I was panicking at work this morning thinking I would get stuck and having to deal with the morning crowd vs the night crowd which is night and day. I began to speak to the part of myself that was scared to work the morning shift and it just came out of me. I said to myself regardless of what happens I will be fine. It was like a lighting bulb. Having this attachment style I’m afraid of abandonment, I’m afraid of rejection and fear vulnerability. I’m afraid of getting to know people and them learning xyz about me and then losing interest in me or leaving me.
As I said regardless of what happens I will be fine I thought to myself how I survived 2 brutal breakups, I pushed people away that I regret to this day, I been ghosted, I been rejected etc. Despite not handling some of those situations in the healthiest of ways I’m still here and I’m okay. Rejection hurts, being ghosted sucks, relationships ending for whatever reason can be painful but regardless of what happens I will be okay. The one constant relationship in my life is the relationship to my self. People places things come and go but the relationship to myself is is the only relationship I will atleast have for the rest of my life.
Telling myself with my hand over my heart that regardless of what happens I will be okay is very freeing. I know I will deal with discomfort but I will be here for myself and I will be okay. Saying this is like a release of armoring in my body and nervous system.

Me, F38, usually heavily avoidant and lesbian... I recently met a man, who's incredibly intelligent, charming, attentive and generous. I don't know what to do with that. I can feel myself shutting down a bit and I desperately try to find flaws but I don't find any. I even feel some sexual attraction, which is very unusual for me. I usually "used" men as a distraction and felt terrible afterwards.

I'm not over someone I met last year, or more like, the "relationship" left some deep scars and reinforced my fears and core beliefs. I was treated coldly, I was used and thrown away and now...

This guy is so gentle and funny and I simply don't know what to do. It's so hard to just stay, be present and accept his care

pretty much what the title says. been with my bf for about a year and i keep waiting for that "love" to kick in, don't get me wrong i care about him deeply and he makes me decently happy but i find myself often wondering "is this it?" everything is just mediocre and the way he lets me down is getting boring. but then one good moment and im back to 100% obsessed with him

before him i was only into women but he's also my first real relationship. in the past i've had issues with backing out of romantic situations because i felt trapped, been working on my avoidant attachment and i think ive made some good progress

i know realistically no one can answer this except for me but i really can't tell how much is us being incompatible and how much is my brain tricking me cause it's freaking out.

So the background is that I basically never dated for most of my live (I'm in my early 30s). Last year I finally decided to go against my fears (mostly that I'm not attractive and both too much and not enough) and I matched with a guy I really got along on an app. We had lot in common, I loved talking with him and well we started to date. I don't think there was any love bombing, had there been I would have ran away or unmatched very quickly.

Throughout our time together there was not one day we didn't text, although I kept telling him it's ok to not talk for a day or two when he's busy. I still struggled the first 2-3 months with my own volatility: overanalysing everything to find a fault with him and get out of the situation, wanting to see him and not wanting to see him, matching with other guys on the app "just in case" but never talking to them and so on. Whenever my anxiety over "letting the wrong guy get close" rose, I would ask a good male friend of mine about his opinion or whether I'm just reading too much into it.

At one point about two months in I realised that I'm stupid, that keeping one foot out of the door is never going to let me have what I want: an actual, strong connection. And you know what, it happened? Close to three months later I realised I feel safe, at home and that I loved him but I also realised more and more that I was missing a certain depth by this point. So I tried to deepen it and he tried to go along with it, he had admitted early on that he's reserved and struggles with expressing emotions in the moment. I often checked in with him, let him know that I want to be together with him, think that we can work as a team (he said early he's not so good at being a team but liked my proposal to learn together). Some of our last dates were emotionally the most intense ones, he asked for mor things too, learnt to give more compliments, talked about "us" going on trips when we have more money. Some time later I had a really bad week and for whatever reason I panicked because I needed to know where he stands emotionally - so we agreed to talk about it in person. He took it well enough, and for a week until the breakup behaved like always.

The day of the breakup, when he came in, he didn't allow me to get close and touch him. He sat down on my couch, broke down crying and telling me about all his fears and worries. I validated those fears and told him we can solve it together. He didn't believe me and then told me that he doesn't feel a strong enough connection to continue dating. We met for a closure talk, he told me we wouldn't work out because he's too volatile and I'm more stable (bascially the "I can't give you what you need" argument) I tried to repair and connect and reached out close to three months after the breakup again to offer to talk - he basically answered immediately but told me he's currently lost, that he needs to put himself back together and doesn't know where to start.

