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Post by happyidiot on Aug 8, 2018 17:31:40 GMT
Hi, I'm new here and couldn't find a thread on this topic, so please feel free to link to any if they exist. I would love input, especially from FAs, on the ways you feel tend to be best for someone to make the FA feel safe in talking when they have dropped out of communication. Is just waiting and never texting them unless they text you first a good approach? My concern is that they will assume I don't want to talk to them. And is it helpful or too scary to hear someone's feelings or expectations regarding communication?
I am asking with a specific situation in mind, but would also like to know in general, because these questions come up for me a lot. The specific situation is that the FA in question said (multiple times and it was their idea) that they would see me sometime around a particular date and then disappeared for weeks. It is hard for me to understand why they don't even make up a bogus excuse like being too busy.
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Post by mrob on Aug 8, 2018 21:30:31 GMT
Get on with your life as if they weren’t around. In time, they’ll reappear.
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Post by happyidiot on Aug 8, 2018 23:52:44 GMT
Get on with your life as if they weren’t around. In time, they’ll reappear. Thanks mrob! This was my first inclination but then I began wondering if this situation warranted me reaching out more because this particular person may very well think I am going to get mad at them or that I am better off without them. And because an FA friend of mine told me that when she is going through a hard time that she feels worthless and assumes no one even cares that she isn't texting them or showing up to plans. Do you think the context makes any difference or that all ghosting should be treated the same, by focusing on one's life as normal and not contacting the avoidant until they message? |
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Post by mrob on Aug 8, 2018 23:57:37 GMT
I know that if I’m activated, chasing me up is putting more pressure on me, and I feel manipulated. Going on with your life is different to waiting around, as well.
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Post by brokenbiscuit on Aug 9, 2018 9:50:42 GMT
Yes, chasing us FA types can actually push us away even more! We are like stray cats. You don't chase a stray cat you wait for it to come to you
When me and my highly AP ex broke up once she sent me videos of her crying, clutching the cuddly toy I had once given her as a present.
This terrified me and I saw it for what it (rightly) was which was emotional manipulation. The emotion there was too stark and raw, it made me feel guilty, and it was a blatant attempt to make me feel bad (which it did) and so thus I hid away from her further
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Post by goldilocks on Aug 9, 2018 11:02:52 GMT
When me and my highly AP ex broke up once she sent me videos of her crying, clutching the cuddly toy I had once given her as a present. This terrified me and I saw it for what it (rightly) was which was emotional manipulation. The emotion there was too stark and raw, it made me feel guilty, and it was a blatant attempt to make me feel bad (which it did) and so thus I hid away from her further
I'm shuddering here....
I really detest guilt trips. If someone did that to me it would shred every last fibre of attraction for him.
I feel for you having to go through something so frightening and repulsive.
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Post by brokenbiscuit on Aug 9, 2018 11:23:52 GMT
Yeah, she did that kind of thing a lot. Saying things like "no one will ever love you as much as I do" or "you will never find love like mine again". Those words actually scarred me a bit as I actually started to believe them which is ridiculous really, but shows she was playing on my lack of self esteem/self worth
Yes it's manipulative and all that, but she was doing it from a place of hurt so I don't hold it against her. She was just desperate for me to be closer to her, but it had the opposite effect.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 11:40:39 GMT
Yeah, she did that kind of thing a lot. Saying things like "no one will ever love you as much as I do" or "you will never find love like mine again". Those words actually scarred me a bit as I actually started to believe them which is ridiculous really, but shows she was playing on my lack of self esteem/self worth Yes it's manipulative and all that, but she was doing it from a place of hurt so I don't hold it against her. She was just desperate for me to be closer to her, but it had the opposite effect. is this more BPD than just AP? and, if you never find love like hers again you'll be blessed. it seems like a vulnerable narcissist/BPD vibe there. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 11:58:46 GMT
