sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 13, 2021 12:10:27 GMT
Hello everyone. I ended up here a month ago or so after finding out that I am most likely FA leaning avoidant. I want to thank everyone for the info, this forum is extremely usefull for many people and a breakthrough in my life, as I never knew what the heck was going on with me. Also apologies as English is not my mother language and I would like to share a bit of personal info.
After my first relationship when I was 20yo (with a very very AP person) I got highly traumatized by it, but I don't blame her any longer, it was just that her insecurities didn't match mine. I gave her a lot of phisical affection but couldn`t open up a lot about my feelings for her frecuently, even though I loved her a lot. I also avoided arguing and I treated her as if she was crazy because she would turn totally agressive on me and I couldn´t understand her concerns. As I said, she became agressive to me at the end of the relationship and argued about pretty much everything (just like my mom have being doing to me all my life). She questioned my feelings towards her on a weekly basis. I hypotetize that this experience launched me to the more far expectrum of the FA, leaning a bit more AP, and being more empathetic and emocional and self conscious than before. It is totally true that I lacked the emphaty to understand that I was not meeting her needs (and she didn´t mine). It happened 8 years ago, but never had a relationship longer than six months with the three girls I dated to after my first experience. I have always thought that love wasn´t for me and would never be able to love someone, that I would ruine the relationship and hurt both someone else and myself. I also most of the time avoided all contact just after realizing that the girl was interested in me. It all ended three years ago after hiking northamerica in "survivalist" style for the first four months and work, travel and interact with people like a "normal person" would do for a year more or so. I just realized that it was all a fantasy, we are not meant to be alone and it is fighting against our very nature. I also realized that I had an emotional problem but didn't know which one. Realizing all these things didn´t stop me from running away from everywhere and everyone for a very long part of the travel, I was living in my vehicle so it was extremely easy to be always on the run. I finally found some kind of stability and started to see a real change, and I also went back home as the pandemic kicked in. I have been a bit misogynistic all my life, specially after this event, but I healed it a year ago or so (don´t know how or why) and frankly it is quite relieving. I am more compassionate, open up, and see people as indivuals rather than a gender and also understand that everyone is dealing with emotional problems, I don´t take things so personal. Being abroad made me see things of myself and others that I never saw before, and something started to change (very slowly) in my mind with no notice.
Now that I am aware of this problem make things easier, it`s like I am able to question myself when I feel anxious and stay instead of running away from the problem. Wheter it is real or not, I feel like I am changing faster. The last week I have been 24/7 with a girl (AP) I was dating five years ago, we became very friends from then to this day. We kised each last week and I started to have feelings for her. We match life goals, hobbies, sports, be very comprehensive about each other and everything, talk a lot about our feelings... We spoke about it and say there was nothing between us out of friendship because she is struggling with personal problems, and it is not the right timing. I agreed and stayed with her because she really needs my help righ now and I want to be there for her (we are very friends after all). The first two days after this event I felt really bad but I started to feel very peaceful afterwards, I wasn´t ruminating at all, felt very chill about everything, gave and received lot of help from her at any time when needed without feeling overwhelmed (I changed on this one long ago but never realized how much until now). I just didn´t want to run away, I wanted to stay.
Do you folks think possible that I all these years made things much worse than they really were and I am not so so FA after all, or might it me that because she doesn´t feel the same for me or do not want to intimate more makes me feel not triggered? I would like to think that I don´t have such a hard work ahead, but I have to be reallistic, I might still be a very FA person and have a lot of work to do (I read a couple educational books and I am now looking forward to buying a more technical stuff like "Attachment disturbances in adults" by Daniel Brown.
Thank you very much in advance.
|
|
|
|
Post by midnight77 on Sept 13, 2021 13:00:43 GMT
Hi! Your story is very interesting to me. I am also a FA, oscillating between leaning anxious and avoidant.
I believe that your time spent while being single and exploring the world and human interactions in general helped a lot, as you learned to stay alone. Your reaction to the last events is very mature, but I would pay attention to it. Do you think you will be willing to tolerate the situation as it is (I mean being friendzoned)? Or the fact that you are staying there anyways is just because you do not want to leave her? I would suggest to give it a bit of time and see how you react in the long run!
But good job with your inner work and path!
|
|
|
|
Post by midnight77 on Sept 13, 2021 13:04:23 GMT
I also want to add that oftentimes I thought I was done with my inner work and self-discovery about FA tendencies... But new relationships and occurrences show you new and different wounds/parts in you to be healed and understood! Don't be hard on yourself in regards to "being healed" and free of your FA attachments, take it easy  |
|
|
|
Post by tnr9 on Sept 13, 2021 16:16:47 GMT
It is important to remember that FA, DA, AP describe insecure attachments…..so, depending on how much your partner, friend etc mirrors that wounding from your childhood, that will impact how strongly your anxious and avoidant behaviors are displayed. Instead of looking at your relationships individually….look for your patterns of behaviors throughout all of them. My AP leaning behaviors were greater when I was in a romantic relationship with someone who reminded me (via their behaviors) of my mom or dad. These are automatic coping skills learned at a very young age that do not work as effectively when you are an adult. My suggestion since you are curious and aware is to explore your relationship with your parents to determine if there are any behaviors you recognize from that time that you still employ today. Along with reading…it is good to find a therapist who is versed in attachment theory to help guide you towards more secure behaviors.
