When Awareness Isn't Enough - What Does being FA Feel Like?

seekingknowledge, I actually see plenty here that you can learn if that's what you're looking for. It sounds like you have done a lot of great work on yourself so far, addressing the DA side of your avoidant tendencies and perhaps working through some anxious ones by connecting better to yourself and loving yourself. I have no doubt that you are more secure now than when you started exploring all this. However, between the speed at which this went and you finding the idea of disassociating from any negative emotions and thinking that being numb could be better than having the ability to fully process emotions indicate that there's insecurity on your side left to tackle. (A secure person does not idealize numbness, but someone in an anxious attachment space often does because they don't know how to fully regulate their feelings and get overwhelmed feeling too much.) It sounds like this is a great opportunity to learn more about FA and about the anxious side of insecure attachment. You're already seeing how the dynamics work when one person is swinging considerably more avoidant than the other (ie, they don't work) and how another avoidant person can make someone working towards security or who is usually secure swing anxious. And there are still reasons for that, relating to fear of abandonment and trust in self on the side of the person swinging anxious, that these relationships reveal to you. Sometimes it requires some more time and perspective to get to the next learning step, and the breakup is still new. I don't think the feeling that this was all for nothing will linger forever, but keep on mourning the loss as you need and the next lesson will become clearer when you're up to it. Be kind to yourself for now, these roller coaster relationships and blind siding breakups are some of the most painful and difficult to sort out.