Def more like some kind of BPD behavior. BPD is supposed to be an extreme combination of AP/FA and something else. So not normal AP behavior. I do not think you can put it in the "AP box". More like "Fatal Attraction" behavior. yes. i think it's helpful to distinguish that line with AP on the board just like with DA that get thrown into the Pathology Box. Keeping that dilineation makes a respectful place to heal from attachment injury. I have AP exes that were actually horribly abusive but i always try to introduce that as having a comorbid pathology. anne12 i didn't know it's a combo of AP/FA with something else- sounds like my mother but she was also very low empathy- she could feign it and then turn the knife and watch me gasp - she seemed to enjoy it. I stopped reacting and she went batshit. very difficult personality! anyrate- sorry to hijack! to OP- Attachment dynamics without awareness are well described by brokenbiscuit in the thread "AP thoughts on DA relationship. should be an article, it's so insightful! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 12:27:52 GMT
Juniper, I do not think you can call your exés for AP´s. I think the were something else than AP. i have had AP ex without pathology, vulnerable narcissist with an AP attachment style rather than dismissive, pathologies still have an attachment style but pathology dominates. some narcissist are manipulative but dismissive. BPD seems to be end of spectrum off the spectrum AP- but some people i have been involved with were just AP. |
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Post by brokenbiscuit on Aug 9, 2018 12:28:19 GMT
Strangely enough I have considered only yesterday if she was BPD after doing some reading about it online, it being a subject I knew little about. I made a thread about it in the general section
And yeah, she does tick a lot of the boxes. The hypersexuality (believe me, like nothing else I have experienced. She made it addictive and intoxicating to me, pandering to my every sexual whim. I won't go into details but the stuff we did went beyond a bit kinky.), the substance abuse (weed, alcohol, and in the past benzos and she even hinted at smoking friggin crack in the past) , the emotional manipulation (as above) , the testing behaviour (us in a cafe.. She says "which of those waitresses do you want to fuck?. Me:" errr"), flirting with other men in my presence, the absolute fear of being abandoned... She once had a panic attack when I had to leave her house one morning to go to work.she texted 24/7, non stop, relentless. And the constant need for validation, either from me or a long line of other men online who she had in the background.
Tradional BPD behaviours she didn't do are wild outbursts or anger. Never saw it from her. When she was upset she would just not communicate with me, silent treatment almost, which played into the push pull dynamic even further. And she never self harmed, although during one of our splits she told me she wanted to shave her hair off which, for a woman especially, is a wild thing and I think a form of self harm behaviour. She would have gone through with it too if I hadn't talked her out of it. She's really the sort who would. No cutting or any of that though.
She also kept flitting with the idea of joining odd fringe religious sects in London... No idea if that's BPD, I just put that down to her feeling a bit lost and looking for meaning and community. She was very faux spiritual, lots of crystals and all that. Changed her appearance weekly. One week she had pink hair, the next it would be short, following week she would have extensions, following week she's brunette again. Every time I saw her she looked different.
Maybe she was mild BPD, who knows. Her bf before me was NPD through and through, a throughly terrifying character, and I've read the two types as drawn to each other. He was dark as hell, brr. I never want to speak to someone like that again.
The thing is, as I read more about BPD I do wonder if I have traits of it as well. My therapist certainly has asked me questions along that line, but she hasn't come to that conclusion yet. Some of the push pull aspects of a FA are common with BPD types I believe. But my ex would do it as well. All it would take is for me to make a silly joke on whatsapp that she took to heart and I would be blocked and silenced for a few days. It was testing.
In all honesty, the more I try to untangle our relationship, her part and mine, the more confused I get. And the really shit thing is I'm still really addicted to her, and she knows it. She reminds me so much of my mum, and I so desperately wanted to save her from her life of sadness , so I'm well and truly attached
Sorry for thread derailment
On the plus side, I am about to start seeing a girl in my new dating life and I'm trying my best to be secure and not play into any wild mix of avoidancy or codependency like I have had before with my last ex.
