How to stop feeling alone and lonely

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

One common outcome of growing up in a home with abuse or neglect is feeling alone in the world.

If it felt like nobody had your back as a child, you would become overly self-sufficient to protect yourself.

This made a lot of sense when you had unreliable caregivers. But it led to an inner child that uses immature and short-sighted ways to keep you safe.

Instead of an inner child who is playful and curious about the world, yours developed hypervigilance and the adult task of taking care of you.

That left no room for fun and relaxation. You may have spent most of your time in survival mode which makes it difficult to form satisfying relationships.

Attachment & feeling alone

We develop attachment wounds in childhood when our caregivers aren’t able to meet our needs. You may have heard these described as anxious or avoidant styles.

The avoidant tends toward hyper self-sufficiency while anxious attachment denotes neediness.

Both of these represent the inner child’s way of trying to get your needs met. That’s because the child has trouble believing you will get what you need if it lets down its guard.

That’s how these patterns develop. Anxious attachment feels like striving for love and never getting it, while avoidant looks more like giving up on love because it felt unattainable.

Both of these states lead to feeling alone and isolated even within a relationship. You have a core belief that you will not get your needs met if you simply state them.

That makes sense when speaking up for yourself got you punished or rejected in childhood. It probably never got your needs met, but taught you to suppress them instead.

the role of Self-compassion

One component of self-compassion is to acknowledge you are not alone in the world. That can feel difficult when you have these attachment wounds.

You may assume that people will not be there for you, and create distancing strategies to prevent you from feeling that pain.

All this may be subconscious and you wonder why you can’t get close to people. Feeling alone is something you’re manifesting without realizing it because it’s become second nature to you.

You may notice some people assume that others will take care of them and support them. They will not tolerate feeling alone and isolated because it’s not familiar to them.

These are likely people who grew up in homes where their parents did their best to meet their needs. Support feels like second nature to them in the same way lack of support feels familiar to you.

Your overriding feeling may be that your needs are a burden. This leads to feeling alone and isolated because we build relationships by sharing our needs.

If we hide our emotional and physical needs from others, we deny ourselves the support and intimacy we so often crave.

So, remember that when you assume others won’t have your back, that might be a trauma response from childhood. It’s your inner child trying to protect you from harm and disappointment.

Give yourself the opportunity to lean into the support available to you. You may still be disappointed at times. But at least you won’t miss out on all the lovingkindness you denied yourself the right to receive.