The Fearful-Avoidant (FA) attachment style means you focus most of your energy on romantic relationships: chasing, fixing, or avoiding them.
If this was you, your childhood had more intense emotional pain than your growing nervous system could handle. Faced with this overload, your emotional system short-circuited and set you up for a lifetime of alternating numbness and explosive emotion.
These early experiences taught you to associate love with great highs and lows. Crushing loneliness pushes you towards people, but a paralyzing fear of rejection keeps you from getting too close.
Like all insecure attachment styles, the hope that keeps you stuck in this emotional rollercoaster is to find a partner that really understands you in a way that no-one else can.
But trapped in the grip of your attachment style, this dream is out of reach. The relationships you do find are with other insecurely attached people unable to see you past their own pain, and are full of drama and heartbreak.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
What is a Disorganized/Fearful-Avoidant Attachment?
If you’re Fearful-Avoidant, you behave like both the avoidant and anxious attachment styles. You spend a lot of effort on being likeable, but if people get too close you’ll start pushing them away to avoid rejection. Your relationships are a dance of “Come here, go away”.
Unlike anxious or avoidant children, who had parents who gave them love only when they acted a certain way, your childhood didn’t have a solution.
Your parents, stuck in their own traumas, weren’t available when you needed them. And without these basic needs for predictable safety and love being met, you started believing that this was because something was wrong with you.
This fear without solution becomes a Fearful-Avoidant attachment, affecting around 15% of children born into low-risk, middle-class American families.
And for those of you who grew up in poverty or dangerous neighborhoods, that percentage goes up to 30%-45%. 1van IJzendoorn, Marinus & Schuengel, Carlo & bakermans-kranenburg, Marian. (1999). Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants, and sequelae. Development and psychopathology. 11. 225-49. 10.1017/S0954579499002035.
What are Fearful-Avoidants like?
If this is your attachment style, it’s shown itself in different ways throughout your life.
Childhood
As a child, you had an organized attachment style. Whether you were mostly anxious, avoidant, or even secure, sometimes your parents were emotionally absent or hostile.
They were having these emotional reactions to their own lives, but you were too young to understand that – and perhaps your parents also blamed you for what they were feeling.
Because you couldn’t predict how they would react to what you did, you learned to pay a lot of attention to how your parents were feeling. And when they exploded/imploded, you froze – wanting to restore the connection with them, but afraid to draw more attention to yourself. 2Duschinsky, R. (2018). Disorganization, fear and attachment: Working towards clarification. Infant mental health journal, 39(1), 17-29.
Stress hormones flooded your brain, overwhelming your nervous system. When you finally said or did something, it made no sense for the situation.
Your inner critic, or maybe even your parents, would shame you for your reaction, and you’d dread the next time you felt this fear without solution.
When the crisis was over and your parents went back to normal, you went back to your organized attachment style – contributing to your security as best you could. 3Shemmings, D., & Shemmings, Y. (2011). Understanding disorganized attachment: Theory and practice for working with children and adults. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Adolescence
As a teenager, your disorganized attachment started taking control in one of two ways: hostility or caretaking (or sometimes one for each parent).
If you discovered you started getting what you needed when you forced the situation, you started ordering your parents around – or even threatening them.
If you couldn’t or wouldn’t challenge your parents, you instead acted as polite and helpful towards your parent as possible.
Whichever path you took, it was how you controlled an otherwise unpredictable or unsafe caregiver. 4Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (2002). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. Rough Guides.
Adulthood
As adults, we’re easily influenced by our environment into anxious or avoidant behavior.
Each insecure partner we take is a different type of wound. An anxious partner overwhelming us makes us increasingly avoidant and emotionally numb, while an avoidant partner quickly starves us of emotional intimacy and leaves us unsure of ourselves.
We even change styles throughout the same relationship. When we’re unsure of our position in a relationship, we’ll be anxious. When things are secure enough to lead to commitment and vulnerability, we’ll get avoidant.
This is why FA men are often anxious early in a relationship and become increasingly unavailable, while many FA women are dismissive early on and become increasingly clingy.
Those of us who became too afraid of rejection will pour the same intense energy into safer, non-romantic relationships: friendships, children, mentors, or even fictional/anime characters.
What Causes Disorganized Attachments?
If you’ve discovered that you have both anxious and avoidant traits, it’s probably pretty confusing if you don’t think your childhood was that bad.
