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Post by Jess on Jun 30, 2018 11:56:15 GMT
"This is when i go to a place inside myself where i survive and find the grit to just deal with things. i understand that some people turn to others for support and comfort. I understand that. But i also realized today that when i am this affected i find it impossible to find comfort outside of myself.
IT DOES NOT EXIST and is not important or an option to me.
I cannot fathom it and have no desire for comfort outside myself. When i am that affected.
This is where i become very focused on the moment and my individual inner sanctum. I wouldn't let anyone in there no matter what. I have no need or desire to. That is how i self soothe. I go look myself in the eye and get calm. I isolate myself to take care of myself. I am taking care of myself and trying to take care of very intense pain and feelings of impending loss."
I know this place and process so well - this is my default also. I can't tolerate outside support, and truly only feel safest when it's just me. So many times in so many moments I've reassured myself in my mind, like a small child, "you've got this, you're ok, you can do this, you don't need anyone".
I have also noticed that outside stress makes me deactivate in relationships - there actually seems to be MANY things that set off my deactivation.
I don't have an answer, but I understand.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 12:30:57 GMT
Hi Jess!
in just a few months of intense effort, i have made big improvements here.
i've had maybe more than my share of traumatic events recently, but have been able to reach out and receive.
i've been surrounded by so much love and support and encouragement, and i would have hated to have to face it all alone.
maybe that's the beauty of the difficulty i've been faced with, at least that was the hidden gift.
❤️
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Post by goldilocks on Jul 1, 2018 9:45:25 GMT
"This is when i go to a place inside myself where i survive and find the grit to just deal with things. i understand that some people turn to others for support and comfort. I understand that. But i also realized today that when i am this affected i find it impossible to find comfort outside of myself. IT DOES NOT EXIST and is not important or an option to me. I cannot fathom it and have no desire for comfort outside myself. When i am that affected. This is where i become very focused on the moment and my individual inner sanctum. I wouldn't let anyone in there no matter what. I have no need or desire to. That is how i self soothe. I go look myself in the eye and get calm. I isolate myself to take care of myself. I am taking care of myself and trying to take care of very intense pain and feelings of impending loss." I know this place and process so well - this is my default also. I can't tolerate outside support, and truly only feel safest when it's just me. So many times in so many moments I've reassured myself in my mind, like a small child, "you've got this, you're ok, you can do this, you don't need anyone". I have also noticed that outside stress makes me deactivate in relationships - there actually seems to be MANY things that set off my deactivation. I don't have an answer, but I understand. Welcome Jess! Lets find out what steps you can take towards healing. To what extent are your friends sincere and reliable? What practices do you have to prevent and manage outside stress? |
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Post by epicgum on Aug 20, 2018 10:18:17 GMT
Romantic fantasy -- focusing on your partners flaws and imagining that "the one" without these flaws is out there for you.
Fantasizing about another person or people while still in a relationship.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2018 12:09:06 GMT
Romantic fantasy -- focusing on your partners flaws and imagining that "the one" without these flaws is out there for you. Fantasizing about another person or people while still in a relationship. i get it, it's like emotional insulation. these behaviors feel very different from the inside than they look on the outside, don't they? |
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Post by epicgum on Aug 20, 2018 19:20:34 GMT
Romantic fantasy -- focusing on your partners flaws and imagining that "the one" without these flaws is out there for you. Fantasizing about another person or people while still in a relationship. i get it, it's like emotional insulation. these behaviors feel very different from the inside than they look on the outside, don't they? Hmmm, well I never express these doubts, so it serves as another wall of things that you aren't sharing with your partner. Probably makes you/me appear noncommittal, which is accurate. I'd add to the deactivation strategies--thinking that the relationship is both permanent and temporary at the same time...ie. after a certain amount of time you will date someone else, she will get bored and leave you etc. So you don't get too invested and you also don't have to seriously grapple with your partners flaws, because, hey, its temporary, just enjoy it while it lasts. As the relationship develops and you need to make commitment choices (getting married, moving in together, getting a pet) the escape valve of "hey this is only temporary" gets harder and harder to maintain and it becomes a struggle to keep the relationship at the same position but without crashing...kind of like trying to fly an airplane as slow as possible--issue is, at some point the airplane is going to stall. (And crash!) Hence the push and pull...I want a relationship, but I also want room to escape. But...because these anxieties are hurtful and damaging, you cant bring them up and address them either. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2018 19:40:35 GMT