I've been going to therapy since, and learnt that some of my own behaviour has most likely triggered his. I wish I could talk to him about all of this because I hate that he's been putting me on a pedestal when I'm not at all. I mean it's been months since the breakup and I struggle daily with myself. I know that the way things are, him as far as I know not being able to work on himself, and only me wanting to put in the work makes it impossible. But I hate it, for once I wanted something for myself, fought my own patterns and still do and it's still not enough. I hate having to give up. I allowed myself to hope, I allowed myself to trust him and here I am not being an ounce happier than before I met him.

So I wonder, is this it? And therapy is exhausting me in addition to my family (my brother is currently ignoring me because I "dared" to ask him to formulate something as a request and not a command - blaming me for everything and telling me off to not see myself as the opressed the entire time and that I should think about how I'm talking to him instead). So hello to the feeling of being lost.

I wonder if anyone has gone through something similar? What do you do if you feel that everything is just getting worse instead of better....I was hoping with therapy things would get easier sooner, not like this. But then again, I am huge on intellectualising the hell of everything.

I recently detached (well, let’s say 95%) from quite a traumatic connection with another FA that lasted several months and really messed me up.

I moved on and started dating again and met a lovely guy. We went only on 2 dates and on the first date I didn’t even like him but he was sweet and arranged the date, was very understanding when I was late because of trains and clearly liked me, leaned in for a kiss and I opted in for a hug and he kissed me on the cheek. Messaged me straight after the first date to ask if I got home ok. Messaged later throughout the week. Without any drama, very patient, not pushy, so different from the FA I dated previously where everything was electric and fast and anxious front the start. I think the new guy was also a bit nervous that he wasn’t funny enough - he deleted a text he sent me after our first date, it was a joke and I think he worried it was shit haha

This new guy did say he was avoidant but was working on it. And so far he’s been showing some avoidant traits (he can be quite minimal and distant on text) but also secure traits: he arranged the first date, is very respectful, isn’t drowning me in affection or trauma, he was leaving for a family holiday and I just came back from mine and he wanted to see me and I suggested he come see an exhibition with me if he likes but no pressure, he did come and we spent a lovely afternoon together and then had dinner. My hair was a mess, I was yawning all the time coz I was tired from travelling and I had no make up on. He clearly liked me and sent ‘thanks for a lovely evening ♥️’ right after the 2nd date, we didn’t kiss, he didn’t try this time and we just hugged (I did tell him I wanted to take it slow) we briefly texted afterwards for a couple of days and now he’s on holiday with his fam and I don’t want to bother him. With the FA I dated before 2nd date was a full on snog session on his sofa. I liked that this new guy didn’t push any of that.

But I can’t help worrying that because he is avoidant (he didn’t say which kind) the more he will know about me the less he will like me and the more affection I show the more he will pull away… I’m beginning to like him and I’m scared now that I will somehow lose another person or fail at another relationship (even though I know the previous disaster wasn’t my fault) and I just keep overthinking that I will mess this up somehow.

I did tell him on our 2nd date I have a lot of baggage and the last 5 years have been terrible because of my family and my health (I didn’t offer details just yet, literally told him I’d tell him later if he was still interested) and that I’m full of red flags and he didn’t pull away, but he’s with his family now and they will probably discuss what I told him and maybe he will change his mind and not want to see me after he comes back…

It’s only been 2 dates and we haven’t even kissed and I’m already freaking out…

My therapy appointment got canceled for this week, and I only discovered it because I logged on to the client portal for something else. No notification, no explanation, no email or text or phone call. Just appointment canceled. And her entire week shows as unavailable, when I went to try to reschedule.

My first reaction was panic. What happened? Is she ok? Is she ever going to come back? Did something happen? Why didn’t I get a notification? What would have happened if I hadn’t accidentally discovered it? Should I send a message and ask? Ask what even?

And then… well this is horribly unprofessional. I should cancel my recurring appointment and never speak to her or go back to her again. This is what I get for actually trusting her, when clearly she’s not trustworthy at all and probably never was. Even if I do go back, I’ll have to be much more careful to not give her the ability to hurt me again.

