SCB Holiday questions post 2: How do I deal with being alone?
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How can you feel less lonely if you are alone over the holidays?
Being alone can be tough, when it’s a constant, or not your choice. Being alone at the holidays can be even more so. Putting aside the overwhelming cultural message of family and togetherness and celebration (for now), on a practical level, it’s hard to do anything over the holidays. Places are shut (rightfully, but still) or places are super busy, if you’re in the northern hemisphere the weather is shit at best. It’s not a good time.
It means that you’re stuck, aware that everyone else* is Doing Something, Has Plans and you’re just sitting on your sofa being alone and listless.
I could talk about making the day your own, taking time to really indulge in what you want to do. Go completely different, ignore the holiday altogether (last year I cooked christmas dinner while watching Mean Girls, and The Core, because food is the best thing about the holiday and I’ll watch what I want). But maybe you know all that already, and that won’t change the fact you’ll be alone and others won’t.
So, in the name of catching ourselves early, let’s put together a framework for a plan.
The normal advice
Remember you’re not actually alone
Reach out to people virtually, unless being on social media will add to your loneliness
Volunteer
Don’t celebrate, or
Treat yourself and celebrate (order yourself a gift wrapped present!)
This advice is absolutely a solid place to start, but let’s flesh it out and add to it.
What do you want to do?
What do you want from this day or time of year? Start letting yourself wonder what this time could look like, and see what you can make happen. Do you want to celebrate? Do you want to ignore it as much as you can, your house being a festivity-free haven?
What’s going to work for you? It’s probably going to be a mix of things, maybe you’ll need a toolbox (or backpack 😉) of things to dip into. Really, the starting point of this is: What do you want to do?
These are things for you to answer, but here’s some things I would do:
Find some films to watch, because that’s my go to for distraction/background noise. Find your own version.
This can be a custom spotify playlist, youtube videos, audiobooks, whatever your preferred background noise but also good for distracting you is. Don’t know what this is? Maybe this is a good time to look! Find some youtubers or audiobooks to try.
Do something that gets you moving for at least a little bit.
Want to feel like you’re in a post-apocalyptic film? Go for a walk on christmas morning with a suitably dramatic playlist. It tends to be quiet af on Christmas day, so if the weather isn’t awful (or maybe even if it is if that matches your mood), head out. Envision yourself in a post/peri-apocalyptic landscape.
Yoga or stretching also works. Cooking an involved meal so you’re moving to check things, etc.
Give yourself permission to feel sad.
Let yourself feel sad for a bit, if you need to. The thing about feelings is that the more you try to avoid them, the harder they come back around. So, sit with it a bit. Feel it. Reflect on how it feels physically and mentally. Note down the things your brain is saying to you, the automatic self talk that comes with both feeling alone and then noticing that’s how you’re feeling. Set a timer, or give yourself the duration of a couple of songs, an episode of tv, whatever. Then move on to treating yourself/being kind to yourself. You might find an insight there. (This may be unsafe or scary, feel free to skip, and there are resources at the end of the post if you’re concerned about your safety).
Be kind/compassionate to yourself.
Have a lie in.
Cook or don’t, depending on what you want (if you know you’re not going to cook, plan in advance what you do want instead. Frozen food? A cheeseboard? A platter of different bits of pre-made party nibbles?)
Buy yourself a gift, if you want. Order it gift-wrapped, if you want.
Reach out.
There is a decent chance there are other people in your sphere who are in a similar situation. If you don’t want to reach out to them because you don’t want to bother them/you feel shame/etc, try reaching out to the wider internet. #JoinIn still happens on twitter and mastodon. Reddit has plenty of communities, and I know some people hang out there over the holiday.
But Gem, I asked about holidays in general!
You did, and the advice so far has been Christmas-day-focused, so let’s talk more widely:
Going places alone is totally fine. Going to the cinema by myself remains on of my greatest solo dates. In fact, I go to the cinema alone more than I do with others, highly reccommend. Go be touristy in your home city, take yourself on dates.
Be the haven of non-holiday chat for your peers/friends. You might find other people in similar situations of not enjoying/looking forward to the holiday period and so feel less alone
Remind yourself this isn’t forever. Sometimes this time of year stretches out forever. It feels like a constant pressure and prescence, but by boxing day we’ve started looking towards the new year (you may also feel lonely here as well, the same things apply to this festivity also).
Do something creative. Creative exercises can calm you, provide healthy distraction, and give you a sense of accomplishment. Grab a colouring book (or a reverse colouring book, if you fancy something different). Write, sing, dance, whatever. You don’t have to show anyone (and in fact, it might be better if you don’t, because then you don’t have to worry about being good at creativity, you can let yourself go a little bit, and have fun).
You’re not entirely alone. If nothing else, you’re not the only person alone at this time of year. This is not to make you feel like you shouldn’t be struggling, but a reminder that you’re not alone on a cosmic scale.
You put this in as a tip to share, and I wan to reiterate it here, in a slightly different way: manage your expectations. You’re almost definitely going to feel like crap, so plan for that, and plan to soothe yourself. You know you’re going to be making the best of a lonely time, which is why feeling sad is in my top list of tips. You’re gonna feel sad, let’s do it properly, reflect, allow yourself to feel it, and then see if it’s easdier to move through the feeling to more compassionate action. It’s not wallowing, or giving in, it’s knowing yourself, and allowing yourself this outlet for your feelings.
You know this is coming, maybe it’s already started. Sit down and make an action plan. Fill your backpack of things that will help. You deserve to spend this time on feeling less shitty, and that will unfortunately mean spending time looking at your pain, and sadness, and seeing how you can soothe yourself.
Self-soothing activites are just that: things you find soothing. This can be putting on a specific item of clothing, or using a specific blanket. A specific smell or sound that relaxes you, giving yourself a hug, breathing exercises, progressive mucles relaxing. There’s a more in depth article here: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/self-soothing/
These are mostly helpful for in the moment care, so when you’re feeling particularly bad, you can try these to help ground yourself.
Try to avoid less healthy soothing activities (dissociation, alcohol, overeating, etc). If you need to, make plans to avoid them (set alarms for every 3 hours or so to check in with yourself, avoid stocking your house with alcohol and snacks if you’re concerned about your relationship with them).
This is looong so I’ll leave you with a couple of quick points:
All of this may feel like a lot of fuss for nothing big, but you deserve to take time and effort to make yourself feel good. You deserve to take measures to help you enjoy this time, however that looks for you.
This is difficult. You’ve not failed if you end up feeling mostly crappy, or do dissociate the day away, or anything else. This stuff takes time and effort. Well done on reaching out at this first hurdle.
Hopefully something in this long wall of text is useful.
If you need to talk, and feel like you need anon/more trained help, here are lists of crisis or listening services. Not all of these are phone based, and more importantly: you don’t need to be in crisis to use these lines. Preventative measures are incredibly effective and important. I promise you, these volunteers would rather you reach out and help you sooner rather than later:
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/crisis-services/helplines-listening-services/