Fear of being alone

[skylight2007]

Hiya all just thought I'd share this with you, since joining this wonderful site, a few days ago, and reading messages from so many people, its kinda made me think about my healing journey and looking at the things that use to bother me, regarding panic attacks and my anxiety. its all be one hell of learning curve for me, but this place has made me realise just how hard we struggle to cope with our feelings and fears.
The fear of being alone was always a fear for me especially during childhood, but when I had my daughter nearly 20 years ago, I was still suffering terribly with panic, and the night was the worst!!!!
Just having her in my life meant that I wouldnt be alone BUT, as she become older I just was so afraid to sleep on my own and so she use to sleep with me and I would feel safe... now she never knew how scared I was of the dark and each bedtime was a nightmare for me, but having my daughter near me made me feel safe.
When she became 7 she wanted to have her own bedroom and although this bothered me, only worrying about myself, she moved into her own room, I use to ask her, do you want to sleep next to mummy, and this went on for ages, and she would always say, no.... but gradually at time went by it was so hard at first, but I had to learn how to sleep on my own, the days got better, first with lights on, and she didnt know why, then eventually over a long period of time, I was able to sleep in dark alone, the panic symptons became easier and I had control over my feelings.
The point I am making is that I was very very dependant on my daughter to make me feel safe, although she did not know it, she knows now!!!! and she understands.
In my relationships I was exactly the same and depended on my then partner to make me feel safe.......... It took me along time to admit this to myself and my partners and I was in the relationship for the wrong reasons.
I can now live happy on my own and havent had a panic attack for years, just the ocd and slight anxiety. I knew I HAD to learn how to be safe on my own and not depend on others to make me feel safe.
I am now 45 and its taken a lifetime to overcome panic attacks and I never ever thought Id be able to sleep by myself in the dark.

skylight

[Ozzy]

yes this is one of my biggest fears i dont wanna end up alone but i fear its gonna happan and i think it will

[PUGLETMUM]

to skylight,

i am feeling emotional at the moment because of the fear of being alone and i just felt quite choked when i read your story which is full of hope, and i wanted to say thankyou.

i am still amazed at myself over this phobia, because it only became apparent to me that i had become dependant on others a few years ago, and that actually it has come out of my attempts to cope with my emotional breakdown 7 years ago.

i feel that this is the hardest part of all of my problems, because essentially we are all alone anyway, so to feel that i have to manipulate and cling and beg, and to become so completely blinded by the need to not be alone with my panic symptoms is completely devastating, it is to me completely soul destroying.

i wish i could believe that i will be like you and be free of this awful need, but at the moment i feel so low and weak, that i do not believe i have the strength to cope alone either just in life or with a panic episode.

i would like to chat to others about this if possible so all comments will be welcomed,thanks emmas

[skylight2007]

Hello there emmas, thank you for your reply and you too ozzy!!!

I feel emmas the fear of being alone is something that crossess many of us, but due to emotional upsets, anxiety issues whatever pain etc... it is not hard to see why we may become dependant on others to give us a sense of safety and looking at why we become dependant in the first place , well the reasons are many as you know.
What are we saying to ourself when we say we cannot live alone? are we saying we cannot do anything for ourself, we cannot make our own decisions, we cannot function without having someone to guide us, we cannot cope when we experience panic or symptoms of anxiety, we need others to always watch over us, these are some of the questions emmas I use to ask myself , and so how do we build our self worth up and start again.
Remember moments in your life when you had control , you felt confident, you could make good choices and healthy ones at that. Each and everyone of us have at least some good memories, but for some people the bad memories out weigh the good, and their is a saying, we often remember the pain more than the happiness.
So emma will you ever get strong and take control in you life again, the answer is YES YOU WILL.
Whenever we are exposed to tooooo much negative thinking, however hard our pain and problems, we create within us a negative cycle, which never seems to end, and we believe this is our lot.... wrong emmas, the hardest thing is change and taking risks.
Every day you can gather your inner strength, and test small thing out, like doing something you know you would avoid, I use to send my daughter to my friends across the road to spend the night, at first I mind was racing, but I told myself I will be ok, and even though I had all the tv's and lights on in the house, I had to hear talking, or create the feeling I was not alone!!!, I was learning how to cope with being alone, it was hard at first but I kept sending her to my friends and the anxiety and panic got less and less, until eventually I only needed to have the hall lights on, that took time, and healing is time.
Each small goal you set yourself, is a huge challenge when dealing with panic and anxiety.. but you have the control you just dont know it until you try.
Building your self confidence!!! your a beautiful person , we all are, you've coped so far with many personal issues and some battles you have won and some your still working on.......... you have strengths that are hidden but your negative thoughts keep you back. so emmas, no matter how small the positive thing that you want to do, keep doing it and stick to it, it will take time and you will get stronger and begin to rely on your own strenghts, not on others, it is ok for all of us to become ill in life, as this is a part of growing and learning toooo, but you have a bigger responsibility to play, and that is to your self.
I believe you can make small changes, and your life can get better, and you will learn to feel better about yourself and become more indepedant than you realise.

