It is possible that you wanted to live by yourself in your new apartment because you wanted to achieve independence. It is not until the week has passed living in the new place that you realized just how depressed you have become because of your loneliness. By finding ways to occupy your time and keeping up with your social circle, your feelings of loneliness will subside.
Do Not Shut Yourself Out
Do not treat your apartment like a cage. While it is good to have alone time once in a while, too much of it can leave you alone with your negative thoughts. This means creating an open space such as opening the blinds to let the light in. You can also open the door every once in a while and say hello to your neighbors. They can end up being new friends of yours that will visit you. You can also clean up your balcony and surround yourself with some beautiful flowers so that you can sit outside in the sun feeling relaxed. Even if you need to redesign it, make your apartment look homely and happy to avoid feeling like you wish you were somewhere else.
Create Daily Home Rituals
The benefits of living by yourself include being able to walk around in your pajamas without feeling embarrassed. You also do not have to ask permission about doing certain things like playing loud music on your days off or cooking a recipe that you have been waiting to try. You also can watch whatever program you want on TV without worrying about anyone hogging the remote.
Get a Pet
If you are still feeling lonely and would like some form of a companion with you, get a pet like a dog, cat or even bunny. It can also be a pet like taking care of a fish or having a bird feeder near the window. Pets depend on you to take care of them like feeding them, cleaning up after them, caring for them when they are sick, and providing them with love and affection. You are interacting with something that is alive that needs you which will help you feel needed. Living alone means that you can still keep yourself busy by getting together with friends or joining clubs to get you out of the house. Being social and feeling at home will ease the lonely nights.
Located in Georgetown, Texas, Alma Loma is a transformative living center to help those struggling in early recovery to transition out of our Psychiatric and Substance Abuse residential center. Alma Loma believes that addiction is born from an untreated mental illness in which our facility is willing to help you. Our facility offers residency, medication management education, individualized treatment, life skills education, 12-Step support, and more tools to bring patients the confidence to be able to live an independent life. For more information, please call us at 866-457-3843.
