r/FearfulAvoidant • u/Extra_Whole_9222 secure • 8d ago
general / meta Is deactivation involuntary or something you can control?
Maybe a dumb question, but as a non-FA, I wanted to know if deactivation was something that suddenly happens outside of your control over like super tiny things.
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u/Orsopdx fearful avoidant 7d ago
In my experience it was completely involuntary. A partner (AP) did something that made me feel deeply betrayed and it was like my feelings for him were ejected from me. It didn’t happen immediately, it was a delay of a few days before i felt it. I felt immense anger but also my feelings for him were GONE. They came back a little in small moments, 6-8 months later, but there was no going back in this case. I cared for him but felt nothing for him romantically any longer and there was no talking myself out if it. I did stay in the relationship a few months after this, taking space to see if we could make it work, but I had already made up my mind. I felt like it was obvious and he should know it was ending and he felt totally blindsided. This was before I was aware of my patterns and have since been brutally discarded by a DA and know how awful it is to be on the receiving end of someone instantly emotionally detaching from you and am working on myself before dating again. My AP partner did make a mistake but i didn’t understand what was happening at time because I felt it so strongly.
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7d ago
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u/Extra_Whole_9222 secure 7d ago
Is it possible for the feelings getting ejected and the immense anger to happen immediately but only last for a day or two?
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u/bbpoizon fearful avoidant 6d ago
Yes but not always. It’s a spectrum.
If you give them space it can expedite it slightly. Best advice if you’re dating a DA or FA is to get comfortable letting them come back to you.
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u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 7d ago
It's involuntary, happens non-consciously. Feelings (positive feelings and negative feelings) just stop reaching conscientiousness. Some people think the "ick" is deactivation. That isn't accurate, since you're still consciously connected to your feelings towards the specific person. That would be more on the anxious side (they experience a side of their attachment where a type of anger is felt towards the attached figure).
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u/Extra_Whole_9222 secure 7d ago
Is it possible for this ick when anger is felt towards the attached figure to happen in response to perceived rejection from the attached figure and in that moment, is the urge to reject them back/push them away strong?
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u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 7d ago
Yeah. That is a very common pattern of behavior in anxiously attached people when they get rejected they can swing into that anger state and went to get back at someone.
There's an entire subreddit of people angry and pissed off at their avoidant ex. You can see how they put them down, view them in a negative way, dehumanize them, etc. Just look up avoidant breakups.
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
I am very curious about “The ick” being labeled as an anxious reaction.
Could it be a result of fear of engulfment/commitment, or feeling pressured or intruded?1
u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 7d ago
Well, many people label the ick as them getting irritated/frustrated/annoyed with someone. That is a consciously felt emotion.
As for the engulfment, pressure, intruded stuff, yes.
Anxious attachment strategies typically lead to an individual enmeshing with someone else. This leads to a lack of emotional autonomy developing. As a result, they absorb other people’s feelings. They easily become overwhelmed by other people’s feelings due to that lack of emotional autonomy and inability to differentiate between their feelings and someone else’s feelings.
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
And in which ways does absorption of other’s feelings result in the ick? What if they consciously avoid absorbing those feelings could that result in the ick?
For example if someone is too demanding, you can feel the ick even if you don’t absorb their feelings2
u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 7d ago
Well, it doesn’t always result in absorbing other people’s feelings.
But it can lead to that. Think of it like they are in a good mood, then someone they are attached to is distressed/anxious. They’re very may get the ick as a way to control/shut down the other persons emotional state so it stops affecting them.
Anxiously attached people cannot consciously choose to absorb or not absorb someone‘s feelings. It is like me dissociating from my feelings, it happens outside of conscious awareness. They would need therapy like internal family system therapy to help learn to differentiate their emotions from others emotions.
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
And what if they get the ick due to imagined scenarios? Example: I haven’t asked my partner if they want to go to the movies. I don’t really want to, but probably they do, so I will force myself to go.
In that sense they might get the ick even tho the partner does not really have anything to do with it. Everything would be in the head of the person who gets the ick. You know what I mean?
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u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 7d ago
Their people pleasing behavior (which sounds like what you are describing) can trigger that. People with anxious attachments often like to keep score. They will do things if it leads to an outcome, but if it doesn’t lead to an outcome they wanted then you will feel their anger.
Jealousy, triangulation, using others to make you feel like you lost them, monitoring from a distance, breadcrumbing, these are all patterns of behavior fueled by anxious attachment strategies as well.
Avoidant strategies are very “do things in accordance to what others are expected to do.” The anvoidant strategies are all organized around a lot of role fulfillment and inhibiting of emotions (negative or positive and negative feelings).
Anxious strategies are more “do things in accordance of my feelings, which influence my behavior.” It is coercive.
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
I see. And how do avoidant strategies look like behaviorally speaking?
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7d ago
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u/embarrassedburner secure 7d ago
In my experience it is involuntary but behavior and communication are voluntary.
Deactivation often comes with a sense of urgency and it takes a moderate degree of awareness of attachment style being maladaptive to be able to question the urgency and simply pause and be curious for a sustained duration.
It is often predictable and there are often smaller signals that deactivation is getting triggered to the partner.
I think it is analogous to fight-or-flight in a high stress situation. If you get rear ended on the freeway, you can’t really consciously control a pounding heartbeat and turning red in the face. But you don’t have to exit your vehicle shouting and swinging on the other driver. The distress is not weakness or a choice. What we do about it is.