Many online articles (and books) claim that a Fearful-Avoidant style is very rare, and only results from sexual abuse, physical abuse, or actual abandonment. They tell you not to worry about it, and gloss over the style.
But while it’s true that these situations will make an extremely disorganized attachment, they’re not the only causes.
Dr. David & Yvonne Shemmings are two of the top experts in the world on disorganized attachment. In their book Understanding Disorganized Attachment, they list three risk factors: unresolved parental trauma, insensitive parenting and frightening parenting.
Unresolved Loss/Trauma
When we don’t process trauma or losing a loved one, we repress our feelings to get by. This repression takes a tremendous amount of energy, causing extreme avoidance or disassociation every time these memories get triggered.
Although this is how our adult minds try to protect itself, an infant seeing their parent disappear mentally and emotionally is terrifying. A series of videos called Still Face Experiment shows us that babies panic within seconds of seeing their mother’s expression go blank.
And they did this experiment with secure babies; imagine the effect on you if this happened several times a day.
This category mostly contains survivors of sexual abuse, torture, or parents carrying unresolved grief over the death of a close family member.
Frightening Parental Behavior
Similar to abusive parenting, these FR parental behaviours may place infants in an irresolvable and disorganizing paradox: their parents are the only potential source of comfort and protection while at the same time they frighten their children through their behaviour.
– Out et al., 2009 5Out, D., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & Van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2009). The role of disconnected and extremely insensitive parenting in the development of disorganized attachment: Validation of a new measure. Attachment & Human Development, 11(5), 419-443.
In 2009, researchers at Leiden University sorted fear-provoking parental behavior into 5 categories.
- Frightening and threatening behavior towards the child
- Behaving frightened of the child
- Disassociating while handling the child (freezing, treating them like an inanimate object)
- Acting in a timid or subservient manner towards the child
- Disorganized behavior (disoriented or contradictory movements and vocalizations)
The more severe these were, and the more they occurred when the child was seeking soothing, the higher the risk for disorganization.
Extreme Insensitivity
There are two types of parental insensitivity: withdrawal/neglect, and intrusion/aggression.
Parental withdrawal & neglect is when you are distressed or seeking care from your parent, and they repeatedly refuse to engage or respond.
Parental intrusiveness is when your parent overrides your cues, and gives you what they want to give. This can range from more intensity than you’re comfortable with, to outright aggression, hostility, and contempt.
On its own, parental insensitivity typically leads to an organized insecure style (anxious or avoidant).
Reflective Function
The more risk factors you grew up with, the higher your likelihood of having a disorganized attachment, but none of them alone leads to becoming fearful-avoidant.
Dr. Shemmings adds a 4th factor that he believes ties everything together, the Reflective Function.
This is defined as the parent’s ability to appreciate their child as having hopes, intentions and thoughts independently of their own.
Parents that couldn’t see you as a separate individual combined with the other risk factors almost guarantee a disorganized attachment.
A mother is pushing her toddler in a buggy. It is a very cold day and the child’s shoe and sock have come off. The mother laid them on the top of the buggy and continued pushing. She was accompanied by a friend, who said ‘Shall we stop and put his sock on – his little foot must be getting really cold?’ The mother replied ‘No…no…he’s fine; my feet are like toast’.
– David Shemmings
How to Overcome Being Fearful-Avoidant
As a child, your nerves were overloaded so many times you associate love with overwhelming highs and lows, tinted with chaos and uncertainty.
If you want to get off this roller-coaster and have genuine relationships, I’m sure you’ve discovered that most dating advice doesn’t lead you to success.
The internet is full of people who are happy to tell you “the best” way to look, communicate, and have sex. They may even have your best intentions at heart, but this is shaping you according to their beliefs rather than your inner experience.
A Fearful-Avoidant style means that outer instruction already shaped your entire life, and it disconnected you from your genuine needs and desires.
All the excitement in the world won’t fix this disconnect, and neither will a healthy, stable relationship on its own.
But a warm, responsive, predictable relationship – whether with a friend, a lover, a therapist, or a support group – will give you the secure base you need to expand your comfort zone.
Trusting these relationships will be scary at first, but there’s a simple question you can ask to tell who you can trust.
Does this relationship tell me what I should feel, how I should act, who I should be?
Or does this relationship give me room to connect with my inner self, and encourage me to connect with my body and emotion?
If it’s the latter, you will grow closer to yourself (and a secure attachment) every day.