|
|
|
|
Post by alexandra on Sept 13, 2021 17:08:49 GMT
sorgin Good job on the introspection so far! It sounds like your personal journey, at the times you've turned inward and explored what was going on instead of just running away, have definitely helped you somewhat emotionally mature. Attachment styles are on a spectrum, so a person can go further or closer into avoidance or anxious or both (FA) or secure. I used to be extremely textbook AP, now I'm solidly secure, and once I was actually addressing my issues, my AP "scoring" if I took attachment style assessments shifted to be less and less severe over time until I crossed over into earned secure. I agree to look at your patterns and that you may not feel as triggered until you get back into a romantic situation. And from there, I have a few suggestions to consider. First of all, you said your girlfriend when you were 20 ended up mirroring your mom's behavior. It's very common for people with insecure attachment styles to completely unconsciously choose partners who reflect a parent that you have issues with, as it's a way to try to replay and "correct" the relationship as an attempt to heal past trauma. AND/OR, it can also be an attempt to reinforce your life views as a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you had issues with your mom and issues with women and you ended up choosing someone who "proved" all your fears correct. Again, both totally subconscious, one or the other or both intertwined, very common. So I believe that difficult early romantic relationship made a lot of your fears and issues conscious to you, which maybe increased your underlying fears and made them worse, but that the underlying attachment style issues you have were already there. Which means, going even further back and earlier into your life if you want to heal core wounds causing the issues you've been experiencing. Second, you're now choosing a situation where the woman is unavailable to you. Again, very common for all insecure attachers to do. I'm sure she's great for lots of reasons, you've been friends a long time, but her lack of availability wouldn't trigger your avoidance and can trigger your anxious side. That's basically how FA attachment styles work. Third, have you ever seen a therapist? I think you've done a bunch of work already on your own in regards to the self-exploration, travel, new experiences and new ways you learned to see and interact with people throughout. But the attachment issues are difficult to change without confronting within yourself the source, and healing and coming to terms with earlier trauma, accepting it and rewriting how you connect with yourself and understand your own life narrative on your terms. It sounds to me like you're in a great place to start up on that part. Becoming more secure, which leads to having more fulfilling and stable relationships, is a process and it can take quite some time to get there. A good therapist gives you guidance that will make it faster and makes it easier to learn the tools you'll need to cope with the pain and past trauma in a more emotionally mature and less dysfunctional way. Ultimately, in my experience, the end goal is to learn to connect with yourself in a healthy way and learn to fully emotionally process feelings so that you don't get stuck in dysfunctional cycles and behaviors anymore. And all the improvement in boundaries, coping with stress, choosing good partners, etc. naturally follows from there.
|
|
sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 14, 2021 21:33:36 GMT
Thank you all for the support and the time you invested to answer me, it is really nice to see that we are in the same boat, and it is possible to improve and to heal. Do you think you will be willing to tolerate the situation as it is (I mean being friendzoned)? Or the fact that you are staying there anyways is just because you do not want to leave her? I would suggest to give it a bit of time and see how you react in the long run! I don`t really know that answer, I think I can do it for a while, but no doubt it will eventualy hurt me, especially if she finds another partner. The matter is that I have no choice but to stay, I can´t run away this time. She really needs me right now. If she got a mild trouble I might be thinking of doing it though. To be honest some part of myself thinks she will realize that I am a good partner and we will be togheter at some point. I know this is a fantasy with little chance to success that will hurt me even more in case events don´t go as expected, and it also drives me away from meeting better potential partners, but it is hard to totally push these thoughts out of my mind because she is the most comprehensive girl I dated, and that means a lot to me. So I will give it a try, focus on myself, try to meet know people and let`s see what happens. I will take it as an emotional trial while helping a good friend. Hello tnr9, good that you pointed that. The last two girls I dated (the first one FA two years ago and the last one DA this summer). I never dated a FA/DA girl before and it was interesting (and painfull) to be in the other side of the expectrum as I think it made me understand how harsh and distant a FA/DA person can be. The FA girl kept me hooked up for about 6 months. The second girl was very DA and ghosted me after two months. I wasn´t the same person at this time, I had already changed quite a bit, even though I felt anxious for about it six days before discovering the attachment style theory. I then all of a sudden found myself very chill about her, I knew she was not a good match and would never meet my needs so even if she is trying to re-establish contact I am reluctant to meet her again. Maybe as friends cause we share very rare outdoors hobbies. It was necessary for her to gohst me in order to deactive me and see her as she is, if I was in the middle of the honey moon things wouldn´t have been so easy I guess. In regard to the pattern in my relationship, all I see is that all girls were insecurely attached, two girls were AP, very very different from one another, one FA leaning DA and one DA, but I don´t see any pattern out of it. What I see is that I run away (when I am conscious about it at