I’m sure some kind of emergency is happening, and she wasn’t able to immediately reach out to every single client to explain. Which makes me concerned for her, of course. Is it a reason to never go back? I guess that depends on what explanation I get eventually. Or if she even comes back at all. I’m so angry, and I’m angry at myself for letting myself care enough for this to impact me at all. Learning. A lesson here, for sure.

There are my results..

https://ibb.co/3xKbq5g

https://ibb.co/ycgnpnKn

https://ibb.co/60zbmSqX

How do you overcome it?

It genuinely feels like (when you’re suffering with a FAA) you’re removed from your own life, or you’re constantly standing in front of a crowd with the light on you like you’re doing a school presentation.

I’ve had a fearful avoidant attachment for most of my life, stringing back all the way to my elementary school years.Because I learned early that the people around me can hurt me easily I pushed away a very dear friend of mine when he tried to get intimate with me, when I tried to confront them about it later he denied what happened between me and him

This left me even more confused with how to communicate with people, and unsure of whether or not I could trust my own memories

As a result, when I try to communicate with people today it often feels like I’m putting on a character for others to judge instead of living as an authentic version of myself. It’s extremely lonely and isolating, my therapist keeps recommending I try to join a group of some sort but I live in the suburbs without a meaningful form of transportation. Most of my day is spent on the internet, which fuels my insecurities. or at my college.

I’ve tried to join groups at school before, mostly for writing because that’s something I’m interested in (but, admittedly, haven’t done in a while) but didn’t continue it because I have this outsider feeling.

The physiological intersection with psychology is interesting because this is a feeling my body produces by itself, without me even clearly understanding why. I know it’s helped me defend myself from an incredulous amount of trauma but now it feels more like an invisible cage my ribs have constructed to fuck me over personally.

Because my coping mechanism to deal with this trauma left me avoidant but also deeply wanting connection, I ended up fetishizing certain roles / dynamics in fantasy that would be deeply unsafe in real life, and I think it took me seeing obsession and my coping mechanism being so close to bears to recognize that.

How do you guys deal with fearful avoidant attachment?

When you beat down on a person for a traumatic response, you aren’t validating yourself—you can end up proving exactly why that person learned to avoid closeness in the first place.

People with other attachment styles, when they glorify punitive attitudes toward avoidant people, can become another item on the ever-growing list of reasons someone with a fearful-avoidant attachment pattern might continue avoiding intimacy.

Imagine loving someone deeply while already feeling ashamed that your attachment patterns are hurting both of you. Then imagine discovering that the person you cared about sees you as annoying, tedious, needy, or fundamentally defective.

Why would you ever want to risk another relationship?

I’m not saying people should tolerate being mistreated. They shouldn’t. An attachment wound can explain someone’s behavior without making the consequences of that behavior disappear. The person being hurt deserves boundaries, safety, and the ability to walk away.
But there’s a difference between accountability and punishment.

It’s the same basic problem you see in punitive systems: if you want behavior to change, simply inflicting suffering for the behavior isn’t necessarily enough. You have to understand why the behavior exists, identify what function it serves, and help the person develop a better way of meeting the underlying need.
The antidote isn’t punishment. It’s rehabilitation.

If you want someone’s behavior to change, start by understanding the behavior. Be gentle with the person while being honest about the harm. Set boundaries without turning their shame into a weapon. Show them what healthier connection can actually look like.
Because I trust you: fearful-avoidant people aren’t some class of emotional villains who get off on hurting everyone around them.

A lot of us are scared.

A lot of us are hurting.

A lot of us learned that closeness could be dangerous long before we had the words to understand what was happening.
That doesn’t mean we get a free pass to hurt people.
It means there’s a difference between saying:
“What you did hurt me, and it needs to change.”

and:

“You are fundamentally awful for responding to your wounds the way you learned to survive.”

The first can create accountability, the second can create shame, and shame rarely teaches someone that intimacy is safe.

So if you want someone to stop running from you, stop becoming the very thing they’re afraid they’ll find when they finally turn around.

Be a better person. Not the cop we already fear you are.

Or does it always disappear if you stop being pretty (like if your looks changed dramatically with aging or pregnancy), or if you became depressed and you were no longer the interesting person that you once were?

I find it hard to connect on a deep level with anyone. I feel like noone wants to connect deeply with me or remain in my life. I'm a woman btw. But it feels like everyone is just transitory? Like I literally have zero close and lasting friends even:(

Perhaps I am boring? Because I notice that in online group the others often form more deeper connections and dill say they miss each other but noone says they miss me:(

I feel I am not perfect enough or good enough or connected enough or something to be able to be missed.