References:
Cowie, H. (2018). Handbook of attachment: theory, research, and clinical applications.
Duschinsky, R. (2018). Disorganization, fear and attachment: Working towards clarification. Infant mental health journal, 39(1), 17-29.
Shemmings, D., & Shemmings, Y. (2011). Understanding disorganized attachment: Theory and practice for working with children and adults. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Out, D., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & Van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2009). The role of disconnected and extremely insensitive parenting in the development of disorganized attachment: Validation of a new measure. Attachment & Human Development, 11(5), 419-443.
van IJzendoorn, Marinus & Schuengel, Carlo & bakermans-kranenburg, Marian. (1999). Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants, and sequelae. Development and psychopathology. 11. 225-49. 10.1017/S0954579499002035.
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Hi Dace,
Thank you for sharing this information. I’m looking for online support groups for adults with a fearful avoidant/disorganized attachment.
I was able to leave home at 16 and spare myself some years not being in an unsafe and damaging home. I grew up in a small provincial community that knew my mom well. She charmed everyone, having them believe that I was the problem, so my experience of my life was denied, and I also had no other adults in my life as she isolated me and switched my schools and address throughout. there was also severe enmeshment, which I tried to reject. having been primed to connect with people who played out familiar and destructive patterns, I sought connection with those who were ready to play them out with me.
I know that having just one adult that a child can have a safe, consistent relationship with can save someone from heading toward the devastating FA DA experience. I had the opposite, so it has taken me decades to even know what changing course looks like. I started Psychodynamic therapy at 21 and have majored in psych and I’m now well versed in the language, so I know why I feel the way I do. I know enough to know that insight doesnt always lead to transformation. I am now in my first long term relationship and am finding that my system of protection/flight response is always engaged, and that many things seem like enmeshment but arent, and things that seem like abandonment are not, and that everything feels like an emotional emergency. Even though I know this intellectually, my body and emotional self cannot differentiate.
He is securely attached, so I know there’s a fighting chance if at least one of us is. studying this I’ve found people describe this healing journey as very hard, compared to other attachment styles, which has been discouraging. Are there any success stories or biographies of a person with FA/DA finally being able to love and love one’s self? Can you speak on any resources that address the struggles with intimacy that we FA DA face? Online support groups or books you suggest? Can you give an opinion on somatic therapy for this? or a preferred therapy?
Thank you
Hi there,
I would strongly suggest against a FA group. Any group is always going to pull you towards the average of its members; if you’re genuinely with a secure partner you will be already above the average situation/opportunity and it could be actively detrimental for you. (Unless you somehow find a group of earned secure former FAs that are sticking around to help other people. If you do find this, please let me know as I’d love to have that resource for others).
Find an ICE eft therapist here: https://members.iceeft.com/therapist-search/find-an-eft-therapist.php
If you’re with a securely attached partner you’re attracted to and you both want it to work, it’s close to 100% effectiveness in changing your attachment style within 6-12 months.
The training and certification for a level 2 therapist is rigorous, just pay for the professional help and stop worrying about needing to figure it out yourself 🙂
Re: success stories ask the therapist you’re considering directly. Listen to the way they tell the story and if it resonates with you.
Wish you both well in your journey with love.
P.S. Go for couples EFT rather than individual. EFT Couples is less about fixing what’s going wrong, and more about showing two people how to be there for each other in the way that they need.
There are levels or layers if you will to this, and I’m always trying to learn the theoretical reasons why I feel the things I feel and have done things I’ve done… but every professional I’ve talked to just seemed like they were in too deep if you know what I’m saying? Not that they weren’t more than capable with other patients, I’m not trying to say anything bad about them but it’s just so hard, suffering from a very specific and maybe fringe or not often seen personality traits, to find someone to help. This article was real compared to others that all only talk in such exaggerated terms. It’s almost like they’re all talking about a cartoon character I would just love to read more about the nuanced ways someone with this attachment style who seemingly succeeds at normalcy yet feels otherwise can cope, or better yet, change. Thank you for writing this.
Yes, there’s a big difference between working with attachment and using attachment to label things 🙂
I’m working on a free course to help people become secure, check back soon!
I’ve done those quizzes online and have discovered I have a zero when it comes to “Stable”, and am a fearful avoidant. I can’t answer any of the questions correctly. I had no childhood trauma and very loving, supportive, available parents (and still have them). I’m definitely confused as to why I am like this.
In these cases, a vast majority of the time it’s one of two things.
Either there was a traumatic event when you were left alone with another caregiver at a very early age – often a grandparent or babysitter.
Or, your parent(s), usually your mother, went through something traumatic that wasn’t processed.
Seeing them disassociate around their trauma is terrifying for an infant, but gets remembered as normal when we get older.
I think I have this but I’m not sure. I’m also scared I might have Narcissistic personality disorder. It’s always weird to try and figure out where my trauma exactly comes from, because I had several caregivers growing up.
I lived with my mom and dad until 5. I don’t remember much of anything, they lost custody of me and somehow somewhere became homeless. I moved in with my grandma, but didn’t really know about any of that. I was just with my grandma forever now, and that was ok.
I lived with my grandma until I was 12, when she passed of cancer. I enjoyed my life and looked up to my grandma. She was too old and untrusting to let us go outside alone, so the only socialization I got at this point was with my little brother, kids at school, and summer camp. I never went to a birthday party or played with kids on my street much. I mostly stayed home and read books and thought of stories. I watched her slowly die in a year, but maybe I was a slow 12 year old–I didn’t think death was a possibility at that point at all. When she died I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think about life without grandma. What happens now?
At 12 until 13-1/2ish, I lived with my abusive aunt. My aunt from new york with bipolar who came to help my grandma take care of us and handle things when she was dying. Often times they would get in screaming matches, and my aunt started to overpower my grandma and us. She was the tyrant of the house while my grandma slowly got weaker, and once she died, my aunt was still living in her house. She was the makeshift caregiver for us for a year and a half. She would be an aggressive drunk, she would be extremely unorganized and her anger spouts were completely unpredictable. I was beaten by all of my caregivers at some point, its jamaican traditon I suppose, but I was beaten ruthlessly by this woman. I resented her so much. One time I lost my christ necklace and she made me throw 3 bags of trash from our garage onto the floor. I spent until 6am looking for that necklace, because I was clearly an athiest who threw it away, in her eyes. I went to sleep at 7:30 when I could just so I could fast forward to when I would be at school again. All the while, I read fantasy books and wrote stories about an abused child or an unlucky frog who was down on their luck in life and learned their true value/became a wizard and realized real life was unnecessary.
At 13ish-18, I lived with my cool aunt. She would take us on weekends when we were 8-13, we would go to her house and it’d be like disneyland compared to ours. We could do whatever we wanted, stay on computers until 2am and eat gushers all night long. She wasn’t too easygoing though, she was the most responsible and didn’t get mad when we had fun. She fought to take custody of us and she went from having one kid (my cousin, only child) to having 4. She was a single mom. She eventually became extremely stressed and I recognized her as a completely different person than when I was a kid. Especially after 14, she would yell at us and insult us when there were 3 dishes in the sink at 4pm, if her day was particularly stressful and she just got home. I used to argue back but realized there was no point. I started not interacting at all, just doing what she says. She would mutter words about how horrible and inadequate of a son I was. I told myself I would just do everything right, not accept her shitty half assed apologies hours later, and just distance myself from her. When I moved to college, I kept to myself and felt like finally I was in control. So since then I haven’t contacted her as much (she still has the same patterns).
Sorry for writing so much. You don’t have to respond. It was so therapeutic to just write that out. Thanks for your article.
If it helps, worrying that you have NPD is a pretty good indicator that you don’t have NPD.
Thank you for sharing, I hope you find the right person on your path to healing.
I was abused by my mother from about age 3 until I finally left home at age 18. My father was present but not. Even after my parents divorce, he saw my sister and I…but he was always focused on his own separate life. I was raped at age 16 by a guy from church. Cheated on in every relationship apart from 1. Stuck in an unhealthy, abusive relationship for 7 years until he ultimately cheated on me too. I was single for a year, taking care of my daughter. I was happy finally. Then I met my husband. Everything was amazing at first. But his own childhood traumas cause his to avoid or react with anger. He prefers to be left alone when heated. While I sit and toil quietly in the bathroom, hugging myself while listening to music and crying. Already I feel abandoned without actually being left. He always turns around and apologizes. But the cycle never changes. And now, at 35, when he shuts me out, I feel exactly the same I did when my mother would corner me in my room and beat me…I would later crawl into my closet, shut both doors, and listen to music and hug myself. I wish I could change this. Wish I could be independent and unaffected by his aloofness and often cold nature when stressed. I used to try to plead with him, try to stand my ground and tell him not to ignore me. But that only made it worse. So now I hide. I close myself in my little box. And when he asks about my day, I don’t open up. For fear of more anger, rejection, or just plain changing the subject. I don’t know how to break this cycle. I am so lost.
Hey, this is really a something that you’d need experiencing a safe relationship to change – i.e. a safe therapeutic relationship with a therapist or something similar. It sounds like nobody in your immediate family was a safe base, so you’d need to discover what that’s like from someone you can trust.
I’d suggest finding someone from here rather than a random therapist: https://members.iceeft.com/member-search.php
Wish you well,
I thought I was a DA for a year or so,but something felt off about it until I considered to learn about FA ,and I resonate with it ..but I always think maybe I am just stuck in the loop of confirmation bias to try and relate to any one of them??
Every article I read other than this talked about how FA’s are rare and happens due to trauma at childhood ,but I dont think i experienced trauma…so i am confused . There was huge emotional neglect in my moms side , she is very controlling till this date, always complaining , and I remember telling her about my scl day at night and she would act like I am talking to thin air and wouldnt respond and I gave up sharing anything with her after some years of trying. My father was always working but tried to be there when he could , the safe place from my mom and after certain age (around 9-10),he got cold towards me , disapproved any physical touch ,when sitting together ,shouldn’t lean on him , and also when we go out ,he made me not follow him around, maybe he was trying to make me more not dependent on him ? Cause I was very shy kid ….and as in place hugging and such are not a norm , the only physical closeness (staying close and leaning on my dad when sitting) I had was gone…and this sudden but permanent change hurted me so much , I went on questioning things …I remember thinking something is wrong with me? Or that me being a girl made this situation happen and such thoughts
I made this long , but I hope someone can help me identify which attachment I have
Hey Y,
This sounds like quite a traumatic childhood. Maybe you don’t have specific moments you can point to as being scary, but look at the situation you grew up in.
Your mother emotionally neglected you and denied your existence when you were talking to her.
Your father abruptly denied you the only physical warmth you received without any alternative or reasonable explanation.
DAs tend to have parents that are always there for them, just in a completely controlling way.
If your parents were stonewalling you like this it’s definitely FA.
Hope this helps,
How do I find a therapist that deal with this in my area-please? Philadelphia, PA or Montgomery County, PA. Thank You!
Hey Cody, try the directory at https://iceeft.com/ – even if it’s online it would be miles more effective than working with someone in person who’s untrained in attachment.
I am so glad that I found your site. It explains me to a tee. My entire childhood was so messed up. Abandoned at 1 & 1/2 years to grandparents you were emotionally ill, a step grandfather who was a pedophile. Too many problems to write. I ran away to live on the streets at 14. More lessons learned in the 4 yrs. out there. I’m in therapy now and want to heal. I got lucky and found a man who loves me and tries very hard to help me any way he can. My therapist is trying patiently to help me. What can I tell him to help him understand what I’m going through in my mind. I tend to push then withdraw and I feel it’s hurting our alliance. He is good at what he does and has asked me to research different attachment styles. From what I’ve read so far, I can fall into many of them. I just want to heal. Thank you in advance for any insite you may offer.
Hey Dee, thanks for reaching out!
If you’re disorganized you’ll definitely resonate with all of them.
For you I’d really recommend getting a copy of Heller’s Power of Attachment – and doing the exercises for all 4 attachment styles.
I’m glad you have these supports in your therapist and partner!
One suggestion I’d make is that when you’re in the supported swing, start writing letters to yourself about what you’re feeling from them and your gratitude for them.
Then when you’re in a withdrawal swing, you can write out your fears – and THEN revisit your gratitude letters.
This exercise can really reduce sabotaging behavior over time 🙂
This has been the clearest article that I’ve seen so far regarding this attachment style that I seem to suffer from. However, I still can’t shake the feeling that my childhood wasn’t nearly traumatic enough to create this form of attachment and even acknowledging that this may be me feels like I’m placing undue blame at the feet of my parents. I never felt afraid of my parents or unsupported by them. Maybe a little smothered, but I was always supported and encouraged to pursue and be whatever I wanted to be. How late into childhood can these sort of problems arise? Like is a separation/divorce in high school enough to trigger it? Or is looking at it as a trigger the wrong perspective? And if that is the cause, does it mean that every child of divorced parents will inevitably feel anxious and fearful of forming relationships? if so, it feels like this would be the most common type of attachment as I feel that my childhood was more stable and supportive than most. I’m probably misinterpreting, but just something I’ve been trying to mull through for awhile.
