I'm afraid to be alone, I can't be alone!, I feel bad/scared alone!, It's harmful for a woman to be alone!... Are you familiar with such thoughts? Fear of loneliness, especially among women, is a very common phenomenon and one of the main women's problems. Where does the fear of loneliness come from, how to get rid of the fear of loneliness, and in general, is it possible not to suffer alone?
Being alone is terrible, it sounds like a curse! - Yes, that’s often how it seems and is thought. But it is not at all a fact that behind this “horror” there is something real and worthy of tragedy.
Why does a woman suffer from loneliness?
In my opinion, the reasons for the fear of loneliness in women (it happens that men also suffer from loneliness - then this is about them too) are, by and large, only two: stereotypes and infantilism.
Stereotypes
Everyone knows the widespread stereotype that if a woman is alone, then she has failed, something is wrong with her - and sidelong glances, questions of varying degrees of tactlessness... If a woman is brought up in these stereotypes and shares them or depends on other people’s opinions, then she feels feels “out of place” when she is alone, feels some kind of inferiority and envy of her friends who have a husband or boyfriend. Friends and relatives only add fuel to the fire: “When will you find someone for yourself?”
In this case, she does not need a relationship as such, but the status of being in a relationship . And without this status, her pride suffers, and not a gentle soul at all, no matter what she tells herself. She lacks not her beloved, but self-affirmation in the eyes of others and her own. However, dependence on other people's opinions is usually not the main reason for the fear of loneliness.
Personal immaturity - infantilism
The second reason for the fear of loneliness is that its owner is affected by a deeper dependence - namely, dependence on people, which has deep roots in the structure of her personality. This dependence is found in lack of independence or lack of self-sufficiency - a “childish” desire to solve one’s internal and external problems at the expense of another. This is a form of social parasitism or psychological “vampirism”, in other words - infantilism.
Such dependence is primarily tied to the notorious “half”, who is entrusted with the functions of the main deliverer from problems, but in its absence other people can also be used. For a small child, lack of self-sufficiency is quite normal, but for an adult it is, at a minimum, personal immaturity. And at the most - neurosis, a sick need for love...
Such people constantly need attention, support, and approval. As a rule, they strive to please everyone, experiencing someone's disapproval as a disaster - and they bend over backwards to achieve this. They have difficulty making decisions, seeking advice at the slightest issue. They pester their neighbors with complaints about how bad they feel, and have the habit of blaming anyone for their troubles, but not themselves - for example, fate.
Of course, we are social creatures, and complete loneliness is difficult for humans. But when a person obsessively searches for his “soul mate” and suffers from loneliness, we are talking about something else. This person is usually not alone at all - he lives in society, and not in the forest, he has relatives, friends, acquaintances, colleagues... It’s even strange how in such a situation one can even talk about loneliness, right? However, we all understand what we are talking about, and moreover, we consider complaints about loneliness to be normal and worthy of sympathy.
Here we have an answer to the question of why a woman suffers from loneliness. Actually, loneliness itself has nothing to do with it. Suffering comes from the fact that there is something wrong in our head, or from our own dependence. Thus, resentment is often a consequence of inadequate expectations, just as a smoker suffers from his addiction, and not from the lack of cigarettes...
Recommendations on how not to be left alone after divorce
- Life goes on
For many representatives of the fairer sex, the main goal in life is to create a family. This is expressed not just in the form of a stamp in a passport, but in a friendly, love-filled common home and created comfort. If there are disagreements in the family and things are heading towards divorce, this often seems like a complete collapse for the woman, she loses self-control and the will to live disappears. This is a fundamentally wrong position. Life doesn't end after divorce. A completely new period begins, and what it is like will depend entirely on the attitude towards it and the measures taken by the woman herself.
- Accept the situation
During and after a divorce, it is extremely important to maintain common sense and not let negative emotions get the better of you. Allow yourself to understand and accept the thought: if you are unhappy in your marriage, then a miracle most likely will not happen, and a breakup is the surest and best way out of the current situation.
- Don't go to extremes
To make the right decision, you should pause and weigh the pros and cons. Being alone for some time after a divorce is necessary in order to rethink what is happening and analyze your mistakes. You should not rush into the arms of the first person you meet, this is guaranteed to lead to repeated disappointments.
- Don't be afraid of gossip
Most likely, your divorce will provide food for discussion for gossip lovers. It is unlikely that you will be able to avoid this, so there is no point in fighting it. Be wiser, ignore and do not pay attention to the whisperings of ill-mannered people. Know one thing, that after talking about you enough, this incident will be forgotten forever and you will no longer be disturbed.
