social withdrawal
Avoiding human contact
Social withdrawal is pulling back from interaction with others—avoiding friends, declining invitations, staying home.
It can be a temporary response to stress or heartbreak, or a persistent pattern signaling depression or other mental health concerns.
After the breakup, she went into complete social withdrawal for months.
The term appears often in clinical contexts but describes behavior everyone recognizes.
- isolationComplete separation from others
- avoidanceDeliberate keeping away
- pulling awayIncreasing gap from others
- depressionProlonged low state
- estrangementEmotional separation between people
keeping distance · anhedonia · alienation · agoraphobia · staying in · anxiety · detachment · ghosting · retreat · hermit · recluse · comfort zone · apathy · emotional numbness · loneliness · silence · turning inward · introversion
- Anxietyanxiety, nervousness, panic, worry, generalized anxiety
- behaviorshabit, aggressive, agitation, conduct, passive
- stress effectsinsomnia, headaches, anxiety, muscle tension, fatigue
- asceticismabstinence, celibacy, ascetic, austerities, chastity
- depressionmajor depression, clinical depression, sadness, hopelessness, anhedonia
- mental symptomsanxiety, depression, paranoia, hallucination, delusion
social withdrawalsocial engagement
Involvement in community life
outreach · sociability · gregariousness · reaching out · engagement
social withdrawalextroversion
Outward-focused temperament
outgoingness · sociableness · conviviality · affability · openness
social withdrawalsocial integration
Absorption into community life
community involvement · civic engagement · civic participation · community engagement · social inclusion