the fear of loneliness is defined as autophobia. It manifests itself in constant restlessness, spiritual emptiness, boredom and anxiety when a person is alone.
However, a person does not have to be lonely. Discomfort arises even from the thought that he is not loved or ignored. Moreover, the disease affects women and men differently.
Fear of loneliness in women
Fear of loneliness affects the emotional state of women. The fear of being alone is not only sometimes upsetting, but also affects the personal life of the fairer sex. As a result, many decide to take rash actions. Namely:
- They marry someone they don’t love or have children “before it’s too late.”
- They save the family when there is nothing left to save.
- They live with scoundrels, gigolos, alcoholics, so as not to be left alone.
- They meet the first person who pays attention.
- They build their lives around a person.
In principle, this list can go on and on, but here it is important to understand why the fear of loneliness arises and what to do about it.
Is it possible to solve the problem of loneliness?
Not judging yourself for being lonely is an important first step. Blaming and scolding yourself for being lonely is ineffective and wrong, at least from the point of view that such feelings in the absence of significant connections are completely normal. Today's mobile and emotionally charged society may have increased the challenges of forming and maintaining relationships, so accepting that loneliness is part of the human condition can help channel energy toward finding a solution.
Some psychologists suggest that the roots of deep loneliness are associated with a lack of love in early childhood. Sometimes deep loneliness is accompanied by physical differences or mental disorders that lead to discrimination and isolation. Loneliness can also be caused by negative teenage experiences, such as being bullied in school, according to other scientists. Loneliness in childhood appears to be associated with loneliness in adulthood, including increased sensitivity to it.
Unfortunately, there is no one good recipe or path for moving from feeling lonely to feeling satisfied with your social life, but there are general ideas that seem to work. The first step is accepting yourself and how you feel without judgment. The second is contacting a specialist.
Finally, if you are new to the feeling of loneliness, it may be difficult to understand how devastating the experience can be. In this sense, we can all make the world a little better by being kinder to people who are alone - whether it is their conscious choice or not.
Why are we afraid of loneliness
The fear of being alone arises from the beliefs that girls have been fed since childhood.
- A woman must get married before the age of 30.
- Behind every woman is a successful man.
- If a woman is not in a relationship or married, there is something wrong with her.
Whatever one may say, such attitudes of society or family influence the subconscious. Over time, you begin to fear: “Am I going to spend my whole life with cats?” Self-esteem plays an important role here. Often girls don’t like themselves so much that they can’t imagine anyone treating them well, and if such a person appears, they cling to him with all their might.
It's all due to immaturity
One of the reasons for fear is the girl's immaturity. Psychologically, the woman was unable to separate from her mother or father, so she is constantly looking for a person who could replace her parent. What can I say, some are so afraid of being alone that they plunge headlong into relationships and see nothing else around them. When the relationship ends, they cannot return to normal life for a long time, falling into deep depression.
Fear is a relationship destroyer
Most relationships also fail due to the fear of loneliness. A girl who prefers to live and engage in any activity only in those moments when her beloved is nearby, becomes so attached to a man that all love turns into fear - fear of loss.
Men are loners by nature, so they need freedom. When a lady of the heart does nothing and is not interested in anything other than taking care of her boyfriend, it begins to depress even him.
As a result, you start to quarrel with your boyfriend or spouse; it seems to you that he is moving away and spending little time. And he may just live...
Self-therapy (several recommendations)
To alleviate the fear of loneliness, you need to do several exercises from the “Guide to Changing Yourself”
I also recommend that you start drawing your negative state on paper. It could be circles, triangles or something very unimaginable. Draw how you feel and it doesn’t have to be meaningful. Just give in to the impulse of your soul.
I also recommend starting to dance your state. Just move as you move and you will start to get what you get. Further, the condition will improve, and accordingly the dance will begin to change. Dance as you feel.
The third simple technique is called square breathing. Start breathing like a square. Inhale for 3-7 seconds, then pause for 3-7 seconds, exhale for 3-7 seconds, pause for 3-7 seconds. The main thing is that the time periods are the same, for example, 5 seconds.
Do this exercise for 10-15 minutes and it will help you cope with any negative state.
How to overcome the fear of loneliness
When dealing with any fear, you just have to face it. By identifying the cause of your phobia, you can take a fresh look at the situation and reevaluate your experiences. Perhaps the granted loneliness is not a punishment at all, but, on the contrary, a gift of fate. This is freedom that you have the right to use exclusively for your own personal pleasure. To accept and overcome the fear of loneliness, we advise you to try the following.
Assess your importance
Nothing makes us as weak and susceptible as low self-esteem. Of course, you shouldn’t consider yourself better than everyone else. However, it is difficult to perceive life without self-love and respect. This is where the fear of loneliness arises. A person who does not love himself feels uncomfortable alone with himself, as if he is not loved. This is not strange, because in fact he treats himself this way. Re-evaluating your importance will help you get rid of this.