Hey, sorry for the late response- been on the road lately.
No, by adolescence attachment is fairly stable – unless the divorce included one parent completely disappearing (which would imply that the relationship with them wasn’t actually secure) it wouldn’t change the attachment style.
Definitely create some anxiety in relationships and some triggers, but not alter your view of yourself.
Divorces are only that level of traumatic before children develop the ability to distinguish between their thoughts and other people’s thoughts, which is usually around 8.
If you identify with FA it’s more worth looking into what kind of traumas and experiences your parents had in childhood.
Even if they did their best to be loving for you, unresolved war/sexual assault/child abuse/neglect would lead to them disassociating in inappropriate times.
This could then be picked up on by you as huge distress (see still face experiences), but consciously dismissed as you knew they were loving people.
This is the most common type of disorganized, especially to children of first generation immigrants.
Hope this helps!
Thanks, Dace, for such clear writing that speaks directly to the person suffering through this. So much of the “information” online lacks this specificity. My recent ex is FA, with a long trail of destroyed relationships and a toxic, chaotic 22-year marriage to a controlling, dismissive woman (much like his mother) behind him, alcoholism and major depressive disorder, none of which was either evident or revealed to me until we were well down the road of our relationship. He abruptly ended things, clearly sliding into a major depressive episode, about 3 months ago. Its painful to see the good person in there be suffocated by demons he doesn’t understand, and yet to refuse to get help for fear of “finding out what’s wrong with me”. I offered safety and understanding, but it wasn’t my job to be his therapist. Perhaps if he ever resurfaces (he has yet to return my belongings) I’ll suggest he read your page.
Thank you M., I appreciate the support! I found huge differences in academic understandings of attachment vs the therapists who worked with it for decades, and I do my best to share some of the key parts.
Sorry to hear about your breakup, I know from experience how painful it is to see the good in someone yet be unable to stop them from sabotaging their life.
If you’re interested in resources for yourself, I’ve recently become enamored with Conscious Uncoupling by Katherine Thomas.
Hope it might bring your heart some relief.
Thanks for your writing. I’ll be waiting for the FA book when it comes out. I recently discovered this was my attachment style and it all matches my childhood to a T. Between both parents, a narcissistist father with anger issues that was not present and a depressed dissociative mother that was unable to set boundaries and care for herself, I received all the kinds of parenting listed above. Since I moved out at age 15, I’ve been riding the roller coaster since and trying to find as much self discovery information on all subjects as possible. The FA attachment style summarizes most issues I’m facing nowadays. Thanks again for bringing some light to it.
Hey, I’m glad to hear you found some clarity here – and sorry to hear that it matches so many aspects of your childhood.
For anyone working on disorganized attachment solo I highly recommend Diane Hellers Power of Attachment. There are many exercises in there that are a great precursor to therapy.
Thanks for the encouragement on the book 🙂
God, if this isn’t my childhood to a T. No wonder I can’t make any romantic relationships work. On a deep inner level, the thought of being with someone romantically fills me with disgust and anger. Probably because my subconsciousness associates it with the emotional slavery/isolation that was growing up in a hostile/chaotic family environment. My mom seemed to endlessly loathe and berate my dad, and my dad constantly played mind games to manipulate my mom’s emotions. Both would ridicule/downplay my needs whenever I voiced them, so I learned early on that I couldn’t be my true self around them. As a result, I became deathly terrified of conflict as an adult and still struggle immensely with setting up boundaries. I became a people pleaser and was bullied for years by other kids because I was so used to not speaking up, yet was also desperate for love and acceptance. Alternatively, I grew to disdain the idea of dating someone because I felt like it would take away my sense of self. The few times I pursued a sexual relationship, I inevitably ended up falling for that person but would see a thousand flaws that drove me to distraction, and I would always cut things off before they got ugly. And yet I would mourn the loss of the relationship and fall into a deep depression once it was over. Being FA sucks big time 🙁
Glad to hear you’re finding more awareness of your patterns! I’m (slowly) putting together a book for FAs to heal during the dating process, especially if you’re not able to get therapy at the moment.
