Monophobia, and how it affects today's generation

What is autophobia?

Autophobia, or monophobia, is the fear of being alone or lonely. Being alone, even in a usually comforting place like home, can result in severe anxiety for people with this condition.

Autophobia is an irrational anxiety that develops when a person fears they may end up alone. While there may not be an actual threat of being alone, the person will still be unable to control their symptoms.

The person may be unable to function normally until they no longer feel alone. When they’re alone, they may feel a desperate need to end their solitude as soon as they can.

This includes several discrete fears which may or may not share a common cause, like the fear of: 

• Being apart from a particular person 
• Being home alone
• Being in public by yourself
• Feeling isolated or ignored
• Experiencing danger while alone
• Living alone
• Loneliness
• Solitude

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.

What’s the difference between fear of being alone and loneliness?

When you’re lonely, you feel unhappy or sad about the quantity or quality of social connections in your life.

When you have autophobia, you feel anxious or scared when you’re alone or when you think about being alone. You feel this way regardless of how many loved ones and friends are in your life.

What are the symptoms of autophobia?

While most of us can identify someone in our support system who we will miss if they are away, the distress that people with monophobia experience is much more serious and disruptive. Symptoms of monophobia can vary, but may include:12

• Dizziness, fainting, or nausea while alone
• Experiencing intense anxiety that's out of proportion with their situation
• Feeling apprehensive when thinking about being alone
• Feeling secluded or ignored even while in a group or crowd of people
• Going to great lengths to avoid being isolated
• Increased heartbeat, tightness in the chest, and trouble breathing while alone
• Panic attacks
• Problems functioning in other aspects of their lives, including their ability to maintain healthy relationships
• The belief that something catastrophic will happen if they are left alone

What causes autophobia?

As with many phobias, the causes of autophobia are not well known. Some possible causes include:

• having been alone during a traumatic event
• feeling abandoned in childhood as a result of an experience like a parental divorce or a death in the family
• other experiences of adversity in childhood
• having a parent or sibling with the same phobia or a different one

Autophobia may also be a symptom of various disorders like anxiety or even personality disorders like borderline or dependent personality disorder.

Phobias often start in childhood. Some people can trace their fear of being alone to a negative or traumatic experience.

How is autophobia treated?

People with specific phobias like autophobia are often treated with psychotherapy. The most common types are exposure therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Exposure therapy

Exposure therapy treats an avoidance behaviour that has developed over time. The goal is for this treatment to improve your quality of life so that your phobias no longer limit what you’re capable of doing in your daily life.

Your doctor will re-expose you to the source of your phobia over and over again. They’ll do this first in a controlled setting where you feel safe and eventually will move to a real-life situation.

For autophobia, your therapist will work with you toward increasing your tolerance of being left alone for increasing periods of time. It could begin as walking out of your therapist’s office and standing a few yards away for a short period. The distance and time can be increased as you make progress each day.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)

In CBT, your therapist will expose you to your phobia. They’ll also use other techniques that help you learn how to confront and cope with being alone in a more constructive way. They’ll work with you to examine your pattern of thinking around your phobia.

CBT can give you a sense of confidence when confronting your autophobia. This will help you feel much less overwhelmed the next time you have to confront it.

What’s the outlook for autophobia?

“Being alone” has a different meaning for different people. Some people fear being without a specific person — or sometimes any person — in close proximity.

And the need for proximity varies from person to person. Some people with autophobia feel a need to be in the same room as another person, but being in the same house or building is OK for others.

For people with autophobia, the need to be with someone else gets in the way of leading a happy, productive life because they’re constantly living in fear of being alone.

If you think you have the symptoms of autophobia, rest assured that there is help out there for you. If you stick to your treatment plan, recovery is possible. Schedule a visit with your primary care doctor or a mental health care professional.

With the right combination of treatments, you’ll better learn to manage and understand your reactions, feelings, and thoughts.