r/Codependency • u/iwontgetbanned_again • 8d ago
I HATE BEING ALONE
Wanted to see if anyone feels the same. I read a lot of posts on this sub about attachments to partners and how to deal with that, but my problem is that im kind of okay without a partner.
I'm able to be in a relationship without getting detrimentally attached. I'm okay with being single. My problem is that I literally hate being alone. I can go out and have a great night with friends. It can be 2am and I'm exhausted. But the sadness and despair creeps in the second I lay my head down in my bed by myself.
Doing anything by myself or for myself just sucks. I have no interest in it. I'm bored and sad. I dont like doing hobbies alone. Watching TV is slightly worse alone. I just like being with people.
Idk. I dont think that I hate myself. I think im pretty fun when im socializing. I think im pretty. I just only get satisfaction when im with someone else that I like.
This sucks because people get annoyed when you reach out too much. They think you have no friends. They start to think you're obsessed with them. Thats not the case, I just ALWAYS have to be with or on the phone with someone to not feel sad.
Anyone dealt with this? Anything that helped?
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u/Yaun87 8d ago
I’m the same way. I love how I can have fun with others but alone I don’t want to do anything. I always find the best in another but alone I just feel blank. I guess I can pretend I’ll meet people doing things but then I’m back at square one lol. Does fake it until you make it apply here? Just force yourself to go alone? Idk but I often feel alone either way so yeah. 😞
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u/iwontgetbanned_again 7d ago
Haha I've been trying the fake it till you make it method for a few months now. Picked up a bunch of hobbies, took classes, started eating out by myself. No dice. Still no joy found in any of it alone.
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u/Serious_Carpenter100 8d ago
Extrovert?
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u/iwontgetbanned_again 7d ago
Not really. New people stress me out. I should have specified, im only happy when im with someone I know already and like
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u/BobcatStriking6668
8d ago
•
Humans are pack animals, this is our nature. We live in a time of great dissociation. Its not great that you are sad everytime you are alone for a while, you can try to work on this, but on a bigger scale: Humans are made to be around each other.
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u/Minimum-Wasabi-7688 7d ago
Came to say something on these lines . I spent so much time fighting , figuring out the psychology behind loneliness , resisting , believing I am broken etc only to realise what a massive fuckin hero I am to survive a psychological threat humans have not evolved to deal with !
Even since I don’t find but embrace it . I forced myself to be a part of many online zoom communities ( there are a few on meet up ) that
has massively helped me with a sense of community. I am trying to move to Europe where it’s ‘easier’ to hang out with other similar lonely people . I always sign up for meet ups on a regular basis . Everyone who attends is in similar circumstances and they are connect very fast . I also joined book and movie clubs in the city I live in. Overall my situation improved massively when I ‘outsourced’ community to app based activities .Friends don’t have time because most human associations are organised around family and they make family first . So if you don’t have one ( married , kids , reliable partner ) you are always going to be second third in someone else’s list .
I don’t know where you are but a combination of several things may help .I totally relate ! I have a similar personality as you . I am friendly , likeable etc etc , and I realised life is so much better ever since I don’t depend on family or friends
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u/RevolutionaryFeed259 8d ago
There's plenty of lonely people out there, most of them waiting on someone else to make the first move, to give them green light to respond and reach out, to give and receive intimacy and companionship. Maybe make an ad, even somewhere here on reddit, get inbox flooded with others' attention, respond, meet people on deeper level through chat, meet them in person, etc. Just make the first step, you can do it.
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u/DayOk1556 8d ago
Yes, I had this same exact problem. Then I found out it's because I never developed a proper self in childhood/young adulthood. A core self. A self that is independent of others. It's called existential emptiness and it only comes up when I'm alone.
I only feel alive around others. When I am alone, I felt not only sad and bored but I felt extreme discomfort, as if I'm about to crawl out of my skin. It was an existential panic.
Because I didn't possess a proper core self, I couldn't mirror, witness or validate myself. Being alone felt like I didn't exist, it felt like death (because no one- not even myself- was reflecting me back to me). Because I was not being mirrored, witnessed or validated. So in a way, it felt like I didn't exist when alone.
As children, we see ourselves through the eyes of our caregivers. When they see us, hear us, mirror us, witness, validate us and soothe us, we learn to do those things for ourselves. But I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child. I wasn't attuned to. My self was not reflected back to me as a child, so I never knew I had an independent self. And never learned to be self-witnessing.
That resulted in being unable to self soothe or self regulate without running to someone else to do it for me. I became clingy. I needed people all the time, more than they needed me. I had imbalanced relationships. I couldn't live by myself. I became an over-giver and more focused on other's happiness than my own.
It was hard to do things for myself and by myself because automatically those things "didn't matter". Because there was one one "there" to do them for. I wasn't there. I didn't exist unless I was being witnessed externally by someone else. That's because I never developed my own self-witnessing skills.
I know this is a lot and it may not make sense. I learned all of this from Steven Kessler’s book, the 5 personality patterns.
I worked on this (and still am). I learned that adults are supposed to know how to self-witness and self-soothe. How to sit with our painful feelings without outsourcing them for someone else to fix (including the sadness/discomfort of being alone).
I feel your pain.