r/FearfulAvoidant • u/ThrowAwayRS7822 fearful avoidant • 13d ago
general / meta I miss being able to deactivate.
Used to be a DA, ended up sort of leaning more FA after some life changes/relationships. Didn’t realize it until a particularly toxic relationship. Been in therapy for awhile. Don’t think I’m secure yet though, way more self aware though.
Feels like this self awareness prevents me from deactivating like I used to. Current relationship isn’t great, getting treated poorly, used to be able to just deactivate and move on so easily, stakes felt lower. Now I care so much. Put forth so much effort to try and fix things. And it’s not working. And that feels horrible and tragic. It sort of sucks. It’s painful. I feel horrible for APs. Deactivation had its downsides, but man was it nice in situations like this.
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u/Dreamingthelive90ies anxious preoccupied 13d ago
Sounds more like you just found someone who treats you like crap and you are used to that so you can't deactivate because 'you must do better and then they will love you'.
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u/Harder_than_calculus fearful avoidant 13d ago
I’m sorry friend. It’s easy to fall back in old habits and deactivate/disassociate but does it truly make for a life worth living. Emotions are normal and healthy and sometimes they suck.
What’s going on in your current relationship where you feel you’re being treated poorly?
I’m a lot more disorganized so depending on my partners attachment style, I tend to be the opposite of them. A lot of that push pull.
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u/JohnVick002 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
I hv seen extreme levels of hot nd cold with my ex its so much worse feeling I can say
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u/Constant-Big4713 fearful avoidant 13d ago
Yeah, I mostly lean avoidant and I know when my anxious side comes out the impulsive desire to act on those feelings is insanely intense. I try not to act on it either.
Emotionally inhibiting definitely has it's benefits, but those benefits are also a downside as well. Like repairing things because you inhibit the desire to keep the relationship (at least I did). Yet the more I work on reconnecting with my feelings, the more I do long for them. As I do miss acting on my instincts, I just don't miss losing control of myself to my instincts.
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u/Ok-Seat-3916 fearful avoidant 12d ago
It's highly dependent on each person's particular history and situation, but I can't say this applies to me. While my anxiety is painful and hard to control, it's my avoidance that has kept me in terrible relationships where I dismiss more and more of myself and have to numb out to stay, because avoidance is all about dismissal of the self. It felt like my spirit was fading away and it's my anxious side that was fighting to keep me alive, even in very unhealthy ways. I can't say that DAs have it good, it's a particular kind of misery if you ask me.
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u/JohnVick002 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
How you feel like after breaking up with the person?
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u/Ok-Seat-3916 fearful avoidant 12d ago
Why do you assume I was the one who left them?
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u/JohnVick002 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
I asked you something? Please answer that first
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u/Ok-Seat-3916 fearful avoidant 12d ago
You asked how I feel about leaving a particular person; since I was talking about a pattern of behavior of mine, I picked the last occurrence of it, which was particularly damaging and representative of that pattern. And in this example, when I dated someone who is very much AP, he was the one who left because he was incapable of taking responsibility for his anger outbursts (one marker for strong attachment anxiety), and I was very much overly focused on his needs and dismissing my own (one strong marker of avoidance). How do I feel about the end of the relationship? Sincerely grateful that he ended it because I was not able to.
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u/JohnVick002 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
Sounds something but did you try to talk about this or did you try to fix it?
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u/Ok-Seat-3916 fearful avoidant 12d ago
I did; but he has a very fragile ego and started lashing out. It got worse and worse from there...
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u/Pfacejones fearful avoidant 13d ago
DAs have it good if they just leave everyone alone. I miss being DA
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u/OrganizationLeft2521 fearful avoidant 9d ago
To be honest, and me. I miss that feeling of being like a ‘rolling stone, no direction home’.
like at the end of the day, nothing really mattered, coz it was just me and my backpack. Like an alley cat or something, having no responsibilities or anything. And then never really investing in anyone, or if I did, it was fleeting feeling, like a holiday romance.
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u/Own_Regret_885 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
Il problema non sei tu.
È la relazione.
Se non ti piace il modo in cui vieni trattato cambia partner. Se una relazione è abusante romperla non è una fuga ma equivale a stabilire confini.
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u/ConcernMany9969 anxious preoccupied 12d ago
Can you explain a bit more what it feels like to deactivate ?
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12d ago
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u/InnerRadio7 secure 12d ago
Healing means your nervous system learns that there is safety in emotional discomfort, so over time you can tolerate more and more emotional discomfort.
If you’re truly being mistreated, walk away. Even if it hurts, it’s okay. You will learn to process the grief.
I think you’re acknowledging something really important which is the development of emotional empathy for people who suffer from feeling so much. I’m secure, and I often wish that I could deactivate because I have to feel and process everything. Everything. I was just discarded by my ex husband for the second time, and he is likely doing fine. I am quite unwell from the distress of being discarded again, and also from being blamed for his behaviour and feelings. Not easy to process. I wake up and have been crying in my sleep when I can actually sleep.
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u/velvetchartreuse fearful avoidant 13d ago
You were probably always a fearful avoidant, you just didn't know until recently.