Many of the people we work with have great difficulty with the idea of being alone. I was just listening to a recording of a therapy session from a colleague in another country in order to provide feedback on how this therapist is doing DBT. As I was listening to the client describe some of his difficulties, it became clear that one of the main features underlying a lot of his misery is the fear that he will, one day, be alone. I think this is a very common and understandable fear, given how important social connection is to human beings in general. Even if you are extremely introverted, you probably have or want to have at least one person in your life that you feel close to and can turn to for support. Moreover, there is a fair amount of research on social exclusion and disconnection and alienation, and theories of suicide have often emphasized the important role of feeling disconnected from others as contributing to the desire to take one’s life.
If you are someone who is afraid of being alone, one step to take is to understand your fear a little better. It can be helpful to ask yourself what is it about being alone that is most distressing. For some people, being alone means that they are unloveable. For others, being alone means that they will lack meaningful activity or interaction with others. And yet, for others, the main problem with being alone is that they won’t have any kind of safety net or support if they experience difficulties. Consider what is most scary about being alone for you.
But, is being alone itself really the problem? Earlier in the fall, a researcher from U.B.C. (Dr. Christiane Hoppmann) came and gave a talk in our department on some of her research on social connection and health and well-being. One of her findings what is that being alone in itself is not necessarily a problem. In fact, people who reported having at least one important connection to other people or who reported that they were alone because they chose to be, were a lot less lonely and distressed about being alone. Some people, however, feel a lack of connection to others. When they spend time alone, they are not choosing to be alone, and they find it very painful. How can we get around this? Well, as usual, this is probably a good place for mindfulness. Dr. Marsha Linehan, who developed DBT, often guided us through mindfulness exercises involving experiencing connection to other people, our physical surroundings, and the universe. Even sitting in a chair, she would suggest that the chair is holding us up, and that we have a fundamental connection to this object. She would also remind us that we’re all connected to those around us, breathing the same air (and each other’s breath), and so forth. Sometimes, that’s when I got grossed out and tuned out, but nevertheless, it was a good point. When I go and work at a coffee shop in the afternoon, I’m usually not interacting with the people around me, as I’m trying to get work done, but every once in a while, I look up and mindfully pay attention to the fact that we are all here together in the coffee shop. Even if I don’t know anything about these people, I have found the it is possible to feel a pretty strong connection to those around me. I think that another way to work on fear of being alone is to carve out time each day when you are alone because you choose to be alone. Use that time to get to know yourself a little better. Schedule activities that you enjoy, do them alone, and do them mindfully. Let go of social media, turn off your email and text notifications, and just exist alone for some time. This is hard to do if you have a very strong fear of being alone, so I would recommend that you start small with very short periods of time and then work your way up to doing other things, such as going out for coffee, going to a movie, making dinner, and doing other activities alone, reminding yourself that you are purposely doing this. Perhaps also remind yourself that loneliness is different from aloneness, and that nobody is truly alone. ~ Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych