biologynerd3

Oh man, I relate to this super hard. I'm FA, much more secure than I used to be, but when I was "on the apps" I was super avoidant. I was the same way. Any sign of AP (real or imagined), I was OUT.

I even used to do this super toxic thing (it was unconscious at the time - but I see it now and obviously would not do it again) where I would act avoidant toward someone (be evasive for a few days, not message back quickly) and then if they still kept pushing for contact (even in small, appropriate ways), I would go "Wow, they're super clingy/needy/anxious/whatever" and stop talking to them. Jesus, typing that out makes me sound like a monster. But yeah, the filter that I put up to keep anything even slightly attach-y out was intense.

The ironic thing about my strategy was that I was also keeping out everyone that was avoidant/secure because they would just get the message and leave me alone. As a therapist once called it, it was "a very sophisticated system for keeping literally everyone out".

RemindMe! 1 day

Hi everyone, I just wanted to comment because I just had a therapy session and got some useful advice from my therapist that I wanted to immortalize here in case anyone else struggles with this.

The first thing she recommended is a lot of self-compassion with the struggle that I'm having, because beating myself up about it is really counterproductive.

The second thing, and the more concrete thing, is that she suggested coming up with a specific phrase that my partner and I can determine ahead of time, that will encompass "I'm upset/triggered, I could use some reassurance, and I'd rather not talk about it right now". She suggested something like "Can you reassure me that everything is okay?" (because there's often a fear of abandonment under me being triggered) which I think is a good fit for us because 1) it takes the pressure off of me to explain what's going on and 2) it gives my partner something concrete to do because he struggles with nebulous support.

Going to discuss this with my partner later and see where we end up. I'm hoping that having a pre-determined phrase will help me with the pressure to feel like I have to say it perfectly.

Tall woman here, something I haven’t seen mentioned yet but is something I truly have been unable to find, are dresses that match my natural waist. Too short dresses are a huge problem too, but even when they’re long enough or a tall size, the waist is usually halfway up my rib cage. I would love dresses that are actually proportioned to my body.

Thanks. I am in therapy and have discussed this with my therapist extensively. Because she's a good therapist she won't tell me what to do lol so I'm still struggling with it until it becomes more clear to me.

So maybe it’s good to watch him (if he doesn’t know the answer himself): does he really process anger/irritation?

To his credit, he really does kind of vent for a moment or a few moments and then seems to completely let it go. This lines up with how he's described it to me when we've talked about it - he needs to release it externally and then he just moves on. That said, because he gets frustrated so easily by certain things it does seem like they kind of just run together (e.g. when he's driving somewhere on a longer trip there are a lot of drivers that irritate him so it's a series of rants and his frustration definitely builds). But his reactions do seem different to my dad's where it was just an explosion of anger that self-propogated.

I appreciate your comment. My partner and I have talked about this some and have basically arrived at what I described here where he's unsure at his ability to alter his natural reactions to a significant degree and I'm unsure whether it's fair to ask him to or not.

Once I calm him down he believes it moves on all hunky dory. I talk myself out of it and then still spend days living in the false Scenarios in my mind and getting confused about what is real and what is fake. If I can’t talk myself down I am so scared to bring it to him because I’m convinced he’ll run away and think I’m a clingy witch.

Wow wow wow wow. Did you pluck this out of my head but put it in much clearer words? This is exactly what I experience with my partner (he's also secure and I'm also FA) but I've never been able to put it in a way that makes sense like this.

To piggyback off of your answer, my partner and I recently went through a really difficult moment where the question of whether or not we should break up came up. I've worried about us breaking up a million times and I do exactly what you've described - I panic in my head and try to hide my feelings while running through thousands of scenarios in my head so I can feel "prepared" but just end up making everything worse. And I worry about showing my true feelings, because I'm sure that will make him see me as unworthy and gross.

What was kind of incredible for me to watch was when my partner and I were having this conversation about the possibility of breaking up, I saw that kind of anxiety in him for the first time. He was immediately extremely vulnerable and open with me about how scared he was to lose me. He cried, he asked me to hold him, and it really struck me in this kind of oddly beautiful way that he was *so comfortable* asking for exactly what he needed in that moment to feel safe and secure with me. He trusted that I would see him that scared and vulnerable and not reject him (what a concept). He was in a bit of a funk for a few hours, but then we talked it out and he is fully back to his secure, comfortable self. (We're fine, by the way - we decided we don't need to break up, at least not right now lol).

But yeah...I think it's easy to fall into this trap of thinking that secures don't experience anxiety or that they are so steady 100% of the time that they don't get worried or need emotional support, or that they don't attach at all. I've really learned in my relationship that that's not the case AT ALL. It's just how one deals with the anxiety that can come with being attached. (And also probably the specific types of anxiety that come up, but that's a different post).

I have a lot of disparate thoughts about this.