- Write down or identify your best and worst qualities. This will help you understand what kind of person you are and what you need. Once you know yourself, your inner world, you will understand your value.
- Ask your friends or family what they see in you. Maybe you yourself don’t notice how beautiful you are.
- Define for yourself the meaning of the word “loneliness.” Its scale can be interpreted in different ways. Suddenly your situation is not so global. Otherwise, you will know what exactly your fear is and can learn to overcome the emotions it causes.
- Do something interesting. Even if you don’t feel like it, still try to entertain yourself. Watch a movie, TV series, go to the cinema, go shopping, have a spa treatment. Do something yourself that will bring you pleasure and energy, rather than looking for it on the side.
Take care of your health
Problems with emotional health make you want to lean on someone's shoulder, get support and help. Nerves can make a woman feel weak and unwell. Men are rarely ready to take on the role of “comforter” or “nurse”. In order to rid yourself of thoughts of loneliness or even uselessness, it is better to get your nerves in order, learn to enjoy little things, and not just be sad. Yoga, gymnastics, breathing practices, herbal medicine and other sports will help with this.
Read also:
Towards your dreams - 6 techniques that will help make your life better
How to change everything
Let's make a reservation right away. If you are happy with being alone and you don’t feel depressed or depressed about it, then why change anything? Live, enjoy life and be happy that you are interested in yourself. This is a very rare and valuable gift. If your loneliness is caused by a fear of communication, then you definitely need to change.
sezer66
First of all, let's talk about kindness and help. Have you ever felt good about helping someone? I'm sure they did. It doesn’t matter whether you showed the way to a stranger or found and returned a lost wallet. In the book "Loneliness" this phenomenon is called helper's high. Unfortunately, I could not find a similar term in Russian. Helper's high is a term that describes the pleasant feeling we feel after helping someone.
If you want to get rid of loneliness, here is the first step. Start helping the people around you whenever possible. Firstly, you will do good things, and secondly, you will socialize, you will begin to communicate more with people, which will allow you to move on to the next and more complex stage.
Convinced bachelors
When constructing an impromptu classification of male loneliness, it is impossible to bypass this, albeit small, category. There is, after all, such a character type. They are completely consciously lonely, they really don’t need anyone, and they have everything figured out, including the classic question of who will give them a glass of water in old age. They save for old age and insure it in every possible way. Don't worry about who will serve them this glass.
Many of them tried more than once to live a family life or a semblance of a family life, and each time loneliness turned out to be the lesser evil for them. And they, as a rule, are not biryuks at all. On the contrary, they are often sociable and charming people, the life of the party. But they are lonely by nature.
This is such a special kind of “people”. There are very few of them, just a few, but they still occur.
What is autophobia
We are all looking for “our” people, “kindred spirits”, we want to create families and have many loyal and devoted friends. And, as a result, we suffer if our real life does not coincide with our dreams. These are absolutely healthy and natural desires of the individual. They encourage us to seek communication, choose relatives and loved ones, and strive for contacts with society.
Gradually we learn to cultivate fulfilling relationships and abandon destructive ones. In general, an absolutely healthy person also periodically feels a lack of communication, but tolerates it relatively calmly.
A mental disorder involving the fear of loneliness is called autophobia (other names are monophobia, isolophobia), expressed in the fear of loneliness, differs primarily in the internal state of the individual. For autophobes, even a short stay alone causes severe anxiety, deep, persistent discomfort, even hysterics and panic attacks.
Fear of marriage or victim of love of freedom
A considerable number of men experience it. Of course, not all. There is quite a large category of those aspiring to the aisle of almost birth. From a young age, such people dream of a family life, full of children, and then grandchildren. But, alas, not all of them are like that.
More often, due to his youth, and youth, as you know, is an elastic concept, a man runs away from serious relationships, seeing them as a limitation of his own freedom. Freedom to establish relationships with others and freedom from the obligations, stresses, and inconveniences of everyday life that are inextricably linked with family life, children and similar circumstances. The family colleague is seen by his single colleagues as something like Novoseltsev, who has stopped taking care of himself in “Office Romance,” crushed by the burden of worries and eternal lack of money. The years pass unnoticed. Yesterday's hero-lover is slowly losing its presentation, and the intimate side of life is losing its sharpness. Organization, primarily psychological, comes to the fore. Mental comfort, an established life and a strong rear in any circumstances. And the rear is just a strong family, it will always support.
And yesterday’s dandy remains broke, secretly envious of his married acquaintances, whom he once teased. And the longer he is single, the more difficult it is to break this vicious circle. This is how the well-known loneliness of men after forty begins.
The difficulty of a psychologist working with this type of person is that meeting him in consultation is extremely difficult. He is unlikely to come himself; men generally rarely come to a psychologist on their own initiative. And there is absolutely no one to take him by the hand and lead him, because he is lonely and independent. Hope is only in friends and caring loved ones in general.