Remember emmas you have skills that you dont even know you have!!! try them and see!!! love skylight

[PUGLETMUM]

hi skylight,

thankyou sooo much for that lovely post to me, i am actually that emotional about this situation that reading your post my tears just came naturally and i am struggling to type this reply.

i am so alone with this problem with regards people knowing what to say to me (and truthfully unless we are extremely lucky to have sympathetic people in our lives then nobody does know what to say!) that your kindness and supportive words mean more than you could imagine so thankyou for taking the time to do that.

i hear what you are saying about needing other people to look over us and not being able to make decisions etc, but the strange thing with me is that in my relationship i am THE one who does make the decisions so that isnt my problem so much, what i think bothers me is the inability to break free from people and meet knew ones, and my life is so small that if anybody has to go anywhere or if there was an emergency i ask myself 'who can i turn to,who can i ring, in an emergancy?' and the answer is nobody and this thought just haunts me - i feel so very alone.and then i ask myself how much of this is my own fault anyway as im not an easy person to get along with, and how comfortable can it be to be with a freaky uptight person? but then i dont think i can help how im made! i think some people are just not going to find it easy in life to be with other people or to be able to make lasting healthy friendships.

when i came on here last all of this issue raised its head again as i was struggling to make any connections and i was seeing that some of the older members just seemed to instinctively know how to communicate with each other and it reminded me of how rubbish i am socially even on a bloody website.

so what i dont know what to do , is how to feel better about myself and how to be less isolated, its like i want to be alone but i actually really dont want to be, but any of the people in the last 15 years just dont understand howi feel,

im starting to waffle now and i know that im the only one who can do this, so to anybody who takes the time to read this personal rant - thankyou!!

and again skylight thankyou for helping to make me feel a bit less alone

emma

[elle-jay]

Ohh i most definately hate being alone. but then.. i like being alone but when i know that someone is there like they can be in a different room as long as i know i can go get them if something goes wrong. i use to do everything on my own, i use to always have panic attacks long be4 i knew what they were i use to be out shopping on my own and id just stop and sit down for 30mins or so until they went away.. or id be at the train station feeling sooooo sick. but i just worked thru that. i wish i could still do that. even at my work i use to work at a fast food place.. i honest have no idea how i did that job at all. i was such a nervous wreck all the time!.but now i cant stand to be alone, even when i go walking on my own theres no way i will walk more then 5mins away, i just kinda walk up n down my street cause im to afraid of going any further on my own!. gosh it sucks.

[skylight2007]

Dearest emmas, you mentioned that your the one who makes the decisions, but something tells me that you just wish if someone else could come along and lift the heavey weight off your shoulders. I understand your concerns of not having anyone to call upon, in case something happens, and that is a horrible thing to go through. it is very very hard to have to feel responsible for yourself and others, to kinda of be strong even though underneath your worried and alone.
I hear what you say about meeting new people, its very easy to protray a poor self image of yourself, you think your freaky and not easy to live with, doesnt anxiety and panic make us feel like that sometimes? We can be our own worst enemy and become both the judge and jury, but I have to say Emma, feeling low, can make us feel not so nice on the inside., and can make us feel as if no one wants to know.
So understanding how you feel about yourself, your panic and feeling responsible to making all the decisions, where do you go from here?

If you wanted to meet new people and make new friends, what would you need to do?
what would stop you?

it is very easy to put ourselfs down and feel as if we are not worthy of friendships or forming compatible friendships, and some friendships dont have to last a long time, but consider just being amongst others and having a chance to talk and just spend time with someone, can make us feel as if we are needed, even in a small way.

Have you ever considered joining a kind of support groups in your area, now I dont know if your working emmas, but if your not, would you consider volunteering?

The point I making emma, is to begin with making small goals as I mentioned before, getting motivated is hard when your feeling down, but do you think you could try.

if you had some form of interest something you know you could do, it will open doors to how you feel and see yourself and your self image will become better. Whenever we build up our confidence we gather strengths and find being alone not as fearful as once thought.

I believe that you can make a change and you need encouragement and support, its just lovely to have someone who can do this, we all need support and a helping hand sometimes emma, it makes us feel less alone!!!! so have a good think about what you would like to change, maybe just one thing and see how you feel about it and try to give it a go.

Take good care of you.

love skylight

[skylight2007]

hiya elle jay, how are you today? thanks for replying,

anxiety and panic can really stop us in our tracks and change our whole way of life, one of the things I hated the most was a loss of my independance, I remember working just like you, and coping eveyday with the sweaty palms and wondering constantly what others were thinking of me. Not surprisingly I began to lose my confidence and began to withdraw from everyone and society.
Public places where are nightmare and I felt overwhelmed with crowds and just couldnt stay out for any longer than half an hour but my feelings and issues were deep very deep and I was more afraid of my feelings than actually living alone.
I was just wondering elle jay, have you ever tried to go further with the help of someone?


Take care of you skylight

[lildutt]

yes i do sometimes im newly diagnosed with panick attacks

[PUGLETMUM]

skylight,

you are so nice to take the time to write your encouraging posts to me, so a big for you.

EVERYTHING is true that you say, really deep down i am still the little kid who got panic attacks and needs somebody to take it away and look after me

this is why sometimes i get worried and upset for some of you guys on here who are depending on others to help you, because if they get taken away like my special person did then what will you do then? it gets so much worse when your scrabbling around to find somebody who can fill their shoes.

also i have thought about the voluntary thing, but thinking about it and doing it are very far apart for me, i have a million excuses why are cant, the main one being anxiety and my self imposed resricted area that i will go alone. what i want to know from anybody is HOW do you get the change in attitude to break the habits?

anyway skylight knowing this where do i go from here? how did you go from feeling how some of us are to being how you are now?

oh also to elle-jay -what happened for you to stop dealing with your anxiety/panic? why did you go from coping to not?

love emma xxxxx