Be honest — what do you really think of alone time? Not the answer you tell your mom (or your therapist) to try to seem “normal,” or what you tell yourself when you’re trying to avoid the dark thoughts and feelings creeping in. What do you honestly think when you’re alone?
Do you constantly fantasize about any excuse or possible way to be in people’s company as fast as possible? Does solitude bring rise to unpleasant thoughts about how the people in your life may truly feel about you? While mental illness may colour my experience in a particular way, I know without question that many more than just the mentally ill struggle with feeling okay about being alone.
Solitude felt scary for so long because it brought rise to thoughts about the possibility that I may be forced to stay that way by factors outside my control. I acutely feared abandonment by those around me — even those who probably would have been better off if they did exit my life for good.
While the feeling may seem natural, the devastating consequences of prioritizing abandonment avoidance above all else would eventually become clear to me. I spent years in objectively toxic relationships with people who did not care about me because I thought even shallow, largely negative relationships were better than being alone.
Years of my life were wasted where I spent most of my cognitive energy worrying about how everyone around me thought of me and trying desperately to avoid abandonment by all of them. I chased friendships with people I didn’t like and relationships with people who didn’t make me feel good. I have almost no friends from high school in my life now because I abruptly realized they were remarkably divergent from the type of company and associations I wanted to keep. Fear of abandonment can — and in my place, did — blind you to all of this. In my desperate attempts to avoid being abandoned, I ended up lonelier than most.
Believing that something is wrong with being alone immediately indicates you think something is wrong with yourself. Otherwise, why would you hate your own company so much? We are worth more than tolerating poor treatment out of fear of losing the company someone provides.
Fear of abandonment has brought nothing but negativity into my life and has likely done the same in yours. People should have to earn our time and energy — they are valuable resources. If you are begging people for their attention, you should already realize that they are not worth yours.
Please, my fellow former-anxiety-ridden teens — do not carry your adolescent fears of abandonment into your adult life. You deserve people in your life who want the privilege of sharing your company — not those you have to beg to give you attention at all.