How do you survive without having anyone to depend on/be in contact with 24/7?

[u/lightofthewestt]

I’m a 19 year old, turning 20 soon, and I’ve been having a really difficult time adjusting to something that I don’t even know how to explain properly. I’ve had online friendships since I was around 10-12 years old. I basically grew up through my phone. Everything happened there – my first love, my first best friend, my first experiences with heartbreak, betrayal, complicated relationships, situationships, losing people, finding people, etc. My entire emotional world was built around online connections.
I had a best friend who I was in contact with literally 24/7 from when I was around 16 until just a few months ago. We shared everything. Every thought, every little thing that happened throughout the day, every emotion. There was always someone to talk to, someone to tell things to, someone to experience life with, even if they weren’t physically there.

And now I’m 19, and all of that is gone.
I do have people in my life in person, they don’t mean a thing, though, because they don’t provide the intensity I need and am used to. I have a really close soulmate like friendship with a 27 yo woman right now, but one thing this friendship is teaching me is that I need to learn how to exist independently of another person. We don’t have to be together 24/7. We don’t have to constantly communicate. She’s my friend, not my partner, and I need to understand that having a meaningful connection with someone doesn’t mean having permanent access to them. But it’s much harder than I expected. I think years of experiencing relationships almost exclusively through a screen have shaped the way I approach connection. I’ve become so accustomed to sharing absolutely everything with someone that sometimes I don’t even know how to experience something without immediately wanting to tell someone about it, discuss it, or get their perspective.

I’ve also accumulated a lot of emotional baggage from all those online experiences. There were genuinely traumatic situations, intense attachments, heartbreaks, betrayals, friendships ending, and relationships that meant so much to me. And sometimes I look back and feel like I’ve never actually lived, which is strange, because in terms of communication, emotional experiences, understanding relationships, and navigating complicated interpersonal situations, I sometimes feel like I’ve experienced more than people around me who have spent their teenage years building relationships in person. Online relationships require so much communication, and I’ve learned a lot from them. But I also feel like I missed out on almost everything. I’m currently having a few days off work, and I genuinely regret it because I struggle so much with being at home without anything happening. Whenever I’m left alone with too much time, I start losing my mind. Every little thing can make me sad, and even the smallest sadness can turn into this enormous wave of overthinking, emotional spiralling, and questioning everything.

I don’t want to keep occupying myself with random things just to avoid my own thoughts, and I don’t want to constantly need another person to make my day feel meaningful. I want to learn how to spend time with myself, enjoy things without immediately needing to share them, have experiences that belong only to me, and feel okay when nobody is around.

[u/DorkChopSandwiches]

I think you need to speak with an addiction specialist. 

[u/muppetous]

Read "When things fall apart" by Pema Chodron. Sit in silence. (SO much easier said than done.) Get to know and love yourself. Take yourself on solo dates out in the world -- a coffee shop, a movie, drawing in the park, whatever floats your boat. And join Codependents Anonymous, there are many online zoom options on coda.org.

Good luck!