Feb 28 2009
On Anxiety: Being Alone versus Lonely
On Anxiety: Being Alone versus Lonely
As the sun sets, something happens and anxiety sets in for so many people. Maybe it’s the still of the night, the impending darkness, or the sense that one is going to spend another night alone. One goal is to ease the shift or chasm between being by yourself and being with someone who is giving you the love you have always wanted (emotional intimacy). One step in this is to become more at ease being alone, because being by yourself is inevitable whether it is for five minutes, a week, or months. Alone is a physical state, while feeing lonely is a mental state. You can be alone and not be lonely, and that’s one key is to find solace in being alone, even though you may always prefer to be in the presence of love, attention, and/or energy that makes you feel alive. To find some more ease and comfort in being alone (to ease the lonliness) you would reframe what it means to be by yourself. In other words, re-think what it means for you- It doesn’t mean the same as it did when you were a child. As a baby or child it meant you could die, and you had no control whatsoever- you were completely dependent. If you received very inconsistent attention as a child, was left alone or abaonded, or abused in any way, then you had no idea when the next “fix” would be- the “fix” being attention from your caregiver or parent. So now it may bring those same feelings of panic back as an adult when a loved one leaves, and may send one into “control freak” mode because as a child, there was no control over the amount or quality of attention and love received. Some of us may have found that the only way to control the attention we got was to throw a temper tantrum. So now as an adult in trying to conduct adult relationships, we may throw a temper tantrum of sorts in the form of rage, emotional blackmail, sadness or depression, or anxiety, triggered by someone who leaves you because he or she is repelled or fearful of any form of agression which was transferred from childhood by his or her parents. This aggression, anxiety or worry you show pushes your partner away and makes you worse. If your parents had been more consistent in the way they loved you or showed their attention to you and loved you well, without neglect, competition, neediness, or abuse, then you would have been able to regulate your emotion better with the internalization of “My parents are coming back soon so I’m okay with them leaving now.” Nothing has changed for the insecure-ambivalent attached child or the securely attached child because people are always going to come and go from our lives, whether for five minutes, 10 hours, or forever. But the securely attached child is better able to handle it because they internalized the representation of consistent love in the hearts and minds.
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