i get it, it's like emotional insulation. these behaviors feel very different from the inside than they look on the outside, don't they? Hmmm, well I never express these doubts, so it serves as another wall of things that you aren't sharing with your partner. Probably makes you/me appear noncommittal, which is accurate. I'd add to the deactivation strategies--thinking that the relationship is both permanent and temporary at the same time...ie. after a certain amount of time you will date someone else, she will get bored and leave you etc. So you don't get too invested and you also don't have to seriously grapple with your partners flaws, because, hey, its temporary, just enjoy it while it lasts. As the relationship develops and you need to make commitment choices (getting married, moving in together, getting a pet) the escape valve of "hey this is only temporary" gets harder and harder to maintain and it becomes a struggle to keep the relationship at the same position but without crashing...kind of like trying to fly an airplane as slow as possible--issue is, at some point the airplane is going to stall. (And crash!) Hence the push and pull...I want a relationship, but I also want room to escape. But...because these anxieties are hurtful and damaging, you cant bring them up and address them either. i would say these things were more true when i was unaware, but as soon as i identified these things in me i started seeing them for what they were and beginning layer by layer to address the underlying fears. The feeling of wanting permanency, but fearing loss, for me, was more centered not on either of us moving on but in the fear that something dreadful will happen to him if i let myself love him all the way. That's been an awful thing to deal with, it's not an anxiety so much as a feeling like you said on the other thread- my heart swells and then is pierced by its cage. so, i am completely comfortable in the faith that he and i want to have each other long term, till one of us goes.... but it's this fear of the other shoe dropping. it's frustrating,, because i live and love all the time without this fear in other areas. it's just a profound deep thing that is reflexive and only related to him. just him. i just live with it. i am very open about it with him. Recently we had such a close and meaningful time that the next morning i woke up with that cage on my heart so i called him to tell him. He understands it as he suffers the same thing. he saw me deactivate really hard and fast a few times after intimacy progressions. I used to think he was more hard core dismissive than me but we laugh about that now. he is more mellow, and has a lot less trauma. i'm the first person who ever was able to share this all with him, and he relates totally. this is where being the same style has been very healing and a blessing to me, because he understands this in an experiential way. so, i just tell him "we have had such an incredibly precious time together, and, the experience of that causes me to fear that i will lose you through some event beyond my control. Have you had your physical? 😉 ...". i have found if i just share it with him it deflates the fear right away and i return to rational thinking- like yeah, anything can happen but it isn't right now so why worry. it's just a shift from fear back to normal life. he and i both get it that if i don't address it right away i'll be deactivating for real, i get on the train away from connection, minimize his importance in my life, my nervous system over regulates and i feel less emotion, i go into lone wolf mode in my head, and it's all so unnecessary. he and i both understand that this is a part of our minds, deep inside, like a fear handicap, so we just talk about it and then i can relax back into what it's like MOST of the time, which is day-to-day living and loving and just taking things as they come. I'd like to be free of this gripping sadness , and perhaps it is improving- yes i would say it's getting easier to handle. The evidence is, that i am aware and no longer going full on into deactivation without being able to recognize or stop it. before i was aware, i deactivated so much i prevented intimate emotional involvement and didn't even know what love felt like- not like i experience it now. there was no vulnerability to protect or have fear about. so, i didn't consciously fear anything. i didn't fear losing anyone because no one was as close to me as he is. i stayed on the fringes of connection, and just lived my whole life kind of deactivated, with everyone but my kids. that was different. but everyone else, stayed outside the perimeter i set. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2018 19:47:28 GMT
also thank you for sharing epicgum this is still really difficult to talk about sometimes. |
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Post by leavethelighton on Aug 21, 2018 23:32:32 GMT
Do you think it's actually possible not to fantasize about other people while in a relationship? I fantasize a LOT and I've pretty much never actually fantasized about anyone I've actually dated (with the exception of someone I dated for 2 months 20 years ago). I almost think the point of fantasy is it's the chance to luxuriate in what you can't/don't have, as long as you can stay in reality enough to know that you can't have it.