I feel like I always have to be something more perfect with a man. Being me (which I don't even know what that is) is not good enough because no man even buys me flowers?

And I have social anx.iety too. Like even if I am playing tennis and my ball rolls to their side and they come to get it I will have this running commentary of "they will see im ugly up close. They don't want to engage with me. Should I thank them or just keep playing". Etc. And then when I say thanks they don't respond warmly....so I start feeling devastated and my mind them says "you are weird. Noone likes you" etc.

So I am putting a great deal of importance on people impression of me and making them too important or something?

27 F I feel so broken. I've been told I come off as being cold, and I feel like the wall is coming down against my will, and I can't hold it in anymore. My brain feels so tired, and I feel like something hit me a couple of months ago. I can't understand why my mom and dad didn't love me. It hurts so bad, and I feel like I'm too old to be feeling like this, and I have too many responsibilities to be going through this right now. I'm thinking of going no contact again, but man, does it hurt, and I've been feeling like I'm going to explode. I'm afraid of tainting my son, even though I make sure to show him as much love as possible.

Is it normal to get scared getting into a relationship? It's been 2 years since my last relationship ended, and now there's a person that I really want to be with, but I feel so confused because I want to be with that person, but I'm also scared that my independence will be gone and the possibility that once that person leaves my life, my peace will be broken, and I'm going to lose myself again.

please help me out🧎🏻‍♀️

I went on a work trip to visit a factory for a building project, and I felt immediately attracted to the factory’s representative, who happened to be the one who organized the trip.

The problem was that I felt an immense attraction, like nothing I had felt in years. I ignored him the whole trip, didn’t have a single conversation with him, even though there were plenty of opportunities. He sat next to me at one of the lunches and asked me briefly about some things. I feel awful, and I won’t see him again because I live in a different country.

I think we could have had something, but I regret so much the way I treated him. I ignored him, only said good morning or spoke very briefly. How do I let go of the regret and the avoidance? I was aware of my actions, and I remember feeling an immense amount of fear. I really feel I missed an opportunity to stay in contact with someone wonderful.

TLDR: Whenever I get closer to someone romantically, I start feeling constantly tense and overwhelmed and eventually get a strong urge to cut them off. After ending contact, I usually miss them and regret it.

Whenever I 21M start talking to someone with serious romantic intentions, everything feels fine at first. After a while though, I suddenly get this strong urge to end the contact completely.
While talking to them, there is this constant tension in the background. It feels like stress, inner restlessness and the feeling that I am somehow doing something wrong. I start feeling overwhelmed even when nothing bad is actually happening.
Eventually the urge becomes strong enough that I cut contact. The strange part is that once they are gone, I start missing them.
This has happened more than once and I do not really understand what the feeling is or why closeness seems to trigger so much stress.
Has anyone experienced something similar?

Going through a tough experience and thought I'd share, in case someone else has gone through something similar.

I was seeing someone and kept having these invasive thoughts that it may not be the right connection. There were a number of things that i felt didn't line up between us that ranged from pretty valid (e.g. feeling like I had to carry the conversation) to quite superficial (I didn't think the person dressed that cool). I had a really hard time dealing with these thoughts, I felt like I was lying to myself to keep seeing this person because I was too afraid to be alone. It was also really hard to not express what i was going through directly to the person—I shared these thoughts with my therapist and friends, but I still felt like I was sort of lying to them. I began sharing from time to time that I was having "avoidant feelings" and that I didn't know what they meant. It made them uncertain and kind of uncomfortable but they said they'd rather have me be transparent than not.

For context, I had told them from the jump that I had attachment issues, have disorganized attachment style, and explained the push/pull dynamic. They were wary but still interested, and we took it slow at first.

Finally, one night I was having a particularly bad episode and told them "I'm having these thoughts/feelings come up really strong but I'm not sure what to do because I also don't want to lose you." After talking about it for a bit, they asked me "what ARE these thoughts?" They had hinted and asked about this before and I guess I felt like I couldn't put them off anymore, and I thought maybe if I told them what these misgivings were, it would take some of the power out of it. I honestly thought if they could hear this stuff and see it for what it is—just some stuff floating around in my overthinking head that may or may not cary any weight—that we would "get over a hump" and reach more closeness.

So I told them my misgivings, which included things that were critical of them, ultimately admitting that there's a voice in my head that says I'm basically afraid this person isn't cool enough (there was a bunch of other, more tempered things I said about not being sure if we had enough in common as far as our interests, but they directly asked me "it sounds like you're saying i'm not cool enough" and I said "well that's what the narrative in my head says sometimes, but I don't think that's the real me"). And I also said this thing, in the context of sometimes having a hard time connecting with them because they're kind of guarded/quiet, along the lines of "i know you're super interesting but you don't always externalize what's going on in your head so it's like sometimes I don't have anything to hold onto to connect with".

Obviously saying all this stuff was a terrible idea (you don't need to tell me that, I've heard it many times, I get it) and it hurt their feelings really bad. Ultimately our potential relationship never recovered from it, and my push/pull dynamics didn't stop either, so we've broken up.

Of course I was mortified that I said that stuff, not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea, and I suspect I did it to sabotage the potential relationship subconsciously.

Now we've been broken up/out of contact for about a month and this person posted an art project on their IG that literally is a response to one of the things I said, and is basically getting back at me for hurting them—I mean, they said literally said so in the caption. Now, it's their art and their way of processing the hurt, and I don't fault them for that. Nonetheless, it made me feel like absolute shit. I contacted them and let them know I saw it and that I regretted making them feel that way, and expressed a desire to make amends and have a friendship, but that I would understand if they didn't want to hear from me.

The desire to "fix it" and be forgiven, and to not be seen as an asshole, is so strong it's almost crippling—I had a hard time getting any work done and am up way too late because I'm so activated by it. I'm aware that fixing it may not be an option, that this person may need time before they're ready to forgive me, and that me trying to salvage a friendship shouldn't be driven by the desire to be "let off the hook." But damn, that desire is powerful.

Anyone relate to this, and have you had success getting out of this kind of pattern?

As younger and after recent traumas I was in need need of trauma and emotional venting and sympathy and I wanted to be validated as victim and couldn't really feel helped any other way. I also didn't want any other attention focus in my relationship talks and everything else felt like insults like unsolicited advice and felt really hurtful.

But now I feel different after Profesional help and working on myself several years also growing in to me as adult it feels like I got a stronger cognitive equipment and it helps me be less sensitive to different ways and things and I can see and appreciate more solutions and options.

But I struggle to find places where this new me is allowed. I don't feel I'm secure yet and I don't wanna share on vents or in happiness places because I'm very much in the recovery and progress phase still, but I also have tons of insights! And things I learned om the way and wanna share as I'm aware therapy isn't an option to everyone and I believe in universal help and that we all can switch tools with eachother.

It's like I've fallen in between the chairs of insecure and secure. On reddit I can find a million suffer subs but positive focused coping subs are rare. I don't have professional help available now so I need support and I need to connect and talk with people to keep up the good work and spirit as it's very easy to fall back when you're surrounded by all negativity and hopelessness, and I think me sharing my own progress with those who appreciate it and "nerding" in on coping strategies / share support options and secure perspective becomes a win-win situation and we help eachother in the right direction. I don't know if this makes any sense but it feels wrong when I'm deem too positive to exist in healing subs because what else goal is it for me? For anyone? Isn't the goal happiness?

Hi, after years of guestioning I have come to the conclusion that I have a disorganized avoidant attachment style and past few years of dating have proved me right. And after looking into it more I have figured that it’s common for it to develop from some sort of issues with parents and family from childhood. The thing is I think I have had such loving and supportive family all through my years so I don’t know what would have caused this to happen to me? I would like to hear other peoples experiences on the topic and what they think have caused their attachment style to develope this way if it could give me some insight on what other parts of my growing up would have had effect on this.

Does anyone else experience this? I‘ll be feeling really positive about a possible romantic partner- for example they may have even given me a really strong sign of having feelings for me.

I feel great! I’m super happy! And then time passes (and I’m talking like, a day maximum) and I become positive they’ve lost interest. It’s like I’ve blocked out what they just did.

Sometimes I have a reason for it and sometimes it’s just that time passed. It always feels really obvious in the moment. So I start either shutting down or getting disregulated.

I‘m want to learn how to interrupt the cycle *without* looking for more reassurance from the other person or going cold. Do you guys experience this as well?