What does the fear of being alone mean?
What does the fear of being alone mean?
Autophobia, or monophobia, makes you feel extremely anxious when you’re alone. This fear of being alone can affect your relationships, social life and career. You may also have a fear of abandonment that stems from a traumatic childhood experience.
How do I know if I have autophobia?
Autophobia has the same general set of symptoms as other specific phobias. It involves experiencing severe anxiety at the prospect of spending time alone. Specific symptoms of autophobia may include: experiencing immediate fear or anxiety when alone or when thinking about being alone.
How common is autophobia?
Specific phobias, like autophobia, are some of the most common mental health conditions. Estimates suggest around 7.4% of people will experience a phobia within their lifetimes. That rate is higher for women; about 10% of women develop a specific phobia (Wardenaar, 2017).
What is the difference between autophobia and monophobia?
Monophobia is also known as autophobia, eremophobia, and isolophobia. Monophobia is a specific phobia, meaning it involves the fear of a certain situation. When faced with the feeling of being alone, someone with monophobia will experience extreme anxiety.
How do you stop autophobia?
How is autophobia treated?
- Exposure therapy. Exposure therapy treats an avoidance behavior that has developed over time.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) In CBT, your therapist will expose you to your phobia.
- Medications. In most cases, psychotherapy alone is successful in treating autophobia.
What causes autophobia?
Negative Childhood Experiences Like other phobias, autophobia could be caused by traumatic childhood experiences that cause this fear. It may be rooted in abandonment issues like a parent leaving, a loved one who passed away suddenly, or distressing relationships during childhood.
Why do I hate being alone?
Sometimes you might fear loneliness because being alone might cause you to beat yourself up about the things you have done, the choices you have made, or the lack of progress that you think that you should have made. We, as humans, tend to be our own worst critics and can be really harsh on ourselves.
Is autophobia common?
Specific phobias, like autophobia, are some of the most common mental health conditions. Estimates suggest around 7.4% of people will experience a phobia within their lifetimes.
How do you get rid of autophobia?