OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

When being alone becomes addictive.

“It’s time to stop. I miss myself. I haven’t been retreating enough, I answer the phone too often, I write in a rush, I live in a rush. Where am I? I need to go on a spiritual retreat and finally — finally, but how terrifying — find myself.”
— Clarice Lispector, The Discovery of the World

Some take a sabbatical year. Others go on retreats in Sri Lanka, do digital detoxes, find themselves on a beach in Bali, and write inspiring books about it. And all is well. I, on the other hand, was pushed into a deep isolation without any glamour, hashtags, or a one-way ticket.

It wasn’t a choice. It was a fall — both literally and figuratively.

In 2019, something (let’s call it an adult incident) knocked me off balance. My life was turned upside down and, instead of writing about what happened — because, let’s be honest, I don’t want to give the chaos a stage — I decided to focus on the aftermath: among other things, an unexpectedly prolonged solitude.

Unlike Elizabeth Gilbert, I didn’t go eat pasta in Rome or meditate in India. I stayed nearby, just across the river, living a kind of Eat, Pray, Cancel. As a freelance writer, being alone was already part of my routine — and I even liked it. I’ve always been that dysfunctional mix of functional introvert and professional communicator. But there’s a difference between liking silence and being swallowed by it.

For a couple of years, my life felt like an endless Sunday. I started refusing dinners, cancelling coffees, disappearing from lunches. “Just for now,” I said. But the now stretched into months, then years. What began as a necessity turned into habit. An addiction. Being alone became comfortable — and unsettling. I started wondering: is this normal? Am I simply mature and selective? Or am I on my way to becoming one of those people who talks to the microwave?

I’ve always been that dysfunctional mix of functional introvert and professional communicator. But there’s a difference between liking silence and being swallowed by it.

I saw a psychiatrist. Not simply because I was isolated or alone, but because I was navigating a period of intense turbulence — an instability that touched every aspect of my life, a relentless stress that kept me in a constant state of alert. It all stemmed from a relationship I had entered, one that pushed me into emotional and mental terrain I had never experienced before. “Don’t mention depression, doctor.” Despite everything I was going through, despite the constant nervous tension the situation had put me in, I didn’t think I had any depression at all. I had always thought depression meant not wanting to get out of bed. Yet I was getting up, going about my days, dancing ballet — I wasn’t like that. He listened, nodded, and delivered a diagnosis as kind as it was treacherous: functional depression. Translation: still standing — but wracked.

I still tried to fight it. I tried to do what self-help books tell you: went out, socialised, pushed myself into plans. And I almost always regretted it. There was no pleasure, only noise. It was like going out with shoes a size too small. It doesn’t break you, but it wears you down.

Then, my body joined the dance — or rather, stopped dancing. Ligament rupture in a ballet class. A final blow with tragic irony. The one thing that still made me leave the house was taken away. Life decided to give me an old-fashioned spiritual retreat. No sign-ups, no choice, no “namaste”.

In the midst of it all, some questions wouldn’t let go: Is this sadness or just boredom? Am I ill or simply lucid in a world that values noise? And above all: when does solitude stop being therapy and start becoming addiction?

Is this sadness or just boredom? Am I ill or simply lucid in a world that values noise?

Today, looking back, I’m not quite sure when solitude ceased to be a conscious choice and became a habit. An addiction without euphoria, but with a certain comfortable numbness. No risks, no surprises, no need to please anyone. A clean, hygienic, silent addiction. The problem? Over time, even silence starts to make noise.

It’s easy to fall in love with the freedom of not having to justify yourself. With the absence of noise, social demands, forced dinners with conversations that mean nothing. Solitude, when well rehearsed, can be as elegant as it is addictive. But it can also be a sophisticated trap: one that you don’t hear closing.

In my case, it became routine, a cocoon, and finally — I confess — an excuse. To not go out, to not try, to not expose myself. Like all addictions, it began with a sense of control. And like all addictions, it ended up controlling me.

So yes — solitude can become addictive. Not because of its intensity, but because of its absence. Because sometimes it’s easier to live in the dark than risk turning on the light.