Solitude can be a beautiful experience, offering space for self-reflection, self-discovery, and growth. Yet for many, being alone triggers intense discomfort rather than peace. This aversion to our own company isn’t simply about preferring social interaction – it often reflects deeper psychological patterns that have formed throughout our lives.
Understanding these patterns can be the first step toward transforming our relationship with solitude from one of discomfort to one of nurturing companionship. Let’s explore the reasons why some people struggle to be alone with themselves.
1. A fear of confronting unresolved emotions or trauma that surface in silence.
When alone, our minds often drift to places we’ve managed to avoid in the bustle of daily life. Unprocessed emotions, grief, or trauma can rise to the surface when external distractions fade away.
Psych Central tells us that the concept of cognitive avoidance is powerful here. We actively turn our minds away from psychological pain or discomfort, which can include painful memories, thoughts, and emotions. Someone trying to avoid this discomfort will find solitude particularly intolerable because there is no one else there to distract them and help push those feelings back down.
But this avoidance isn’t always conscious. People don’t necessarily think, “I’m staying busy to avoid my feelings.” They simply feel an inexplicable dread when faced with quiet moments. Their nervous system interprets this emergence of difficult emotions as a threat, triggering the same physiological responses as physical danger. It can’t distinguish between real and perceived threats. But unfortunately, it’s an overactive protection mechanism that limits their relationship with solitude, and usually requires a very gradual approach to overcome.
2. An anxious attachment style creates a fear of being alone.
People with an anxious attachment style often experience alone time as genuinely threatening to their emotional well-being. This attachment pattern typically develops in childhood when caregivers are inconsistently available.
Attachment theory, pioneered by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, helps explain why some people feel profound discomfort when separated from others. When early experiences teach us that important people might disappear, being alone can trigger deep-seated anxiety.
Your brain might interpret solitude as abandonment rather than a neutral or positive state. This doesn’t make you weak or needy – it’s your attachment system functioning exactly as it was programmed to function based on your early life experiences. But it’s not entirely healthy either.
A person with an anxious attachment might find themselves constantly reaching for their phone or seeking reassurance when alone. The distress they feel is real and rooted in psychology rather than simply being “too dependent.”
3. An underdeveloped self-identity can make alone time feel empty or meaningless.
When someone hasn’t developed a strong sense of who they are apart from others, solitude can feel like they’re entering a void. This phenomenon relates to what psychologists call identity diffusion – a state where self-identity remains unclear.
The discomfort of being alone might stem from not knowing what to do with yourself when no one else is defining the situation.
A person struggling with this aspect of solitude might find themselves at a loss when asked about their own preferences, values, or interests outside of their relationships. Their identity has formed primarily in relation to others rather than through individual exploration and reflection.
4. Self-criticism that becomes amplified without external distractions.
For many people, being alone means being trapped with an inner critic that never shuts up. This voice can become deafening in solitude when there is no other input available to balance or distract from it.
An internal monologue of self-criticism often has roots in perfectionism and internalized expectations. When someone avoids alone time due to self-criticism, they’re often unknowingly trying to protect themselves. After all, the critical inner voice can be as real and harmful as external criticism. In fact, more so, sometimes, since it’s harder to escape from.
A person experiencing this phenomenon might notice that they feel fine during busy, productive periods but become increasingly uncomfortable during quiet moments when the mind has space to turn inward. This pattern reflects avoidance behaviors rather than a simple preference for company.
5. Extroverted personality traits that naturally draw energy from social interaction.
Some people are simply wired to recharge through connection rather than solitude. They aren’t trying to avoid or suppress anything; it’s simply a biological tendency that’s a normal variation in human psychology.
The psychological framework of personality types, particularly the dimension of extroversion-introversion identified by Carl Jung, helps explain why solitude feels draining rather than replenishing for some. Extroverts typically experience a dip in energy and mood when alone for extended periods.
If you’re an extrovert, your nervous system is naturally calibrated to need higher levels of external stimulation, making the quiet of solitude feel uncomfortably understimulating rather than peaceful. This is simply a difference in psychological makeup, not a problem to fix.
In many extroverts, the neurotransmitter dopamine responds more actively to social stimulation than to solitary activities. This means that solitude can actually create a form of neurochemical deficit that feels genuinely uncomfortable.
6. Digital dependency can impact a person’s attention span and tolerance for mental stillness.
It’s a sad, but unavoidable fact, that our increasingly connected world has fundamentally changed how our brains process quiet and boredom. This shift affects nearly everyone, but some are particularly vulnerable to it.
Our collective capacity for undistracted thought has shifted dramatically over recent years. The constant dopamine hits we get from notifications and scrolling have trained many of us to expect continuous novel stimulation.
