The feeling of not being able to stand being alone at home can be normal to a certain extent. The human being is a social animal that needs the contact of others. The real problem arises when we take the feeling of loneliness to the extreme, we take it to the extreme, which can lead to a spiral of irrational fear of being alone, even for a moment or a few hours. It is in this situation when we could start talking about autophobia.
Anna Romeu, an expert psychologist in emotional education, trauma and addictions, and president of the Emergency Psychology Section of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia (COPC) believes that this disorder “is more common than it seems. It is a name that It leads to deception, because it may seem that it is a phobia of oneself, but in reality it is a phobia of being with oneself, of being left alone and feeling permanently alone, “he explains. “It can lead to feeling unaccepted, that you don’t belong to anyone, that you don’t matter to anyone,” she adds.
Romeu clarifies that fear, to a certain extent, is universal and necessary. “If we were not afraid, we would all go without thinking about things or taking precautions, it is the emotion of survival”, but he points out that it can become a mental disorder “from the moment that this fear is irrational, without reason and extreme, invalidating “.
The psychologist makes us keep our feet on the ground and maintains that everyone fears being alone, both at young and old ages. It depends more on the personality of each one and the experiences lived. “It’s the way we stay together with other people, since we need them to survive as a species,” she says. “But one thing is to think about it and say ‘I wouldn’t like it’, and the other is to live permanently in that fear, and that all your actions are aimed at not feeling that fear.”
In this extreme fear, components of obsession and anxiety are triggered, and the constant threat that this fear will come true. This irrepressible refusal to stay alone can trigger the acceptance of much worse situations such as continuing to be subjected to a toxic relationship, dependency and even mistreatment.
“She is a person who accepts everything, anything before being with herself, and that leads us to think about autophobia,” she says. “As an isolated disorder, it is difficult to find, because it is often accompanied by other components, as in the case of people who endure abusive relationships just because they are not alone,” says Anna Romeu.
In people with autophobia, a very demanding and absorbing behavior towards others is also detected: “they can use emotional blackmail, passive aggressive behaviors, which make you feel bad for fear of abandonment and play with your emotions”, explains Romeo. “They’re not with people because they’re highly social and have a good time, but because they can’t stand the thought of being alone, so they don’t seem particularly happy to be with others.”
The expert recognizes that to treat autophobia it is necessary to carry out global therapy, since, as I mentioned, it is usually accompanied by other factors. “Working with phobias is not just focusing on the object you’re afraid of, but all the behaviors you learn as a result of that fear,” she adds.
“The main task to tackle is based on exposure to the phobic object to learn to tolerate what scares you, whether it is live or in imagination.” To this technique, Romeu would add a lot of emotional work, to be able to tolerate discomfort and know what to do in bad times, as well as make the person feel that they are capable of controlling these situations.
This article was originally published on RAC1
