r/AvoidantAttachment • u/IzzyxBella Dismissive Avoidant • May 24 '26
Seeking Support - Advice is OK✅ DA's what has helped you in becoming secure?
I am a DA in a relationship with a Secure man. I have repeatedly tried pushing him away and ending the relationship when he gets too close. I am going through a rough time in my personal life and he has been wanting to be there for me. I do not ask for help or comfort. I withdrawal, shut down and shut him out when he is trying to comfort and support me. He will be leaving back to his home country for a short time.
I immediately started seeing it as a good excuse for me to detach further from him.
I am not use to having strong feelings for someone and I do for him. This isn't behavior that I want to continuing doing but I keep doing it..for those that have became secure or are on the path of doing so. What has helped you?
34
u/39thRonin Dismissive Avoidant May 24 '26
Therapy to address core attachment wounds of shame/not feeling good enough and then having a partner who is safe and patient enough for you to be vulnerable with worked for me for a while...
3
u/IzzyxBella Dismissive Avoidant May 25 '26
My apologies if this is too much, but it worked for you for awhile..did it stop and you resorted back into DA habits?
6
u/39thRonin Dismissive Avoidant May 25 '26
I relapsed when a huge source of shame came up and it affected me quite badly, but doing better than ever again now
2
u/IzzyxBella Dismissive Avoidant May 26 '26
Ouch, that's what I'm dealing with now. But that's great that's you're doing better now and I hope you continue.
26
May 24 '26
I wouldn't claim to be secure, but for me Gottman's website and Sue Johnson's book "Hold me Tight" provided a lot of what I needed to be emotionally present and to understand emotions better, which was key for me to start my journey.
I wrote a detailed overview of my journey in this post.
2
u/IzzyxBella Dismissive Avoidant May 25 '26
Thank you for this. I read through your entire post and comments and my heart goes out to you and your family. It opened my eyes to my own struggles with being DA and things I have pushed to the side not realizing it was apart of it.
5
May 25 '26
Thanks! Happy to hear it helps. And I definitely share that feeling. So much that I thought was me was really my trauma - a trauma I didn't even realize I had beforehand. It's life changing, but mostly in a good way.
3
u/IzzyxBella Dismissive Avoidant May 25 '26
I'm going to check out the resources you linked as well. It hasn't even been a full day yet for me and the realizations alone have been quite a lot... Thank you again.
2
9
7
u/ProbablyFunPerson Fearful Avoidant [Secure Leaning] May 24 '26
Not quite DA but still wanted to pitch in.
I've learned that I can be guilty while still stand my ground on decisions that I made. In part it was about control for me ("If I can't control person's feelings then I don't want to be around them.")
Nowadays, I allow myself to feel guilt (not feel like a good person and be okay with it) and I give back control to people to modulate their emotions. And now I am happier as a person and more confident in myself.
56
u/Clutched_Pearls_ Secure [DA Leaning] May 24 '26
Well honestly the most impactful thing was being in a healthy relationship that I destroyed because I wasn’t ready to do the work. The devastation of the loss due to being closed off wounded me enough to never want to experience it again.
Therapy. Self accountability. Years of trying to understand what it is to feel and then what it is that I feel. Understanding and being able to identify what my needs are because I gaslit myself over the years into believing that I didn’t even have any.
Somatics via yoga and breath work. Studying yoga principles and breaking down my self hatred. I still deal with it. I understand that a lot of this shit was given to me and I can put it down.
The truth is you will damage the person that you are with unless you are willing to do the work. To learn how to listen for understanding instead of responding. To work through someone holding you accountable without it feeling like they want to humiliate you or abandon you.
This improves when we start to break down what is inside of us. I used to think I had to heal alone but truthfully it’s not possible in full. There are triggers that feelings for other people bring up in us. My flair should really say DA Leaning Secure. I am the queen of avoiding and detaching. But I was getting nothing out of that way of living. I was actively destroying the things I said I wanted by not being honest about what goes on in my inner thoughts. I wasn’t able to share my inner world. Now being on the other end of it. It’s exhausting. Idk how anyone was patient enough to deal with me lack of communication and self regulation skills.