I agree it's quite the de-activation strategy, but I'm also not sure I think it's possible to not do it. It may even be one of those things where the more you try not to do it, the more you'd end up doing it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 1:31:30 GMT
Do you think it's actually possible not to fantasize about other people while in a relationship? I fantasize a LOT and I've pretty much never actually fantasized about anyone I've actually dated (with the exception of someone I dated for 2 months 20 years ago). I almost think the point of fantasy is it's the chance to luxuriate in what you can't/don't have, as long as you can stay in reality enough to know that you can't have it. I agree it's quite the de-activation strategy, but I'm also not sure I think it's possible to not do it. It may even be one of those things where the more you try not to do it, the more you'd end up doing it. my partner and i share all of our fantasies together and it makes me feel like we are safe together to explore things, like he is my sexual best friend, it requires trust and i know it creates a bond and intimacy between us. if it's safe, we keep it. if it makes either of us feel unsafe, we throw it away. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 1:33:19 GMT
and other than that. he's my number one fantasy. i just can't get all worked up about anybody but him.
which makes me feel vulnerable but i do better and better holding steady.
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Post by goldilocks on Aug 22, 2018 2:31:38 GMT
Do you think it's actually possible not to fantasize about other people while in a relationship? I fantasize a LOT and I've pretty much never actually fantasized about anyone I've actually dated (with the exception of someone I dated for 2 months 20 years ago). I almost think the point of fantasy is it's the chance to luxuriate in what you can't/don't have, as long as you can stay in reality enough to know that you can't have it. I agree it's quite the de-activation strategy, but I'm also not sure I think it's possible to not do it. It may even be one of those things where the more you try not to do it, the more you'd end up doing it. my partner and i share all of our fantasies together and it makes me feel like we are safe together to explore things, like he is my sexual best friend, it requires trust and i know it creates a bond and intimacy between us. if it's safe, we keep it. if it makes either of us feel unsafe, we throw it away. Sharing fantasies is a huge part of sexual intimacy for me. Even flirting with sexual innuendo earlier on is helpful, as there is an exchange of hints of what it might be like and this can spark the imagination. I am more moticated to connect with a man if I do have sexual fantasies about him. I look more forward to dates, am more prompt in reply to contact etc. That said, fantasies can take me out of the present moment, and especially if emotional intimacy has not yet been established, fears can sneak into the romantic fantasy. Ideally, we would build sexual and emotional intimacy gradually and in balance, so that I can feel both chill and aroused and finally fall in love, |
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Post by howpredictable on Oct 13, 2018 21:44:22 GMT
I think mine are... 1. engaging in impossible relationships or with unavailable people 2. rejecting available people 3. avoiding meeting new people in the first place 4. being a workaholic / always busy 5. ending relationships prematurely for small reasons I don't think I am actually very avoidant once I am dating someone, but I do everything possible to avoid that ever being the case  I haven't been on these forums for about a year and I'm sorry to read about Juniper's experiences with her friend many months ago now.
To return to the original post topic, my behaviors echo Yasmin's but I would break them down to categories: 1) outside of relationships; and 2) inside relationships. So:
outside: 1) rejecting available people; 2) engaging with too many people all at once (which diffuses my capability of engaging properly with one); 3) avoiding meeting new people; 4) being a workaholic and too busy to get involved with new people.
inside a relationship: 1) being too busy to get together frequently; 2) suddenly becoming unreliable to keep dates or being difficult to plan with; 3) hiding behind childcare responsibilities (even though my kids are now teenagers); 4) being critical of the partner, in small or large ways, and sometimes for manufactured reasons; 5) triangulating with new people, flirting, engaging inappropriately with others (behind the partner's back); 6) cheating on the partner; 7) ending the relationship prematurely for small reasons, usually with blame foisted on the other partner, whether merited or not.
*sigh* Quite an arsenal I seem to have.
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