- Love yourself
Any woman going through a divorce is puzzled by what is happening. But in this situation, it is very important not to go too far and not to start reproaching yourself for everything that happened. Being negative, blaming and morally humiliating yourself is not the answer. Using these methods, you can earn depression and plunge into the muddy swamp of your fears and worries for a long time. Know that the outcome of any event depends solely on your attitude. Look at everything from a positive perspective - the glass is always half full.
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- Communicate
After a breakup, do not stay alone for a long time, do not protect yourself from communicating with friends and acquaintances, maintain contact with relatives, and share news with work colleagues. The more people you surround yourself with, the faster your moral recovery will take place after a divorce has occurred.
- Alone or lonely?
Not every marriage can be called happy. The feeling of being alone can also be present if you are in a couple. Ask yourself, are you familiar with the following conditions?
- you hardly talk;
- you have no common interests, the two of you are bored;
- you feel like a black hole of indifference is absorbing all your dreams and aspirations.
Think about what exactly you expect from marriage. Probably, printing in documents is not the main goal. Every woman would like to be loved and love in return. And this is a matter of human relations, not bureaucratic formalities. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the distinction between concepts such as “being alone” and “being lonely.”
- Take care of the children
If you have children, you will never be lonely. You can find entertainment and enjoy life with your children, surprise them and surprise yourself. Also communicate with other parents and do not refuse joint activities.
- Look for hobbies
Allow yourself to take a break from your worries and find something you love, get creative, find hobbies that will benefit you and lift your spirits. When you have an activity that brings you joy, people who share your interests will appear around you.
- Go on a trip
It is necessary to let go of the past and leave all the grievances in it. To do this, the situation must radically change. The best solution would be to travel. Get ready and go to a new city, or maybe to a country, switch all your emotions to exploring a new area. And then it will become easier for you to overcome the disappointment of an unhappy marriage.
- Look to the future with optimism
After a difficult divorce or separation, it is important not to plunge into depression, but to maintain positive thoughts and tune in to a new stage in your life. You should change your attitude towards your ex-marriage and realize all the mistakes you have made so that the negative experience does not happen again.
Why is the fear of loneliness bad?
What is wrong with the fear of loneliness is not clear, because this misfortune is rarely seen in its true light. More often it is romanticized, passing off as a sensitive nature and a sublime ability to love, as femininity and the search for purpose... It is glorified in poetry, music and in films - in any way they explain and justify the unfortunate dependence! But the saddest thing is that she is considered quite normal, so it doesn’t even occur to anyone to deal with her until the fear of being alone plays some cruel joke on a person, like the trap of domestic tyranny or drug-addicted love.
Fear of loneliness is one of the key traits of a victim (however, tyrants are also uncomfortable being alone). It is the fear of loneliness that prevents relationships from being built on the basis of mutual respect and makes various manipulations possible. The fear of being left alone leads to the girl jumping out to marry just anyone or enduring an unbearable relationship with a tyrant husband without divorcing him. Not to mention the fact that, left alone for some reason, a woman suffers severely and all her thoughts are occupied only with finding someone as soon as possible...
That is, what is passed off as a desire for love and a desire for happiness actually makes you suffer and dooms you to a completely unromantic relationship. Paradoxically, for a dependent person, life with a desired and found “soul mate” does not in the least relieve loneliness. Two neurotics - a tyrant and a victim (or a Rescuer and a Victim) - coexist alone together, because mentally they are still separated. But they “feed” on each other, and the feeling that “food” is always available is calming, delivering a kind of comfort, which is even taken by some as happiness.
And the lack of food, of course, causes fear and suffering - like a drug addict lacking a dose. This is exactly how a dependent person feels like a drug addict. He feels bad, hurts, life is not nice, he even gets the feeling that there is no life - he simply exists as a pale shadow of a person... But when He, the only one / She, the only one, appears - then Life comes!
This “life”, however, then turns into a “roller coaster” of withdrawal, euphoria and constant fear of losing. But this is not a sentence. Instead of constantly running after the elusive “dose” and worrying, you can recover from addiction and become a mature, healthy person.
A healthy person is not afraid of loneliness. From time to time he even needs solitude to come to his senses. Staying alone for a long time (without a partner) is simply necessary during periods of working on oneself, after the end of a relationship, especially unsuccessful ones. And most importantly, it is impossible for anyone to become a mature person without going through a period of loneliness, not only without a soul mate, but more globally - when a person is internally differentiated from everyone. One might even say that the Personality is melted in the crucible of loneliness.
