“Monophobia is an acute fear of being alone and having to cope without a specific person, or perhaps any person, in close proximity. This 'closeness' might mean in the same house or flat or even in the same room.”
Ever since childhood I’ve been terrified of being alone, I find it especially hard to enjoy my own company. I’m not sure exactly where this stems from but Anne seems to think it has something to do with being an only child and spending long periods of time alone during my formative years. I used to play board games alone as a child, I always felt perfectly happy and normal doing this. It is only when I became an adult that I formed this irrational fear in my head, I’m terrified of being alone with my thoughts. When I’m alone I go down dark alleys in my mind, I worry about where I am on life’s path, I panic. I think that when I stopped self harming it reinforced itself even more as I forced myself into social situations so I wasn’t going to be alone to hurt myself. I’ve still not learned any fully effective resources to deal with it, I still struggle to this day. If I am alone I have to be messaging someone constantly, or drawing, or playing Xbox, or anything really. Anything to distract myself.
Another issue that comes out of this is the fear of missing out. When I sit alone my brain races to all the fun things that everyone else is doing, and how I am not involved. I construct entire scenarios in my head of all my friends together without me having a good time. Despite knowing that 90% of the time they’re also sat at home, or if they are out they’re probably just having a bang average time in Spoons. But my head tells me it’s the fucking Oscars After Party and everyone is necking champagne and doing lines of coke off a hooker’s back. It’s hard to stop it and get a handle on it. The last week of the month when I’m stuck in skint waiting for payday and all my brain can tell me is that something incredible is happening somewhere. The tagged photos that you’re not in. The conversations that they’ll have that you won’t hear. It’s excruciating.
“Anuptophobia is the fear of being or staying single”
Now this is an odd one because it comes in waves, there are times when I have come out of a relationship feeling euphoric that it’s all over, as I’d felt more alone and isolated in a relationship than I did out of it. But as I came to my early 30s I realised that there’s a fairly high chance I was gonna be single forever. The thing with this phobia is it fucking STINKS. Women can smell it on you, the desperation, the overwhelming desire to be with someone, and in 9 out of 10 scenarios they will turn and run. From time to time I think I’ve got a handle on it but it always comes back. I think this is tied in to Monophobia and also has a biological causation, men are hardwired to find a partner in order to propagate their bloodline, I just think some people can play it cooler than others. This is something I’m actively working on with Anne at the moment as my number one focus. Once I am comfortable with this I think a lot of things will fall in to place.
Sorry I couldn’t offer any resources to deal with these situations as right now I’m only finding them out myself. If anybody has any good tips for working through these episodes please let me know. We need to share resources and tools to all get through life together. If anyone wants to chat about this my inbox is always open. Thx, Craig.
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