Fear of Being Alone: When You Can't Stay Home by Yourself

Uneasy when your partner is on a night shift or family is away? Read about the roots of the fear of being alone and steps that make staying home easier.

When your partner stays at the hospital for a night shift, the evening hours stretch out. After the children have gone to sleep, every sound in the house grows louder: the fridge motor, footsteps on the stairwell of the block of flats, the window rattling in the wind. Even though you have locked the door twice, you check it once more, leave the television on with the volume low and never let the phone out of your hand. Sometimes you can't bear it and call your mother: "Come and stay with us tonight." In the morning you are angry with yourself: "I'm a grown woman and I can't spend one night alone." In this article we will talk about the experience known as the fear of being alone, where it may come from and how you can, step by step, make staying home by yourself more bearable.

What Is the Fear of Being Alone?

The fear of being alone is when a person experiences intense anxiety, restlessness and a sense of danger when they are on their own, especially at home or at night. In the literature its severe form is sometimes called "monophobia" or "autophobia"; however, these names describe an experience rather than an official diagnostic category. This fear often appears as part of another anxiety picture, such as panic disorder, separation anxiety or post-traumatic symptoms.

An important distinction needs to be made here: the feeling of loneliness and the fear of being alone are not the same thing. Loneliness is a feeling of emptiness that arises when, even if we are surrounded by people, we feel we are not understood and cannot connect. I discussed this topic in detail in the article on the feeling of loneliness. The fear of being alone, on the other hand, is more about being physically on your own. The person may actually be loved and have relationships; what they struggle with is those relationships not being physically present for a while.

The content of the fear varies from person to person. Some fear a burglar getting into the house, some fear not being able to call for help if something happens to them, and some fear a sense of emptiness and helplessness they cannot describe.

Symptoms of the Fear of Being Alone

This fear can show itself in different ways:

• Becoming tense hours in advance on learning that a partner, parent or flatmate is going out
• Experiencing physical symptoms such as palpitations, breathlessness or a knot in the stomach when left alone at home
• Checking doors, windows and the cooker again and again
• Being unable to sleep, or leaving the lights or television on in order to sleep
• Calling someone over, going to a relative's or having a child sleep in your bed to avoid a night alone
• Objecting to your partner's business trips, nights out with friends or working late, or finding excuses against them
• Talking on the phone constantly and frequently asking where your partner is
• Catastrophic scenarios such as "What if I faint and no one finds me, what if someone breaks in?"

Experiencing some of these symptoms from time to time is ordinary. Moving to a new home, a burglary in the neighbourhood or a piece of bad news in particular can make anyone uneasy for a while. The problem begins when the fear becomes lasting and clearly restricts the life of both the person and their family.

Reasons for Being Unable to Stay Home Alone

Separation anxiety from childhood. In people who as children found it very hard to be separated from their mother or father, cried for a long time when starting school, and never liked boarding school or camps, this fear can continue into adulthood. Sometimes a separation in childhood, such as the mother staying in hospital for a long time or the father working abroad, plants deep down the belief that "if my loved ones leave, something will happen to me."

Attachment patterns. In people who experience closeness in relationships not with security but with a fear of loss, even the temporary absence of a partner can feel like abandonment. If you are curious about this pattern, the article on attachment styles may be illuminating.

The experience of a panic attack. For someone who has previously had a panic attack while alone at home, being alone means "there's no one to help." These people may notice that the real source of the fear is not being alone, but the possibility of having another attack while alone. If you experience a similar fear outside the home as well, I would also suggest reading the article on agoraphobia; the two pictures are often mixed up.

Traumatic events. A burglary, being attacked, or experiencing or closely following a major disaster such as the 6 February 2023 earthquakes shakes the sense of safety. Many people who came from the earthquake region or lived through that night describe finding it especially hard to be on their own at night. In this case being alone brings to life the thought "If something happens, no one will be with me."

Never having been alone. In Turkey, many people move straight from their parents' home into their marital home. For someone who grew up in a large family and has never lived on their own, being alone is like a skill that was never learned. A partner going on a long business trip for the first time, years after the wedding, can suddenly make this gap visible.

How Does the Fear of Being Alone Affect Relationships and the Family?

This fear shapes not only the person's life but also the lives of those around them. The partner turns down dinner invitations, professional training or a football match, saying "I can't go anyway." These sacrifices, made with love at first, can turn into resentment over time. The person senses this resentment too, and tries to cope with both their fear and their guilt.

The extended family plays a two-way role here. On the one hand, a mother, sister or mother-in-law being able to come and stay is strong support. On the other hand, this support can also mean the person never develops the skill of being alone. The sentence "I'll come, don't you worry about a thing" protects the fear as much as it is full of love.

Children are affected by this picture too. When a parent has a child sleep beside them to soothe their own anxiety, the child unknowingly becomes the parent's safety figure. In the long run this can strain the child's own sleep routine and independence.

Let's say your partner is a long-haul lorry driver and is away several nights a week. The tension before every departure and the reckoning at every return can start to set the tone of the relationship. At this point it is very valuable to talk about the fear and treat it as a shared problem, without turning it into blame.

The fear sometimes appears in later stages of life too, after a loss. A woman who loses her husband of forty years faces a silence she has never experienced in her life. The children start taking turns staying with their mother, and no one dares to say, "Mum, try it on your own tonight." In this case the fear becomes an experience hidden within grief, one that needs to be addressed together with it.