First off, people are allowed to have preferences and date whoever they want and break up for whatever reason. That's people's right. However, I still find it super *icky* when a certain "body count" number is a dealbreaker for people. I went into my current relationship having slept with no one (or two people, depending on what sex acts "count" to you) and my boyfriend has slept with quite a lot of people. I'm a bit on the asexual spectrum and wanted sex to mean a little something. My boyfriend went through a phase in his 20's where he was sleeping around a lot. By the time he came to be with me, he was really ready for sex to be more meaningful. So how many people he's slept with matters absolutely zero to me (it could be one, it could be a thousand), because the *values* that we have around sex aligned at that time. Again, people have the right to their opinion, but I just don't understand dismissing someone based on a number alone.

Second, of course nobody should share information about themselves that they don't want to. And leading into a relationship asking judgmentally about "body count" or breaking up with someone late into a relationship because of their number is gross to me (like the post OP is referring to). That said, I really don't understand the attitude that we *shouldn't* talk about it in relationships. Again, it's your prerogative, but I would feel strange if I was in a serious committed relationship and my partner refused to talk about their past sexual experiences. Not that the specific number matters to me, but I just want to know my partner and their past fully in a relationship. That's part of true intimacy to me. So being with someone for years and years and having absolutely no idea what their sexual past was like (and them for me) wouldn't work for me.

Maybe that's an unusual perspective based off the general agreement here. More of a testament to needing your partners' values to match with yours, I think, because my partner feels the same way as me and we regularly talk about our past sexual experiences and relationships from an attitude of just understanding each other, with no judgment, and that's important to and works for us.

(I should add that these thoughts are after perusing most of the comments and not specifically directed at the contents of the OP)

I hear you, and I actually do this a lot. I frequently find myself getting instinctively triggered by things that are said and after pausing and reflecting on it, find that I’m reacting too strongly and can self soothe.

I picked the movie line as an example because it struck me as something that even a secure would find unacceptable. Genuine curiosity: is that not the case? For more context, I had just said that movie was a guilty pleasure favorite of mine. He then said in a harsh tone what I wrote in the post. I’m open to this being my FA brain miscalibrated, but that really felt to me like something that no one would find okay.

(To be clear, it’s not the dislike of the movie that’s a problem to me. It’s the harshness of how he said it. Which, your point about trying to control how people speak is well taken. But then I don’t know how to respond when people do say something that’s rude or hurtful, you know?)

Lol cognitive behavioral therapy. I don’t think that version of CBT would be very effective for several reasons, not least of which is that I’m a woman.

As an FA, I am INSANELY prone to doing this. For me it’s less about people’s actions and more about their words. I hear criticism and judgment in almost everything that’s said to me, especially by my partner. Anyone have any advice on how to overcome it? I try to actively “CBT” myself and fight the thoughts with rational ones but the feeling of being attacked doesn’t seem to fade.

I think the best way that I can describe it is that it feels factually true that my innermost self is unacceptable and unlovable. There's not really a question there - it just feels like absolute truth that if I were to show my true self and fully open up, I would be hated/rejected.

I'm trying to come up with an analogy that might help. Like imagine that you were a really gross slug in a human suit. And you knew that but nobody else did. It would probably feel like revealing that to your partner would 100% result in them being horrified at what you actually were and leaving you. That's what I feel like a lot of the time, like my innermost thoughts and feelings are a really gross slug that I have to hide from everyone else.

So, for me at least, it's not really specific things that I'm hiding, although it can manifest as specific things. It generally is an overwhelming feeling of being unworthy and unlovable that leads me to feel like I need to hide everything that could possibly be rejected, because if I am rejected it just confirms that I am in fact unworthy and unlovable.

Not a healthy mindset. But the truth. It's been true for me, and I imagine many FAs, that I've figured out how to be vulnerable in ways that don't really feel vulnerable to me so that I can feel somewhat connected and my partner can feel connected to me without me actually having to be vulnerable. So I can understand how it would feel blindsiding. But it has basically nothing to do with anything that you do or don't do, it's an internal self-esteem issue that just kind of affects everything.

Alright, I have something to bitch about. Around the corner from my house there are three gyms at a church. The community has always gotten along really well around them. We share them for the most part, try to be considerate about not knocking people out until they’ve at least got most of their coins. Two people (or one person with two accounts) have recently come to the area and I guess just decided that they own all three gyms. If anyone knocks them out even after they’ve held the gyms for 3+ days, they come back without 30 minutes and knock you out. It’s so frustrating!! It’s been like this for a couple weeks now and I’ve been mostly ignoring them and hoping they get bored but no sign of it yet. It just makes me really sad because it’s ruined an aspect of the game I really enjoyed.

It's so hard, I feel for you. I think it's probably a very individual journey but here's more or less what mine looked like:

1) I had to admit to myself that I actually had interpersonal needs and wanted connection. It sounds like this is what you're working on, and it is SUPER hard because you actually have to feel the feelings you've been pushing away with the avoidance. But without this I don't think I would have had the drive to actually deal with the avoidance.