She was raised in a cult she says. This should go well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 12:34:02 GMT
Strangely enough I have considered only yesterday if she was BPD after doing some reading about it online, it being a subject I knew little about. I made a thread about it in the general section And yeah, she does tick a lot of the boxes. The hypersexuality (believe me, like nothing else I have experienced. She made it addictive and intoxicating to me, pandering to my every sexual whim. I won't go into details but the stuff we did went beyond a bit kinky.), the substance abuse (weed, alcohol, and in the past benzos and she even hinted at smoking friggin crack in the past) , the emotional manipulation (as above) , the testing behaviour (us in a cafe.. She says "which of those waitresses do you want to fuck?. Me:" errr"), flirting with other men in my presence, the absolute fear of being abandoned... She once had a panic attack when I had to leave her house one morning to go to work.she texted 24/7, non stop, relentless. And the constant need for validation, either from me or a long line of other men online who she had in the background. Tradional BPD behaviours she didn't do are wild outbursts or anger. Never saw it from her. When she was upset she would just not communicate with me, silent treatment almost, which played into the push pull dynamic even further. And she never self harmed, although during one of our splits she told me she wanted to shave her hair off which, for a woman especially, is a wild thing and I think a form of self harm behaviour. She would have gone through with it too if I hadn't talked her out of it. She's really the sort who would. No cutting or any of that though. She also kept flitting with the idea of joining odd fringe religious sects in London... No idea if that's BPD, I just put that down to her feeling a bit lost and looking for meaning and community. She was very faux spiritual, lots of crystals and all that. Changed her appearance weekly. One week she had pink hair, the next it would be short, following week she would have extensions, following week she's brunette again. Every time I saw her she looked different. Maybe she was mild BPD, who knows. Her bf before me was NPD through and through, a throughly terrifying character, and I've read the two types as drawn to each other. He was dark as hell, brr. I never want to speak to someone like that again. The thing is, as I read more about BPD I do wonder if I have traits of it as well. My therapist certainly has asked me questions along that line, but she hasn't come to that conclusion yet. Some of the push pull aspects of a FA are common with BPD types I believe. But my ex would do it as well. All it would take is for me to make a silly joke on whatsapp that she took to heart and I would be blocked and silenced for a few days. It was testing. In all honesty, the more I try to untangle our relationship, her part and mine, the more confused I get. And the really shit thing is I'm still really addicted to her, and she knows it. She reminds me so much of my mum, and I so desperately wanted to save her from her life of sadness , so I'm well and truly attached Sorry for thread derailment very complex and painful. so glad you're aware and working through it. this is stuff that really destroys lives but there is tons of hope for you.  |
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Post by goldilocks on Aug 9, 2018 13:19:20 GMT
Yeah, she did that kind of thing a lot. Saying things like "no one will ever love you as much as I do" or "you will never find love like mine again". Those words actually scarred me a bit as I actually started to believe them which is ridiculous really, but shows she was playing on my lack of self esteem/self worth Yes it's manipulative and all that, but she was doing it from a place of hurt so I don't hold it against her. She was just desperate for me to be closer to her, but it had the opposite effect.
The degree to which the experience was horrible to you is independent of het intent. Hurt people hurt people. It may be the only tool in her box.
It's sad that people lack the ability to refrain from these tactics.
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Post by goldilocks on Aug 9, 2018 13:34:05 GMT
Both AP and FA are more likely than the average person to have a cluster B personality disorder. Secure and DA attachment are less likely to have it than the average person.
Keep in mind that PD are rare and insecure attachment is common. Of any attachment style, the overwhelming majority will not have a PD.
There are many cases of AP on avoidant abuse, far more than can be attributed to personality disorders. Couples with an anxious wife and an avoidant husband are 9 times more likely to be abusive. This cannot be explained by increased prevalance of PD, as it is only slightly more pravalent among AP.
The mispairing in itself is the problem.
Protest behaviour is something AP will engage in more often when her partner is avoidant, and many protest behaviours are forms of abuse. Especially if an escalation between protest/abuse and distancing takes place, the cocktail is toxic.
I believe most of those AP women would never abuse a secure man, nor a fellow anxious as the escalation would not take place and they would not get desperate.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2018 14:03:15 GMT
i have been with AP who exhibited very little protest behavior that could be considered pathological..... until i tried to back away from confrontation that stemmed from their fear of abandonment.
It is about escalation between ap/da....
as da i could not bear the circular accusations and it exhausted me.
my boundary was, i feel angry and i have to go calm down by myself.
His reaction to that was increased agitation and then physical violence.
There are quite a few studies that find a correlation between Anxious Preoccupied Attachment and Intimate Partner Violence.
I myself tend to refer to ex AP partners in order to illuminate my dismissive response.
I have never come here to rail on an AP ex, i am not concerned with them.
Those relationships were, as extensively shared by me, a part of my dismissive pattern that originated in my childhood with a pathological mother who had an anxious style not a dismissive style.
There is the issue of Repitition Compulsion, a thread in which i shared my pattern and awareness and still got bombed by a triggered AP (oh my).
My comment here is simply trying to acknowledge amongst ourselves that none of us want to be generally put in the Pathology Box.
Jeb states that extremes of Attachment Style can be categorized as pathologies.
It's balanced to recognize the garden variety behaviors that are not outlier behavior, as distinct from cluster B or other pathology, simply to promote less defensiveness and more dialog that recognizes what we all have in common: Attachment Injury that prohibits us from forming healthy intimate bonds.
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