What Can You Do to Make Staying Home Alone Easier?

Identify the real focus of your fear

Ask yourself: what exactly am I afraid of? Someone getting in from outside, falling ill and not getting help, or being left alone with my own thoughts in the silence? Each requires a different solution. For a fear of burglary, reasonable security measures come to the fore; for a health fear, an emergency plan; and for the fear of being alone with your thoughts, skills for working with anxiety.

Make a reasonable safety plan, then stop there

Checking once that the door is locked, saving emergency numbers somewhere easy to reach on your phone and getting the number of a neighbour you trust are reasonable precautions. But once these precautions are complete, every extra check increases anxiety, not safety. Write down your plan, and when the urge to check comes, look at this plan and say, "What needed to be done has been done."

Plan gradual experiences of being alone

Try being alone not all at once as a whole night, but in small steps. First stay at home while your partner goes to the shop for an hour in the evening, then a two-hour outing, then a dinner, and finally a night. At each step rate your anxiety from zero to ten and note how it changes by the end of the period. Seeing anxiety rise to a peak and then fall by itself is the most powerful learning.

Try to live the time alone rather than fill it

Many people, when alone, try to "get through" the time by constantly talking on the phone and keeping screens on. Instead, find something you enjoy doing when alone: cooking a dish you love, a long bath, a book you left half-finished. Experiencing being alone not as a danger but as a stretch of time that belongs to you changes the language of the fear.

Create a routine for the nights

A short breathing exercise before bed, a warm shower and a small plan for tomorrow calm the body. When you hear a sound, instead of immediately grabbing your phone, first wait a minute and focus on your breathing. Very often it becomes clear by itself that the sound has an ordinary source. In a block of flats, the sounds of the lift, the radiator pipes and the neighbours are heard more clearly at night; making a list of these sounds can soften the mind's habit of flagging them as danger.

Make a clear agreement with your partner

Instead of saying "Don't go", ask for clear, limited support such as "When you're away, will you call once in the evening, and then I'll try to manage on my own?" Constant messaging brings relief in the short term but prevents the skill of being alone from developing.

When Should You Seek Professional Support?

If the following situations apply to you, you might consider talking to a mental health professional:

• Because of this fear, your partner's, your family's or your own life is clearly restricted
• You have panic attacks when you are alone
• The fear has lasted for years and keeps widening
• It started after a traumatic event and images or sounds from that event come into your mind involuntarily
• The fear is accompanied by a lack of enjoyment, hopelessness or intense guilt

If you have thoughts of harming yourself when alone, do not put this off; in an emergency call 112 (emergency services) and ask a loved one to come and be with you.

How Is the Fear of Being Alone Approached in Therapy?

In therapy, the story of the fear is understood first: when did it start, how were separations experienced in childhood, what scenes come alive in the mind when alone? This exploration makes it possible to see how the fear is linked not only to the present but also to past experiences.

Within the framework of cognitive behavioural therapy, the process usually includes:

• Understanding the anxiety cycle: Seeing the relationship between the thought of being alone, catastrophic scenarios, physical symptoms and behaviours such as calling someone over or checking
• Gradual exposure: Planning the steps described above with the therapist, using a ladder of steps tailored to the person
• Reducing safety behaviours: Gradually giving up habits such as constant phone calls, leaving the lights on and checking again and again
• Working with beliefs: Testing beliefs such as "I can't cope on my own" or "If something happens, I'm finished", and strengthening the alternatives with the successful experiences that build up during moments alone
• Contact with emotions: Learning to face the sadness, old hurts or sense of emptiness that surface in the silence

For some people a schema therapy perspective can also be useful. Themes of "abandonment" or "dependence" carried over from childhood help in understanding the deep roots of today's fear of being alone.

Being able to be alone is not about distancing yourself from people; it is about discovering that you, too, can stand by yourself.

The partner joining a few sessions can help the support shift from a form that feeds the fear to one that strengthens you. You can find information about individual work on anxiety on the anxiety and panic page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will not being able to spend a few days apart from my partner harm our relationship?

The fear in itself does not harm the relationship; but if the partner's life is shaped by this fear for a long time, resentment and tiredness can build up. Talking openly about the fear, planning small steps together and seeking support if needed are healthy ways of protecting the relationship.

Is it a problem to leave the television or the light on at night?

Leaving the light on now and then to feel at ease is not a problem. However, if you cannot sleep at all without it, and need more precautions with each passing day, these behaviours may have turned into safety behaviours that maintain the fear. In that case it is helpful to reduce them gradually.

I couldn't be alone as a child either; will it always be like this?

No, a fear that comes from childhood can change in adulthood too. As an adult you have many resources for working with this fear that you did not have as a child: the ability to understand, to plan and to consciously create new experiences. With gradual work, many people significantly increase the length of time they can be alone.

If I move into a place of my own, will this fear go away by itself?

For some people, having to start living alone can reduce the fear over time, because the possibility of avoidance disappears. However, a big step taken without preparation or support can also result in intense panic and retreat. That is why a gradual, planned transition is generally healthier.

• #fear of being alone
• #monophobia
• #separation anxiety
• #cannot stay home alone

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Eda Erkan Alapala

Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.

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