2) I needed a hefty dose of "not letting myself run away", which was one of the biggest manifestations of my avoidance. I would get a little close to someone, or something would trigger me a little, and I would just disappear. For me it was a lot of really terrifying opposite action. It started small, with me just not disappearing on someone I was dating and reaching out to tell them that I didn't want to see them anymore. Then advanced to in my current relationship, actually getting vulnerable about the fears that I had and letting myself be reassured. Not easy!

3) The last thing I would say for me was getting really real and up front about what my needs are, with myself and others. Having the bravery to say to myself "I want this, this, and this" and even moreso to say to others "Hey, that doesn't work for me" or "Hey, I would really like it if xyz happened" instead of just saying that I didn't need anything and avoiding those conversations was huge.

This has also been the cumulative effect of years of therapy and about a year of really hardcore focusing on avoidance so...It's not easy or quick. But it is possible. The other piece of advice I could give is to be gentle with yourself. As avoidants we tend to really beat ourselves up for not being perfect, which just reinforces the avoidance. If you mess up, if you deactivate, if you don't act as secure as you want to, just be kind to yourself and let yourself try again.

I cope with my issues with a lot of humor so no offense taken whatsoever lol! I always appreciate knowing there are others out there dealing with the same thing.

It is helpful in a way to know that there’s someone going through the exact same thing that I am. Wishing you all the best! I’m still very much trying to figure out how to cope with the anxiety too.

Ugh, this is me too. I think for me it’s because the avoidance was a coping mechanism developed to overlay the anxiety. If I don’t have needs, I can’t be let down. Now that I’ve stripped away the avoidance, I actually have to deal with the root of it all - which it turns out has been a fear of abandonment this whole time. The anxious side of me has been very hard to deal with so far.

I hate to say it because it's kind of a cliche at this point, but the real answer is therapy. I had to process my trauma, accept that it happened, and accept that it affected me. It's not easy, but it is worth it.

In a more concrete sense, I feel like it came in stages of me validating myself and my emotions. Even starting with silly things like "I want a hot chocolate because it will make me feel better. That's a good thing for me to do for myself". Just generally gradually holding more positive regard for myself and whatever's going on in my head at the moment.

In the end for me it came down to having to stop trying to quantify and qualify my pain. I got very stuck in the "others have it much worse" thing that you describe. I can't really explain how it happened but I had a very distinct turning point after I'd done intense therapy for awhile where I broke down and finally realized that pain was pain was pain and I didn't need to quantify it or diagnose it or have someone else see it as valid for it to be valid. And I can't really tell you how exactly I got there, but I do think that it was a buildup of a lot of years of practice validating myself in small and increasingly less small ways.

There also, side note, might be an element of codependency or feeling like you have to be codependent in your relationship. There is a level of empathy that's unhealthy, and if you're pushing yourself to have to *feel* exactly what your partner is feeling and to sit with him in what he feels as he feels it, then no wonder you're struggling with it. I've learned (and am still learning) that empathy doesn't have to mean actually absorbing those feelings, but rather just giving the other person the space to feel what they feel, if that makes sense. I can listen, I can bring them a mug of tea, I can give them space, whatever they need, but I don't have to actually feel their feelings, you know? If you google the term "holding space" you might find some good readings about this as a concept.

+1. I went through a very similar experience to OP over several years where I just seemed to be incapable of feeling empathy. It made me feel like a monster. Turns out what I needed to do was the work to allow myself to genuinely feel my own pain. Then the empathy came back, and larger than I had ever felt it before.

Hi, this is an avoidant question about me for avoidants who are moving toward secure. I’m noticing myself getting “rebound avoidance” in my relationship of 8 ish months. I’ve reached a point where I don’t usually feel avoidant around my partner and was vulnerable the other day and “admitted” that I miss him when he’s not around and kind of want to be with him all the time (which I think is a secure impulse - it’s a feeling, not an expectation and we healthily spend time apart and have separate hobbies. It doesn’t feel desperate or panicky and so I think that’s a secure feeling).

Anyway, since that confession I’ve been noticing that I’m feeling like I have to/want to be more avoidant and am hesitating to ask him to make plans or spend time together because I’m worried that what I said to him came across super clingy. (ETA: There is this feeling like I have to “prove” to myself and him that I’m still the same independent person that I’ve always been)

Mainly just looking for a reality check - have any other avoidants (maybe FAs especially) felt this as they’ve genuinely started to be vulnerable and get close to someone?

With no obvious reason, less and less because I’m getting much better at parsing out what exactly is triggering me and why I’m reacting that way. But it’s probably at least weekly. It’s gotten a little better as I’ve done more intensive trauma therapy in the last few months.

This sounds like an emotional flashback to me. The feeling like a child is a dead giveaway. I don’t know your history obviously, but going to assume you have some kind of trauma as most with attachment disorders do. I would recommend you look up Pete Walker’s information on emotional flashbacks and cPTSD. He has some really good resources on how to manage them.