Anushna Kondala, NAMI Intern
Many people associate the image of someone sitting alone with loneliness. This misconception hinders people who want to enjoy their own company and thrive alone, affecting how they feel when they see others with their peers.
From my own experience of struggling to be alone, I remember how I felt like such an outcast my last year of high school, seeing all my peers cherishing the last few months of high school while I had just been dumped by a person who I considered a friend. The pain was so eminent that I remember begging the friend to get back with me (i.e. asking if they wanted to hang out during lunch, stopping by the table where we occasionally sat to strike up a conversation). Despite my efforts, the “friend” and I never made up.
I was left to spend my lunchtime alone, watching videos to take my mind off of the fact that I had no one to talk to and walking around hallways to kill time until the first period started, trying not to think of the times me and the friend would make each other burst out in laughter. At the time, I viewed myself as a loser. I was that “weird” girl who went all the way to the corner of the gym until they started taking attendance or would mumble to myself because, let’s face it, I was alone.
And it hurt.
I remember my therapist telling me once how humans craved intimacy―I wouldn’t say I liked that because no matter how hard I tried to find intimacy something would always come along and disrupt things. I was convinced there was no escape route to being alone happily; everywhere I went I felt distraught that I wasn’t a part of my peers’ camaraderie.
It wasn’t until I started spending more time with myself that I realized being alone wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t a special message from the divine himself or a spiritual awakening. I had just accepted it because I was used to it. The time spent alone at lunch and before the first period started made me realize how much spending time with myself made me feel. Spending time with my friend made me think restrained when I could be doing much better things with my time.
Being alone and making my time more useful improved my well-being and consciousness of loving myself. There’s a saying that loving yourself should come first before getting into a relationship. I used to view that as only romantic relationships, but after having a far greater share of toxic friendships, I started to realize that this quote related to more than just intimate partners. My fondness for myself grew and I began to realize that even if I did―and would―get into a toxic relationship, I could handle it better than before because I knew there was one thing that would stay constant in my life: me.