When FA is deactivating, what to do?

That's exactly what I am going through as well. Doing what I can to be supportive and encouraging, nurturing a solid relationship and connection. But with de activation and all of a sudden vanishing out of nowhere with no explanation after being close and acting great for months, it feels like a shitty break up every time. With all the grief and pain included. I always read about an avoidant being with a secure helps to make them secure themselves.

But I don't see how randomly ghosting someone for weeks or over a month at a time is even being in a relationship, or makes any kind of committed relationship possible at all. On top of it the complete ghosting to any kind of reach out. No matter how much you work on self validation and self re assurance. It's still damaging to be treated like that. It's affecting my personality and the way I feel about relationships in general as well. I went from them telling me everything about themselves, dark stuff and all, leaning on me for support and then feeling like they are giving me the silent treatment out of resentment or something. And no response to anything I wrote, regardless of how nice I worded things and said things gently.

I can relate.

Caroline, I used mad as an example. Same prefrontal cortex activation as described in the video.

As for being activated mad, I was using mad as an example. How can someone be triggered continuously for a period of time that spans weeks?? How exhausting. Leave them alone if they are triggered that long. The video is not explaining weeks of avoidance and being on the low road. It’s explaining a moment in time. It seems to me that AP’s are stabbing at explanations that sooth them, and now we are considering being triggered for weeks/months. That’s not how it works. You can retrigger, but no one spends weeks in a triggered state continuously. One thing to consider is- they just aren’t that into you.

I have been triggered for days.....that is what AP rumination is.

If you’re mad for months, it’s called a grudge, and you’re more than aware that it’s something you’re holding. If you re-get angry, it’s a new trigger. Even if it’s over the same thing. Again, no one is in lizard brain mode continuously for weeks. You’d get nothing done, and would make no sense about anything to anyone. You’d come across as a mad person. The responses here make me believe that many don’t understand what the video is describing.

You know those terrible decisions (or things you say) while mad? Those things you eventually wish you could take back because you felt you were using little to no judgement on? It may even feel as if you had no control over it. It feels like it was your emotions getting the best of you? Are you in that state of making regretful remarks and or decisions for chunks of time measured in months?? If you know people like that, run away from them. That doesn’t mean someone can’t be mad for months. Or hold a grudge. They aren’t in lizard brain mode that whole time though.

If someone is done and they want to move on and they're secure, they'll tell you that, they'll tell you why (even if it's a sugar-coated excuse), and their actions and words will match. If that's not the case, and you're just getting ignored or on and off behavior after an actual connection happened and you got to know each other somewhat (not after only a couple dates or whatever), then it's not respectful, probably not about you, and not worth your time.

It's an AP tendency to look through their own lens to judge the behavior of others. Ie, I'd have never acted this way / ignored someone, so they must be aware and intentionally ignoring me to be hurtful. That's not how this works.

While the silent treatment sucks and is demeaning and shouldn't be tolerated as a go-to conflict resolution tactic, an avoidant who does this may not even notice. This is why they're called avoidant -- they avoid. Some disassociate and honestly don't. Even. Notice. Maybe for weeks. I was AP, I couldn't imagine how that could ever be the case, but it can.

There's a bunch of threads on this boards from DAs who talk about basically realizing with awareness that they were shut down for huge stretches and had no idea. I had a serious DA boyfriend who normally was on the more secure side but would periodically vanish for ten days. He absolutely loved me and we discussed this after the first time it happened. He couldn't explain it, but it had nothing to do with me, and he'd have to shut the world out from time to time. It was his self-care in a way, and he'd basically spend the time alone working on creative pursuits. Once I was secure in the relationship, it was annoying that it happened unpredictably, but it was fine. I knew he'd always come back and we weren't breaking up and would do my own thing. Yes, even though I was AP. We were still on good terms a couple years when he had another serious girlfriend, and he came to me and said, you're the only person who has ever tried to understand that about me and why did you tolerate it? I told him why I thought he'd do that (in retrospect he was generally triggered and deactivating from the world, but I didn't know those terms), and he thought what I said was very insightful and had asked me because his new gf was having a tantrum about it and he wanted help explaining what was happening because he still didn't understand himself but didn't want to break up over it.

My long-term FA boyfriend deactivated every time we were on the verge of a change in relationship, either breaking up or getting more serious. He disappear, and after a few weeks would come back and not have noticed. He honestly thought he was just busier than usual, not realize weeks had passed, once he even blamed his phone -- but he really believed it. The only time he ever recognized that he'd gone silent on me on his own was when he came back because he was triggered anxious by something I said, and then he was all acknowledgement, awareness, and apologies, explaining he had no idea why it had happened and thanking me for staying consistent and not taking it personally.

This isn't a matter of just not that into you. Why not? Because, it actually doesn't matter at all. That's still an "other" way of looking at it and not a self-focused perspective. What do YOU want? Do you want a partner who deactivates, because of you, in spite of you, nothing to do with you, whatever... does that meet your needs? What if they deactivate and it's a turnoff and the result is you're just not that into them?

They're probably not doing it on purpose. If they are, they're not a good partner because their communication and conflict resolution needs work. If you're AP, look inward to deal with this because you can't manage someone else's deactivation, you can only recognize it's an action they're taking but it's not something they are consciously doing to you.