If we take into account that normal relationships based on real spiritual intimacy, that is, true love, can only be built by a mature personality, then here we have another paradox: if you really want to be not alone / not alone, fall in love with loneliness. The drug addict’s thirst for non-loneliness cannot lead to love - not because these are the “laws of the universe,” but simply because the neurotic is incapable of love and normal relationships.
So, if you are afraid of being alone or suffering alone, this is an alarming bell, and not at all the norm of life. Such symptoms indicate that you are sick with addiction, which, even under the most favorable circumstances, will not allow you to build a happy relationship. The desire for a relationship in itself, even the need to communicate with other people, is quite healthy, but not the suffering due to the lack of such an opportunity. Suffering and fear in addiction are the key words.
They can come and take everything away at any moment.
The October Revolution and the Civil War entailed the exile of the intelligentsia, the destruction or emigration of the nobility, and the expropriation of property. Families were separated, siblings found themselves on opposite sides of the front line. People whose purpose in life was to increase the well-being of their family were accused of crime.
People were evicted from their own homes, deprived of everything they valued. The convicts did not understand how and why they suddenly turned from respectable citizens into criminals. Entire families were punished: the wives and children of those convicted were sent to prison and exile. In Stalin's camps, in addition to exhausting physical labor, one had to face humiliation.
The psychological trauma of the descendants of nobles, merchants and priests, dispossessed wealthy peasants of that time is passed on from generation to generation. Many people still do not believe in the guarantee of property rights or the reliability of investing in business or real estate. It seems that at any moment they can come and take everything away.
The popular wisdom “you can’t trust anyone” may have been born in those days when a neighbor, colleague or friend could write a denunciation, and it was impossible to justify himself. Under torture in the dungeons of the NKVD, any confession could be beaten out of a person.
What to do if I'm afraid of loneliness
To begin with, of course, throw all complexes and stereotypes out of your head. Still, a person has the right his life as he sees fit - after all, he is the one to live this life, and not someone else. Yes, you will have to work with your dependence on other people’s opinions and develop your own - this is a necessary stage of personal maturity. We’ll have to take a closer look at the stereotypes themselves - are you sure that you agree with them and want to sacrifice your life to this idol?
To make the task easier, let me remind you that only we have the stereotype that a woman must certainly not be alone, as well as social pressure on this matter - a legacy of Soviet times with their collectivism. In the West, for example, the choice of a way of life has long been a personal matter, and any choice is good, as long as he likes it.
And then the mental work begins. Accept the idea that there is nothing wrong with being alone. There is no need to hide from yourself the melancholy and suffering from loneliness or the fear of being alone, but, accepting this state, you need to stop justifying it and feeling sorry for yourself. It’s better to redirect my soul searching - what exactly am I afraid of, afraid of loneliness, and what do I really want, striving for non-loneliness?
If you search, you will find behind romantic tears a passive position of waiting for something (someone) from the world that will solve your problems, and a stubborn unwillingness to take care of yourself. Needless to say, with this mindset, problems never get solved. But they can be solved on their own - you just need to change your perspective: this is not a problem, but a task , or even an opportunity .
Being alone has a lot of advantages: for example, you can do what you want... Do you want anything other than to love and be loved? - What a problem! And not just trouble, but self-deception. Because there is no such thing as “loving and being loved.”
But what is there, or rather, what do you want? The imagination draws idyllic pictures - from romantic courtship to a cozy house with children, which we are so fond of showing in commercials as symbols of female happiness. But what's behind these pictures? - pleasure for your loved one. It is this state of pleasure that we dream about (we can just as easily dream about a gourmet dish), and not at all about relationships as such.
No, there is nothing wrong with pleasure. But turning other people into a way to get pleasure is somehow... ugly, wouldn’t you agree? And these people are unlikely to like it. This is not to mention the fact that there is also life, which cannot consist of romantic pictures and pleasures. There is so much more to life that meets us in every relationship.
And where is love, actually, in our dreams? Love takes care of the other - and this other also has his own feelings, desires, interests. However, sometimes behind dreams there is a desire to dissolve in another person and live his life, which is also passed off as love, although in fact it is simply an inability and unwillingness to live one’s own life.
Here we come to the most important thing - getting rid of the fear of loneliness can bring its own life. A life that is meaningful, full, realizing growth and development, adorned with the joys of discoveries and achievements, giving gifts of abundance to others... In general, no matter how you look at it, you can’t do without personality development and self-actualization again.
