"The fearful-avoidant (sometimes called anxious-avoidant) share an underlying distrust of caregiving others with the dismissive-avoidant, but have not developed the armor of high self-esteem to allow them to do without attachment; they realize they need and want intimacy, but when they are in a relationship that starts to get close, their fear and mistrust surfaces and they distance."
Yes. I do need intimacy. It's rare that I develop it with someone, but when I do, I feel safe, secure, and extremely contented. My stress levels go down and my bipolar seems to even out. It's something I want but at the same time, don't believe I will ever find. Perhaps because of the way I was parented.
Mistrusting those who show me "care" is something I do often. My mother was the key parent in my life. My dad was around, but only on sporadic weekends thanks to the decisions of the court, and so I spent most of my childhood with my mother. She is a narcissist. I'm not talking about figuratively. I mean clinically, she has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If you take the time to read the article that link leads to, you'll figure out that caring for another person is not high on the priority list of a Narcissist. So it was with my mom. I basically raised myself. So is it any wonder that I can't trust people who come into my life announcing that they want to care about me?
"...at a distance the sufferer wants to get closer, but when he does, the fear kicks in and he wants to withdraw. This leads to a pattern of circling or cycling, and the fearful-avoidant can often be found in a series of short relationships ended by their finding fault with a partner who seems more threatening as they get closer to understanding them."
Story of my life. As soon as someone gets close to seeing "the real me", I'm desperately looking for a way out. It boils down to fear of being rejected or abandoned for not being seen as good enough or worth love.
"The early caregiving of a fearful-avoidant type often has some features of both neglect and abuse (which may be psychological—a demeaning or absent caregiver, rejection and teasing from early playmates.) A fearful-avoidant type both desires close relationships and finds it difficult to be truly open to intimacy with others out of fear of rejection and loss, since that is what he or she have received from their caregivers."
Again, this seems to suggest that growing up with a narcissistic parent had a lot to do with my fear of intimacy and rejection. Life with Mom was hard. That's a blog post for another day.
" ...the fearful-avoidant subconsciously believe there is something unacceptable about them that makes anyone who knows them deeply more likely to reject or betray them, so they will find reasons to relieve this fear by distancing anyone who gets too close."
Exactly, exactly, exactly. I not only believe that there is something unacceptable about me- I am CONVINCED that there is. I could make a mile-long list of what is unacceptable about me. I live and breathe the guilt and shame that comes with knowing *exactly* what's wrong with me.
"A narcissistic or demanding mother can cause a child to mold him- or herself to please the parent to the point where little remains of the child’s own feelings and personality; they have been trained to display a false personality to gain parental approval."
Really wasn't kidding about that narcissism thing, guys. And speaking of that "false personality"?...
"...the fearful-avoidant have commonly developed a false self, an acceptable outer personality which inhibits spontaneous display of their innermost thoughts and feelings even in intimacy. Those who think of themselves as their friends will often be surprised and hurt when high stress brings out the true personality of the masked one. By hiding their true selves, such people live with a social support network that has been attracted by their fake persona, so that when a crisis occurs, those who might have cared for them aren’t around, and those who are around don’t care for the real person revealed by the crisis."
My 'false self' is not technically a false one at all. It's just another part of me. Rather than a person wearing a mask, I think of myself as an onion. And if you are a cook at all, you know that an onion has layers. And the more layers you peel off of the surface, the closer to the core of the onion you'll get. My onion skin (outer layer) is what strangers and acquaintances see. I think we all have onion skin for strangers and acquaintances. But if you peel that away, you'll see the layer underneath. This is the layer that friends and love ones see. Then below that layer, you have the part of you that perhaps only BEST friends see. Then under that layer, the part that perhaps only a lover or a spouse will see. And below that layer, you have the part of you that NO ONE sees. Well, some people stop there. But not me. No, I have dozens more layers under that one. There are parts of me that *I* don't even see that often. There are parts of me that only my illness (bipolar) brings out. And there are parts of me that haven't been seen by anyone because they are buried in the darkest recesses of my mind and subconscious. You get my point with all of this.
So yeah. I am hard to get close to. I am "fearful-avoidant". I'm working on opening up more layers to more people, but it's not an overnight process. If someone wants to be in my life and seriously be a long-time friend or more, they're going to have to accept me as the onion I am, and never try to peel my layers before I am ready to peel them first.
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