Almost a decade ago, I lay on my back on the floor. Through the open window, I could hear the wind rattling loose stones and blackthorn. I was alone, which meant – although I didn’t know it yet – I had made it out of the worst years of my life.

A year earlier, depressed and in a state of heightened anxiety induced by the unhappy relationship I was in, I had looked for something to steady my mind and my hands. A lover of the medieval, I had got into painting illuminated manuscripts and would come up with imaginary commandments, one of which read: “If all else fails, just lie on the floor and wait for something to happen.” Now, I was.

I had felt stuck in this situation for so long. I tried to comfort myself that living in despair was just something my body was enduring, while my soul was safe somewhere else, in a better, parallel universe. But I wasn’t convinced. I had been losing my mind and, increasingly, my will to live.

Then the relationship finally, miraculously imploded. My partner drove off and I was left alone in the place we were renting. I was left with no confidence, no car and no shops around me. My reaction was not what I might have anticipated – I wasn’t planning my escape. The choice to remain alone was instinctual.

I fell into solitude gladly. Alone, I found it was safe to be fully present. I began experiencing life with such intensity that it was as if I was tripping. I held my hand out in hailstorms until it bruised. I gazed at lambs in the field. I stayed up listening to the wind keening through the telephone wires. I absorbed. Moments of sadness and beauty were mine alone, shared with no one. The possibility of a quiet life, a new life in which I could exist without misery, opened up before me like a revelation. Solitude ran through me like an edifying fire.

Being alone wasn’t always easy, early on. I had to pass through a process of healing from the life I had been living, a process of self-renewal that couldn’t have happened in the presence of others. Initially, dreams brought up things that still haunted me. Then came flashbacks. Some I treasured. Others were less welcome: experiences I would rather have left buried, but needed to meet again to atone for, grieve or dead‑eye into the ground.

Unable to travel due to the lack of public transport, I made the best of the limited resources and took remote writing jobs to stay afloat. The further I withdrew, the better I became at seeing the people in my life. I learned to rely on myself, which meant I found I could trust myself again. I forgot about external validation. I would sit in fields and woods, watching, and lose my sense of self – who I was, or who I was supposed to be. Away from the expectations of society, I felt free.

Autumn turned to winter and then spring. I had to leave the property, as the rent was going up and I couldn’t afford it. But I wanted to remain alone. By a stroke of luck, I was offered a peppercorn rent on a holiday cottage by the sea that I had previously cleaned as a housekeeper. From there, I stared at an island on the horizon called Lundy.

After about a year, my landlord needed the cottage back. I wanted to stay alone, but it wasn’t possible financially. Without a guarantor, my income was too low to rent by myself, even in Devon. So, I sofa surfed, which led me to London, where there were the most sofas available to me. I saved up to rent. By then, I was rectifying my lack of a degree and studying for a master’s in creative nonfiction. I had also met the man who would become my husband.

I felt confined in London and craved isolation. After 10 years there, my soon-to-be husband was happy to leave, to seek out a little adventure. We lived on Lundy for nine months, four of which were during England’s 2021 lockdown. It was an otherworldly place in those months, like a honeymoon to the edge of time.

I don’t know how long I spent lying on the floor, but it was as if a lifetime passed in that moment – as if, simply through lying there, a pattern that I had been repeating was finally broken. I found a sense of belonging in the landscape and I became the safe place I could always return to. Now, that decorated manuscript hangs in our home in Devon as a reminder of where this new life came from.

• Jade Angeles Fitton is the author of Hermit: A Memoir of Finding Freedom in a Wild Place (Penguin, £10.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com

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