Autophobia: How To Overcome The Fear of Being Alone

✅ Today's Friday • 📖 6 mins read

“”The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us, but those who win battles we know nothing about.” — Unknown

Feeling lonely now and then is normal. But constantly fearing you’ll end up alone? That hurts different.

Loneliness is mainly sadness and emptiness. Autophobia is mostly anxiety.

Autophobics need constant company to feel safe. The thought of being by oneself can trigger intense anxiety or panic.

If you, like millions worldwide, have this fear, know that you can overcome it.

Autophobia: The Fear of Being Alone

Autophobia is an irrational, intense fear of being alone or isolated from familiar people. Unlike loneliness, autophobia is about fearing future loneliness.

Autophobia vs. Loneliness

• Loneliness is a present feeling of sadness that you have no one to engage with meaningfully or turn to for support. It signals a need to reconnect and rebuild relationships. It is your brain’s way of saying, “Reach out to people.”
• Autophobia is anxiety about the possibility of being alone in the future. It makes you avoid situations where you might end up by yourself. Often, it involves attachment to a particular person, with your brain telling you to “never let this person leave you alone, or you’ll be in danger.”

While not officially listed in the DSM-5, autophobia is recognized as a specific phobia affecting roughly 12.5% of U.S. adults. It’s also called monophobia, eremophobia, or isolophobia.

People with autophobia often have an anxious attachment style, with an intense need for closeness and high sensitivity to rejection.

Signs You Might Have Autophobia

Autophobia becomes a problem when it interferes with your daily life.

If you have experienced the following symptoms for six months or longer, it may be autophobia:

• Feeling detached from yourself when isolated from others.
• Sleep and appetite changes, and having separation anxiety.
• Panic attacks when you’re left alone at home or among strangers.
• Overwhelming urge to flee from situations where you’re by yourself.
• Persistent loneliness, even when surrounded by caring friends and family.
• Physical symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat, or hyperventilation at the thought of being alone.

How To Overcome Autophobia

Here are some strategies to not let your fear of being alone control your life:

1. Build A Structured Daily Routine

Routines comfort your brain because fixed patterns require less mental energy. Create a daily structure.

• Set fixed times for waking, eating, and sleeping
• Block out work time and personal time separately
• Schedule social activities in the evening (clubs, gym, meetups)
• Include daily exercise—it improves mental and physical health

Why it works: Predictability reduces stress. Knowing what to do at certain times gives you control and reduces anxiety. Group activities keep you occupied, build confidence, and help you manage stress.

2. Develop Secure Attachment Patterns

Securely attached people easily form emotional connections while also being comfortable alone. They trust others and feel worthy of love.

How to build secure attachment:

• Build self-esteem. Assure yourself that your worth isn’t determined by others.
• Practice self-awareness. Notice what actions and situations drive your autophic behavior.
• Develop self-compassion. Treat yourself with empathy and kindness as you’d treat a close friend.
• Practice mindfulness meditation. It trains you to nonjudgmentally observe your anxious thoughts without getting overwhelmed.
• Let people have their personal space. Take small steps to familiarize yourself with doing your own things by giving your close ones some space for themselves.

Action item: Ask your partner or friends if they would describe you as being “clingy” and would have you change some of your behaviors around them.

3. Practice Graded Exposure to Solitude

Graded exposure is a proven anxiety treatment that gradually increases your tolerance to feared situations.

How to start:

1. Spend one hour alone doing something enjoyable (reading, painting, cooking).
2. Gradually extend it by 10-15 minutes every week, until it is a to a few hours.
3. Try a “staycation”—book yourself into a local hotel for a day.
4. Eventually work up to a solo overnight trip.

Why it works: Each successful experience alone teaches your brain that solitude isn’t dangerous. Over time, anxiety symptoms decrease through habituation—your body stops reacting as if there’s a threat.

4. Seek Help From Others

• Talk about your fears with a trusted friend or a support group.
• Find activities you genuinely love and make time for them regularly.
• Stay off social media when anxious, as algorithms amplify loneliness and anxiety.
• Practice self-care without guilt, like spa massages, dance classes, or nice meals alone.
• Seek professional help. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is highly effective for phobias.

How Autophobia Affects Your Life and Relationships

Autophobia can alter how you behave in relationships, often sabotaging the very relationships you’re trying to preserve.

• Specific behaviors: Excessive check‑ins, stalking of exes or distanced friends, denying partners personal space, controlling a partner’s social life, intense jealousy, or imagining cheating without proof.
• Emotional effects: Emotionally, it can cause chronic pain, worry, worthlessness, exhaustion, joylessness, and reluctance to form new bonds.
• Physical effects: Physically, persistently high cortisol can raise the risk of depression, immune problems, and cardiovascular issues.
• Social outcome: Socially, the constant need for reassurance strains partners, who may withdraw, ironically fulfilling the fear and completing the causal loop.

What Causes the Fear of Loneliness?

Autophobia often traces to past abandonment: childhood neglect, sudden traumatic breakups, separation anxiety that persisted into adulthood, or PTSD from being threatened or attacked while alone.

Past abandonment can prime your brain to treat imagined abandonment as real, making the anxiety more immediate and intense.

Autophobia may co-occur with generalized anxiety, panic disorder, low self‑esteem, and depression.

Current loneliness can also trigger fears of future loneliness, creating a feedback loop.

Final Thoughts

If your autophobia feels overwhelming, you don’t have to face it alone. Reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

A therapist can help you trace the fear to your past experiences and retrain your brain’s protective responses.

You deserve to feel safe and relaxed in your own company.

• • •

√ Also Read: Hidden Signs of Loneliness: Are You Lonely In A Relationship?

√ Please share this if you found it helpful.