least) from girls that remind me of my first relationship. I don´t know if it makes sense but it might be true. I have to deeply think about it because I am sure I shall find a pattern. Thank you for your answer Alexandra. I have to admit that it is tentative to seek for a well trained therapist in attachment issues, I have never seen a therapist and I think of it on a daily basis, but I don´t know any around me and don´t know how to find them. I am also very suspicious about proffesionals since I studied in college and realized that a meaningful percetage of people are either unfit or unwilling to do a skilled job properly and they get their degree anyway. However I can´t do everything by myself, it is a fact. It takes an inmense amount of time, not to mention that it is highly frustrating to bark up the wrong tree and you won´t be as effective as a good proffesional. I also know that I should trust people more, that is a fact as well. So yes, I am willing to do it in the near future. Does anyone know how to find a good therapist? Regarding points first and second you are right, I chose a partner that mirrored my mom´s behaviour, I realized it at that moment but didn´t know why of course. I would say it has never happened again, as I previoulsy said I run away like crazy from women who reming me to my mom/first girlfirned on these aspects: verbally agressive, supervisor and fault-finder, maybe not from others. But I always choose emotional unavailable girls, you totally nailed it on that one and it is very frustrating and energy-draining. I want to thank you all again, I am looking forward to reading this forum as well as getting my new book and read it with no rest. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2021 21:55:32 GMT
welcome, sorgin! This is a great group. Glad you have found a place to unpack stuff! |
|
sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 14, 2021 22:09:46 GMT
welcome, sorgin! This is a great group. Glad you have found a place to unpack stuff! Thank you very much Introvert. I agree with you, this is a great group! |
|
|
|
Post by tnr9 on Sept 15, 2021 1:36:06 GMT
Thank you for your answer Alexandra. I have to admit that it is tentative to seek for a well trained therapist in attachment issues, I have never seen a therapist and I think of it on a daily basis, but I don´t know any around me and don´t know how to find them. I am also very suspicious about proffesionals since I studied in college and realized that a meaningful percetage of people are either unfit or unwilling to do a skilled job properly and they get their degree anyway. However I can´t do everything by myself, it is a fact. It takes an inmense amount of time, not to mention that it is highly frustrating to bark up the wrong tree and you won´t be as effective as a good proffesional. I also know that I should trust people more, that is a fact as well. So yes, I am willing to do it in the near future. Does anyone know how to find a good therapist?
I actually used psychology today and looked for a therapist with an SE (somatic experiencing) background….I had heard good things about SE as it ties to wounds stored in the body. I had gone several years to a regular therapist and did make some progress….but I feel I have made so much more progress with my SE therapist. 🙂
|
|
|
|
Post by anne12 on Sept 15, 2021 1:52:12 GMT
|
|
sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 15, 2021 20:38:07 GMT
tnr9 I would say I read about SE from you in another post, thanks a lot. It is in my list of thing to have a look at.
Thanks Anne, I was looking for that. I can´t tell whether I developed FA tendencies before or after my first relationship. It is likely to come from childhood even though I can´t rememeber any trauma out of a very controller, verbaly agressive and emotionally unestable mother and a DA father. I guess it is more than enough, but I hypothesize that it worsen or showed up during and after my first love experience. Before I was more like just DA, I was a very rebel teenager and do some stupid and law-defying things (but I have never been physically violent towards people, no fights) until I found another way to turn my energy aside and cut ties with my (now) old friends, I totally focused on extreme competition sports, I was alone with no friends for over a year and couldn´t care less, I wanted to be with a girl but I really didn´t try hard, sport was first and I would run away after the first date (many times not even a first date was set up). If I was rejected by a girl I liked I felt sad but it went away quite fast, sometimes days, sometimes one or two months. The relation with my new friends were not so deep... As I said, something changed in my mind in the span of one or two years after my first relationship, I switched friends inside the group, and conect with some of them in a very emotional and deep way, and talk about things I never did before, I started to feel empathy for people, especially when it comes to relationship stuff. What do you think folks? Anyway, a good therapist could tell better than me, FA tendencies were probably there, waiting for the right moment to emerge, so I will think about finding a good therapist and get guidance as It looks more complicated than it looked before.
Cheers.
|
|
sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 15, 2021 20:58:27 GMT
Ahhh I used to be fanatic and have rigid ideas, for example: my music is the only good and the rest are shit, be die-hard toward people who took drugs and treat them bad and much more. I also used to challenge the group leaders (I still do sometimes, just can´t avoid it) when I saw them as despot, be very rigid when arguing with someone and I was never ever wrong when arguing (obviously I was). But I was under 20yo so I guess it is quite prevalent to be brainless at that age and might not be a sign of FA tendencies.
|
|
sorgin
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by sorgin on Sept 15, 2021 21:08:26 GMT
Anyway I don´t want you guys to do the work for me. You brought lots of info, I will dig into it and also seek for a therapist and start reading the book written by Daniel Brown, I am sure I will find the answers I am looking for. Thanks a lot.
|
|