If you’re looking for something right now, the power of attachment by Diane Heller has a lot of exercises to explore 🙂
Be well,
I had to ruefully laugh out loud when I read: “Come here, go away”. I agree to this assessment: three risk factors: unresolved parental trauma, insensitive parenting and frightening parenting. Sadly, all of the 11 so called relationships always had others telling me how to act, do, feel, be, think. Been single for 16 years, and as a Deaf adult fluent in ASL – 99.9% of the hearing singles I met REFUSES to learn American Sign Language & if they cannot be sensitive enough and understanding the importance of ASL – a visual gestural language that is best for Deaf and HOH people, and ASL Culture, well, it looks like I will be single for the rest of my life. Communication is the glue that holds a relationship. A healthy, honest communication holds the hearts together. A language that a Deaf person can understand 100% is a gift to their soul. Sadly, 90% of Deaf or HoH children are born from hearing families. Most of them refuse to learn ASL – talk about insensitive & language deprivation & oppressing of social skills. My dysfunctional family’s hidden abuse from my father and uncle created so much trauma, defensiveness, fractured broken marriage. Aptly well said: All the excitement in the world won’t fix this disconnect, and neither will a healthy, stable relationship on its own. Traveled all over the world, lived in 7 different states, and well meaning people just don’t get it when they try to “prescribe” what’s best for me. I actually have to get to know myself all over again. I started by discarding everything I don’t enjoy/like/ or not have interest. Then slowly relearn what does inspires me. Then set boundaries knowing it’s risky and learning how to develop a thicker skin when people reject me. This is a lifelong journey as a Deaf person, I face even more challenges than most.
A friend told me about this and asked me to take the test so I did it has been very traumatic my childhood was very violent and insecure it left one parent trying to hurt me and the other one trying to get him off of me my mother tried to save me from my father he was a violent alcoholic when he was drunk he would try to drown me mainly in the toilet or the sink
Thank you for this …
To be honest, now that I’m 30, I just feel so comfortable being alone (and single) , I don’t even fantasize about the ‘ideal romance’ anymore… I mean, I’ve done my share of TRYING to communicate with others properly, but guess not everyone’s been successful taming their demons, aye?
This way , I’m more calm, knowing that I don’t HAVE TO deal with the triggers every second, has this AMAZING soothing effect… knowing I’m a grown up now and I can push bullies out of my life …
All I’m saying is, we’re living in a world filled with traumatized people who are addicted to their scars and getting therapy has become a part of their identity. Healing is not the ultimate goal !
I just think enjoying some alone time ain’t that bad.
because when you see how you can live with minimum social interaction and HEAL every day from a roller-coaster-like childhood and adolescence and all the trauma-based relationships/friendships that followed all those dark years, and caused even more damage… Well… Guess that IS something, right?
Sounds like my childhood hits all four risk factors: mom “abandoned” or left me when I was about 3 or 4 y/o, both parents were too preoccupied with their issues during the 10 year divorce and custody proceedings, most of the focus was how the courts would see me as a gauge of how they were raising me so each “coached” me on what to say or how to act during supervised visits, and home was a rollercoaster I dare not write since it’s way too long. This explains quite a bit… Hoping to pull myself out of this. The part about being with other avoidant partners also clears a lot up. Hoping being with another avoidant partner isn’t a “trauma bonding” relationship, and that the relationship can be worked on and grown into healthy and fruitful instead of having to have to end it for both our mental health. However, if the latter is necessary, as sad as it could be, it should be done so we both heal.
I have read about this in the past but blanked it out. I had a difficult childhood which repeated in a difficult marriage. I am single now and have faith that one day I will meet someone and can have a more balanced relationship. I agree with MM that it can feel like life or death.
This speaks to me so deeply. I had no idea this was so fleshed out and explainable. I have somehow found a relationship with a secure healthy woman. I have had my commitment phobias and times when I thought I had to run and end the relationship without any explanation at all, just that it felt like life or death and I couldn’t breathe. What is defeating is that I will think I “beat” beat this a few times and then have a solid happy year with no avoidant thoughts and then suddenly around a birthday or important event or buying a new home together, it just comes back overnight. “Run, I don’t love her, this is not for me… etc”
Realising how fucked up my childhood was in terms of interpersonal relationships.
Yeah, it’s always a shock the first time we see it laid out.
The benefit though is finding out that relationships don’t have to be like that 🙂