The psychology of people who love staying at home in solitude

Welcome to a video that is going to make you feel so good about staying home and being someone who loves to do it alone or in solitude. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and we're going to go through nine of the most common traits of the psychology of people who love to stay home in solitude, similar but different, staying home versus staying home alone, and a few of the reasons why it's important to have your home environment be what it needs to be for you to be your best self and some suggestions. This video is really to validate you. Number one, if you are someone who loves to be in solitude at home, you are probably somebody with some combination of the following. You had complicated caregivers or a challenging, chaotic, eggshell, unpredictable childhood environment in some way. It may be that you received the silent treatment as punishment but you never knew when that was coming or you were iced out or intermittently emotionally neglected or abused or you walked on eggshells. You never knew what to expect. You had parents who yelled, screamed. They were enmeshed with you and parentified you. Whatever it was, you didn't have a lot of consistency and peace in your childhood. You also might be autistic. You might have ADHD. You have traditionally been seen as more of an introvert. Even if you like to do things, it takes you a lot of time to recover from socializing and or really the way you recharge the most is by being alone versus being with people and you've probably identified as an HSP, as a highly sensitive person and or an empath. So I know that covers a lot but all of those and I have lots of thoughts about each of those but all of those are under the umbrella. Number two, why you're staying home. It's not just necessarily your nervous system but why is it your nervous system? Because of your childhood, you became a threat predictor and you became really good at it. Your brain prioritizes threat prediction and it learned to do so through people's tone of voice and body language, their facial expressions, everything that is really found in both verbal and non-verbal communication. Essentially, you became or you had to become, I should say, as a trauma response, chronically hypervigilant in childhood and you still do it now. So when you're home alone and it's just you, you don't have to predict threat. Number three, you are probably someone who is easily overstimulated. Now this may or may not be something to do with sensory issues but noises or sounds or people talking or you're sensitive to your body temperature, you know, from the low end to the high end of significant sensory sensitivities, that's you. And at home, you can control that and you don't have to monitor and manage and try to regulate yourself so much so it's easy or easier. Number five, staying home alone and really in solitude is about, often for many of us, reparenting ourselves in some way because we didn't have a lot of predictability or control or stability, whatever it was in childhood. Being home is like a way for us to connect to our inner little child selves but this time to give them a safe space. And so this is why if you want to decorate your house with pink or toys or whatever you love, as long as, you know, you have roommates or a partner, they're okay with it, it can really be healing and we'll get to that. But it really is a way to repair often an unsafe childhood and a way to give your little inner child joy and a sense of control. The next reason, and this can go for anyone who is autistic or not or traumatized or not, but really being at home alone on your own in solitude, we're not talking about depression and isolation, talking about intentional solitude, something called solitude crafting, I should have said that, is that when you're home, you can do the things you love. You know, people that love to be home like to do their thing, whether it's gardening or house repairs or binge watching their favorite shows, reading, redecorating, whatever it is, hobbies, knitting, you knit. And for many people, that's another source of connecting to our core selves and identity and authenticity and can be very healing. So you're probably someone who has something that you like to do that you can really only do best when you're in solitude at home. Number seven is that you may also be someone who has had a violent or dangerous experience in life. You were the victim of something, whether it was at your home or otherwise, the outside world might be somewhat dangerous for you in many ways. And depending on where you live and your neighborhood and your choices and things you have to do or not do, going outside at dark or whatever, like those things can change. I've shared before that I had something happen to me in college and it kind of changed the way I go outside at night. I've never really loved to go to the grocery store at night and will usually wait if I don't really need to go, for example. So that can sometimes shape. Home really does feel like a container in a safe way. Number eight is you probably have, you may have some social anxiety. Even if you can do socializing well, like well, it's draining. But if you are more socially anxious, it's like even if you love being with people or maybe you don't love being with people and that's why you love to stay home and be in solitude, but it's stressful, right? And if you are hypervigilant, now you're reading the room and everyone in it and you're watching your own self hovering over your own body. This is also true if you're autistic. A lot of people who are autistic, they are sort of overly monitoring everything that's happening and that can be stressful. And then lastly, you never really had a safe space potentially in your childhood. Like you had to share everything, didn't have your own room or your privacy was violated or they were just boundary violations. Even if they were emotional ones, it's like you didn't really get a chance to have a separate self and or you were so neglected that it was like you didn't really get a chance to enjoy being on your own. And now you kind of relish that safe space that you can create. And or if you're someone who loves staying at home, there's a good chance if you've had trauma and things like that, that maybe you have pets and you love being home with them. It's a sense of regulation and comfort and it brings you joy in some way. So why does your home matter so much? Some research shows that clutter and disorganization, no surprise here, can lead to increased anxiety and depression and stress in your environment. So including even fatigue, right? It's like many of us, and I think this is true, love a clean environment, but struggle to keep things clean or to keep things picked up. But it's hard