Your brain, like most modern brains, may have adapted to frequent information updates and almost constant digital connections. When these are suddenly absent in solitude, the resulting state can feel unusually stark and uncomfortable compared to previous generations’ experience. It’s one of the reasons why Gen Z might be the most chronically bored generation ever.
A person affected by this phenomenon might notice they reach for their phone within moments of being alone, often before even consciously registering discomfort. That’s why it’s so important to take a break from digital media every so often, to allow our brains to recalibrate and reap the benefits of uninterrupted time alone.
7. Uncomfortable body awareness that emerges in solitude.
Being alone can create space to notice physical sensations, pain, or discomfort that a busy social life masks. This internal body awareness is known as interoception, and for some people, particularly those with health conditions, chronic pain, or anxiety, it can become overwhelming when background distractions disappear.
The heightened awareness of heartbeat, breathing, digestive sounds, pain, and discomfort can trigger anxiety in people with already heightened nervous systems. This is something I learned through my own journey with chronic pain. By resisting quiet solitude, I was able to drown out and ignore some of the pain I felt. But this only served to exacerbate the pain because I wasn’t listening to my body’s signals that it was time to rest.
The solution for me wasn’t necessarily more company, but gradually developing comfort with normal bodily awareness.
8. Undeveloped self-soothing mechanisms that are typically learned in early development.
The ability to calm ourselves when distressed is a psychological skill developed through early relationships. When this development is interrupted or incomplete, being alone with difficult emotions can feel overwhelming without external regulation.
In developmental psychology, the concept of self-regulation describes how we learn to manage our emotional states. These self-soothing skills normally develop through consistent, attuned caregiving that gradually transfers the soothing function from caregiver to child.
Several factors can interrupt this crucial development. Inconsistent caregiving, where comfort is unpredictably available or absent, prevents the child from internalizing reliable soothing patterns. Similarly, households where emotions are either dismissed (“stop crying”) or met with overwhelming reactions from the parents themselves can interfere with learning healthy regulation. We learn to regulate our nervous systems through connection with regulated adults. So when caregivers themselves struggle with emotional regulation, they often cannot model or teach these skills effectively.
A person with this pattern might notice they seek others not just for companionship but specifically when feeling emotionally overwhelmed.
9. To avoid excessive rumination that spirals without social regulation
When left alone with their thoughts, some people find themselves caught in repetitive thinking patterns that grow increasingly negative. Without the natural interruptions and perspective-shifting that social interaction provides, rumination can intensify. This process of rumination can quickly transform what should be restful solitude into distress.
If you find your mind repeatedly circling around problems without reaching solutions when alone, you’re experiencing a common psychological pattern. Your avoidance of solitude might be a practical adaptation to prevent this mental spiral, but it’s not necessarily a healthy one. Rather than avoiding alone time altogether, learning how to stop looping thoughts so that you can reap the benefits of solitude is key.
10. ADHD (whether diagnosed or not) can make a person crave stimulation through interaction.
For those with ADHD (or AuDHD), being alone can feel like being trapped in an understimulated brain. The neurodevelopmental differences in ADHD brains often create a heightened need for novelty and engagement that solitude may not provide.
My understanding of how ADHD impacts solitude has deepened over the years as my knowledge and experience have expanded. I’ve noticed how many people, especially women, who are often diagnosed later in life or missed entirely, describe a restless discomfort when alone that they can’t quite explain. It goes beyond needing to be busy because we’re taught that productivity is linked to worth. It feels like a deep urge that needs to be satisfied.
When dopamine levels run naturally lower, as they typically do in ADHD brains, social interaction becomes an important source of stimulation. Conversations, shared laughter, and even mild social tension provide the neurochemical boost that many ADHD brains crave.
Your solitude aversion might simply be your brain’s way of seeking the stimulation it needs. Many adults with undiagnosed ADHD have internalized messages that they’re “too much” or “can’t relax,” when the reality is actually neurological, not psychological per se.
Final thoughts…
Understanding why solitude feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean you need to force yourself into extended isolation. The psychology behind our relationship with alone time shows us that these reactions are often natural responses to our unique histories and biological makeup.
The way forward isn’t about learning to love being alone at all costs but about developing a relationship with solitude that feels supportive rather than threatening. Drastic changes will only serve to dial up your nervous system’s threat response even more, which will make finding peace with solitude even less likely.
To learn to enjoy your own company and feel the benefits of it, it’s better to start with brief periods or find solitary activities that provide enough structure to ease the transition. And if it still feels particularly uncomfortable or threatening, seeking professional support from a therapist to tackle the underlying issues may be wise.
