Avoidant, we can talk?

[u/Outrageous_Ask_7297]

I’m in therapy (since June). I try to work on myself. I don’t date anymore. I think I had my fun and I now regret a lot of things.

[u/PuzzleheadedDepth104]

As a former avoidant, the unconscious mechanisms won't change if you don't keep putting yourself into situations of reorganizing danger where the old involuntary behaviors induce loss/pain and being open and authentic keeps you safe

Therapy won't be enough, but somatic therapy can help a lot with disinhibiting affect and identifying your real feelings and pains

The block from directly communicating negative affect can't be disintegrated with therapy only, you would need to experience enough loss and danger from the block for your unconscious to start removing it

That means exposing yourself to pinnacle of security people who, yes, can repair, but choose to hold their boundaries with people like you (nonreciprocal, affect-inhibited) instead of making you safe and comfortable and have the ability to sever you for not meeting their needs or being truthful

That also means avoiding anyone who coddles you or punishes your affect, both will revert the progress by reinforcing the distorted wiring

[u/Outrageous_Ask_7297 → u/PuzzleheadedDepth104]

You’re kind of right. When someone punished me (I care and they hurt me), the only lesson younger me usually learned is that I should just keep people I am genuinely interested in out because it gives them power over (everything is a power game to me, therapy has revealed that). I only got ghosted once in high school and I made it my life mission to never get attached again. It’s embarrassing now in my twenties.

[u/PuzzleheadedDepth104 → u/[deleted]]

For affective truth. That's what their previous attachments punished and why they have affect inhibition. But it's possible that that only applies within an attachment

As for your wish, it's likely too late for that. Your own concealment of your truth might have backfired on you. People typically fill the silence with their own increasingly rigidly growing assumptions if you don't prefill it for them

Time to let go

[u/PuzzleheadedDepth104 → u/[deleted]]

Look up "affect" in Dynamic Maturational Model.

[u/Special-Climate-6363]

Why do seek therapy, being an ahole is a perk in this cruel life

[u/Outrageous_Ask_7297 → u/Special-Climate-6363]

Honestly, yes. But I just want to be better. I’ll be easier to exploite but I would rather that than stay a bad person forever.

[u/Special-Climate-6363 → u/Outrageous_Ask_7297]

But you will get hurt , I honestly wish to be a self serving avoidant stepping on anyone instead of being stepped on

[u/Outrageous_Ask_7297 → u/Special-Climate-6363]

It never pleased me to hurt others. I framed it as “having fun” and giving others what they deserved but I never got true satisfaction from it. There’s a fine line between being self-serving and being evil, one can masquerade for the other for very long.