to deep clean because you have, you know, chronic illness or depression or anxiety, fatigue, whatever, fibromyalgia, you know, all kinds of things. And or you grew up in a home with more hoarding type parents. And so you really need the vibe at home to be uncluttered. So just keep in mind that that it really does matter how many things are surrounding you, especially if you're someone who has sensory issues, is easily overstimulated. We also know that when you live in a place with a lack of real natural light, that that can affect your mood. That's the whole idea about living potentially in places where it rains a lot or it's cloudy a lot. And the truth is that natural light can help regulate serotonin, which is important for our well-being. And that can help stabilize mood and just make us generally feel better. So opening your windows more if you're home, if you're in a place that's dark, these are things that can help improve that if you're someone who loves staying home. Things like noise and chaos and overstimulation through neighbors or barking animals or whatever, all of that can affect how much healing and peace and renewal it helps you to do when you're staying home. And so people who tend to love to be home are either trying to block that out or in their home environment, that's the best place to be in terms of the world being overstimulating. And then we know things like chronic noise can lead to hypertension, anxiety, certainly sleep issues. If you've ever been in a hotel in a big city, you don't normally live in a city and you haven't acclimated to that, or you have a brain that doesn't really habituate well, it can keep you up all night, even with earplugs and a noisemaker and all of that. So things like white noisemakers or now on your phone, you can create white noise or the fan, or I have all the things, the fan, the white noisemaker, and now I have a HEPA filter and the louder the better plus earplugs. Because for many of us, especially if you had a history of sleep issues, if you are traumatized and if you are ADHD or autistic, sleep is like, oh, it's like gold, right? And so for many of us, whether it's falling asleep or staying asleep, that can be an issue. And so the last thing about what we have in our home that we love staying home is that it, for many of us, it gives us a sense of belonging and identity that we may not be able to get in the outside world. Many of us struggle with friendships or staying with friends and keeping friends, or we have had a lot of relational toxic relationships and trauma. And so being at home can really help give us a sense of like, in this space, I'm protected, I'm safe, I'm loved, I can love my people around me, whatever. So like I said, if you love being home with your family, that's one thing. But if you love being home alone or on your own, these are similar, but different. The research says around solitude that what makes a difference between solitude and isolation versus loneliness is that solitude is best when it's intentionally chosen. And remember, you can still do things in solitude in public spaces. You can go to a restaurant alone or go to a movie alone. Some research shows even just going to get a coffee for 15 minutes, but by yourself, 15 minutes of just in your own space of solitude can actually also be replenishing. So if you want to work on healing and identity, your little space or big space, whatever it is, can make such a difference. So if you're someone who loves staying home and you also enjoy solitude, it's important to let people around you know that, hey, I love you so much, but I need a few hours. Would you go to the mall or whatever? Could you run errands with the kids? Things like that, obviously. Roommates, maybe taking turns, sharing you can be home department on this day or the house, whatever. Looking at the colors in your space can make a difference. How you decorate the space. I know for so long, we have all these like rules about what we adults do. And a couple of years ago, I was like, I don't care anymore. I have one bathroom that's pink and one that's like lavender. I have a lot of pink appliances, right? It's just, it's like a way to really unmask. It has been a way to just go, I still love these things and I get to make the decision so I can have what I want. So looking at your levels of light, how much natural light do you have? And looking at things like adding plants and aromatherapy. And I had made a video a while ago on creating a safe space in your own home, like a little meditation corner or what they've called she shed or man cave or human cave or human shed, whatever it is, don't underestimate the power. If you don't have the room to fully have your own house and all the decisions, find a space, find a corner where you can, you know, maybe it's a closet corner, maybe it's out on a patio. I don't know. And if you do guided meditations or, you know, you just like to sit and think in solitude, that's the one place you can go, do it. It really can be tremendously healing to your inner child, to your sense of self, to have your home be what you want. I know that resale values and some things like that can affect big decisions, but pain can always be changed, right? Wallpaper, things like that. And so just remember that if you're someone who loves staying at home and being on your own and really enjoying your solitude, you want to not shame yourself for that. It's okay to be on your own and be alone. If you start feeling lonely, if you have symptoms of depression and mental health issues, that's a place to know that being alone too much can actually be harmful. And we do want to balance regardless of where our natural limit is for solitude. And I really believe there's an art to doing the things that you love on your own, and you get to make the rules. And that's something that actually, like I said earlier, can be so healing and repairing as you lean into more of uncovering who you are, regardless of whether you're an introvert, you have a, you know, you're highly sensitive, autistic, traumatized, or all of the above. So thanks for being here. I'm curious to hear if you'll post in the comments, if you do love solitude and being home alone, what's your favorite thing to do? And give us all some ideas for new hobbies if you want. So, or new ideas of how to make that the best experience. Anyway, have a beautiful day. Please don't forget to follow me on Substack. I post on Sundays. I'm making videos on YouTube right now, Mondays and Fridays. Mondays are going to probably be trauma-based videos, and Fridays will be videos most likely on neurodivergence like autism or ADHD in some way, and that I'll be posting, you know, here and there on TikTok and Instagram. Thanks so much. Have a beautiful day, and yeah, enjoy your solitude, and don't feel bad about it.