“I Just Want to Be Left Alone”
“I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to answer texts or make plans or explain how I’m doing. I’m tired of performing like everything’s okay. I don’t want to deal with anyone. I just want to be left alone—and I don’t know if that’s healthy or not.”
Dear Mira,
I exhaled reading your words. Not because they were easy to read, but because they were honest. And I think honesty like that deserves reverence.
There is something so human about the longing to disappear for a while—not forever, not as a cry for help, but as a need for space. A need to not be needed. To not smile, not reassure, not explain. To withdraw without guilt, without commentary, without anyone demanding access to the parts of you that are running on empty.
It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you’ve given up. It means something inside you is craving quiet. And that craving, when listened to with care, is not selfish—it’s sacred.
We don’t talk enough about withdrawal as something healthy. Something restorative. Something that can mark the beginning of coming home to yourself, rather than the beginning of losing touch with others. In fact, when done with awareness, pulling back can be a profound act of emotional self-respect.
But of course, the culture doesn’t treat it that way.
Our world valorizes interaction, performance, and availability. Being constantly reachable has become a marker of connection, and if you retreat, people assume something must be wrong. As if choosing solitude means you’re in danger. As if needing to not be witnessed means you’re not well.
But solitude isn’t the same as isolation. And wanting to be alone isn’t the same as pushing love away. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes it’s an attempt to preserve what’s left of your inner resources before they get scattered trying to meet other people’s expectations.
There’s a difference between loneliness and aloneness. One is a lack. The other is a choice. And what you’re describing sounds less like despair and more like exhaustion. Not the kind of exhaustion that sleep fixes—but the kind that accumulates when you’ve been overextended emotionally for too long.
You don’t owe the world your constant presence.
And you certainly don’t owe it your performance.
Sometimes we want to be alone not because we hate people, but because we’ve lost track of who we are beneath all the relating. We’ve been translating ourselves for others for so long—shifting tone, adjusting energy, making ourselves palatable—that eventually, we reach a point where we don’t even know what we sound like unfiltered.
That’s where retreat begins.
Not as escape, but as a return.
Still, I want to speak to the part of you that asked, “Is this healthy?”
Because that’s a good question. And like most good questions, the answer depends on the why—and the what’s underneath it.
If you’re retreating because you need rest, that’s health.
If you’re pulling back because your nervous system is overstimulated, that’s protection.
If you’re craving solitude because everyone around you is asking you to be someone you’re not, that’s integrity.
But if being alone starts to feel like the only safe option, if you’re not just avoiding people but avoiding feeling, if the idea of reconnecting becomes more terrifying than grounding—then it might be worth asking what the aloneness is shielding you from.
Sometimes we need solitude to remember who we are.
Other times we use it to forget how much pain we’re in.
Either way, the desire to step back is a signal. It says: Something needs tending. And the beauty of solitude is that it gives you space to hear what that something is—without interruption, without distortion, without the noise of other people’s opinions.
The truth is, most of us don’t have enough real solitude in our lives. We confuse distraction with rest. We confuse scrolling alone in a room with being present with ourselves. But there’s a difference between numbing and nourishing. Between hiding from life and creating space for life to return.
So if what you need right now is to shut the door for a while, do that.
Do it without apology. Without performing it for social media. Without promising anyone that you’ll “bounce back” soon.
You’re allowed to not want to deal with anyone for a bit.
That doesn’t mean you don’t love people. It means you need to remember how to love yourself in a way that doesn’t involve constant self-erasure.
And when you're ready to come back—if you’re ready—you don’t have to explain or justify. You can just emerge as you are. Not fully fixed, not entirely figured out. But clearer. Quieter. Realigned.
Mira, you’re not a bad person for wanting to disappear. You’re a person who’s been deeply present, maybe too present, for too long—and now, finally, your system is asking for reprieve.
Listen to it.
It’s okay to want stillness. It’s okay to choose it.
Let yourself rest.
Let yourself not be reachable.
Let yourself not be for public consumption.
Let yourself be.
–RJ