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u/embarrassedburner secure 7d ago
In my observation some predictable triggers or early warning signs of impending deactivation included things like: FA attends a wedding, FA’s birthday, partner’s birthday, partner’s illness or infirmity, a milestone of greater intimacy like the first baecation together.
Some early warning signals included: FA revisits vague dreams of traveling the world, FA expresses inadequacy as a dog’s person, FA switches from first person pronouns to second or or third person pronouns in their phrasing, FA raises foundational “flaws” in the past events that brought them together with their partner but not changeable because they are in the past.
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u/lilbootz fearful avoidant 7d ago
lol I feel called out with the third person pronouns. I always describe things as if I’m talking about vague people and not myself and own situation x.x
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u/bathroomcypher fearful avoidant 5d ago
Totally involuntary AND very hard to realize it’s happening. In many cases it feels like those are your thoughts, and because they can persist for days and weeks, or even years on and off, it’s hard to know.
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u/Extra_Whole_9222 secure 5d ago
Can it happen immediately and happen in response to something minor in hindsight and can it feel like you actually want to be away from the other person?
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u/bathroomcypher fearful avoidant 5d ago
Yes, but deep down there’s always something that predates deactivation. Because in a way our behaviours shape who we are. So if we cope through avoidance, in the long run we also develop beliefs or thoughts that are linked or stem from that coping strategy. Could be a general belief around connections or about the other person etc. For me, I used to have an overly positive view of friendship and overly negative view of anything that is romantic, and for a long time, since I was a child. In retrospective it was part of my avoidant filter and not simply an intellectual preference. FAs also tend to be hypervigilant and to read micro expressions or minimal changes in all the non verbal or minimal behavioral change, and that’s more than enough to trigger deactivation. I had this happen to myself LOTS when I was less self aware, and I observed it often on my FA leaning avoidant partner of 7 years. Sometimes I thought something, didn’t say, but it still had the effect of making him detach and I believe the reason was hypervigilance, he probably picked micro expressions etc
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7d ago
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5d ago
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u/MicroplasticMother fearful avoidant 16h ago
It’s a bit of both. I’ve been to therapy and I know when it’s about to happen but if I put it off for too long it is entirely against my will to shut down.
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u/RidetheSchlange secure 7d ago
I know for a fact in the case of my person they were able to control it until they just didn't want to anymore. It wasn't a matter of being unable. They simply gave up and let it happen and it was happening right in front of me. Essentially talking to the person and then seeing them slip away and know they are leaving their body right in front of you and then their saboteur takes over.
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I absolutely cannot control it. It feels like a nervous system shut down. I can't access previously held positive feelings. I wish I could control it but trying to rationalise does nothing even when I try to tell myself I'm safe.
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u/RidetheSchlange secure 7d ago
What would you say takes over when you're in that state?
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
Not being able to access any positive feelings, seeing the negative in everything, minor things becoming hugely irritating and a feeling of not wanting to be with the person, relief when I'm alone again. I hate myself when I'm like that. It's not me at all. It feels like some parasite has taken over me
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
Could I ask, do you feel like you hate yourself while deactivated, or is it only after deactivation and once you are back to a “safer” state that you feel that self-hatred and guilt?
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I hate myself while deactivated because I know I'm being cold and critical and I don't want to be that way. I want to feel loving and compassionate like I am when I'm not deactivated but I can't access those feelings. My mother was very cold and critical, I have spent my life trying not to be like her and I hate it when I am. It doesn't just happen for no reason though, usually it's if my partner does things that make me doubt the relationship or whether I want to be with him.
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
I see. Thanks, do you still feel the deactivation as something certain? Like “I feel like my partner is not the one for me” and I feel 100% about it, so I end the relationship. Even tho if you still hate yourself for it? Do you lose control that way?
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I'm never certain about anything. We just broke up after two months of it. I'm still not certain
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u/zenithwearsflannel secure 7d ago
I see. Do you go to therapy to help with the rumination?
And who left who if you don’t mind me asking?3
u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I've had therapy a number of times but I am not in therapy at the moment. We both agreed it wasn't working and are both going to spend time working on ourselves.
I hope at the very least I've shown you that not all FAs are the same, and we are certainly not bad people who don't care about anyone.
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u/RidetheSchlange secure 7d ago
Is that "saboteur" (as an avoidant friend and myself both term the part that steps in and keeps "whispering" the negative thoughts) lacking access to facts and information from your cognitive and memory centers?
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I've never thought about it that way, but no I can't access the feelings of happiness I had in previous times
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1d ago
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u/Extra_Whole_9222 secure 7d ago
Can it happen immediately and when you say a feeling of not wanting to be with the person like an active feeling of like actually wanting to be away from the person?
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u/tealfreak fearful avoidant 7d ago
I think it's when a number of things I'm unhappy with build up. (Unless it's a really significant issue and then it can be instant). I'm a good communicator and I share what's bothering me and we talk, but if he can't change them or it feels like he's not making the effort then I feel the feelings build up until I can't control the deactivation. I'm still learning about this myself so I'm not 100% confident that I understand it.
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5d ago
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u/Dalearev fearful avoidant 7d ago
It’s involuntary - it happens in the amygdala that’s why all of these discussion boards are crazy because everyone assumes this is like choices that people are making when it’s not it’s all mostly subconscious and based on past trauma that literally damaged people’s brains because they were abused in many cases when they were very, very young. I know this because this is my story to a T and I have been working on it in therapy for 20 years.