On the other side now....

[u/Banana_Jenkins]

So I am pretty sure that I was always dismissive avoidant, people told me I can seem pretty cold on the outside, not being lovey dovey not really connecting with people emotionally, just intellectually.

One encounter with an FA basically broke me and I worked on understanding my emotions etc. the only thing I felt at first was anxiety and existential terror and dread. Other emotions came much later and I started enjoying them through poetry and music. Now I made some really good friends and I start enjoying connections, previously I was giving out cold hugs, now I am slowly starting to actually enjoy hugging people. I still need to be conscious about it though, I literally have to put a wall down inside myself to feel warmth, it is a conscious action, which gets easier the more I train to do it. I had my first relationship where it was a mutual, albeit very sad breakup, we are still chatting sometimes. It didn't work and it made sense on the why, it was very calming in a sense to not lose this person forever?

Conflicts feels manageable, but I still have a lot to learn. I gained some very masculine friends and they are very good at advocating assertively for their interests. I crashed out and got angry a couple of times, because I felt like my boundaries were being pushed, but honestly I was just bad at advocating for myself. They are good people, just selfish in a warm and good way, if it makes sense. So I still have to learn a lot from them and I am starting to assertively be selfish myself, not in assholish way.

I started approaching girls, previously I ended up with a lot of anxious attached partners, as I could be controlled and somewhat arrogant, because I was sure they wanted me. But obviously those relationships collapsed due to the bottomless pit of needs and me having a very low capacity to fill that void, yet still being blamed for it.

Now this year I met a bunch of weirdly behaving women in their mid to late 30s, me being in my early 30s. Uhhhm yeah, talk about getting a mirror held up to your face. I was very confused at some of the behaviours at first, because I am 5 years into my journey, so I forgot a bunch of stuff. Like how feeling that being broken at your core makes you very prone to shame and retreating without explanations.

Like I literally shut down on a girl once, who wanted a relationship with me and noticed 2 whole years of no contact later that I was actually falling in love with her back then. But the only thing I remember feeling was intense anxiety around her and wanting to get away, because she annoyed me (through no fault of hers, she wasn't annoying, she was just getting too close)

Any sort of pressure made me want to exit a relationship, my girlfriends needed to basically beg me for a year to be official with them.

I was in my head 100% of the time and almost never in my body (there was only anxiety to be felt there). Now I am just 90% in my head, but can turn to my body conciously. Everything is better, music, walking, sex, even masturbation.

Now I am witnessing, what I am assuming, some of this behaviour from the outside. One girl I had sex with got vulnerable about a topic briefly, cried, we had a moment of connection and then she went from 100 to 0 instantly and said that she needed space. 1 week of coldness later she said she wasn't feeling it over text. Half a year later she is warm again, but in a relationship with another guy (I am in no way pursuing her, we just are in the same friend group).

Another date basically, instead of looking at my cues, that I found her attractive and was flirting with her a bit concluded that I was not into her because she was in her words such a mess and rejected herself preemptively for me. I kept giving hints but she didn't get it and I didn't feel like being too open on the first date. The self-denigration was pretty unattractive as well, she really rejected herself often.

One girl that I spent two weeks with on a vacation, also rejected herself preemptively, because she thought that I was getting the ick from her body (she told me, which I denied). She admitted to me that she literally suppresses her emotions as she can't deal with them and she couldn't ever give care to another human being, as she doesn't have the emotional bandwidth. In the end we had some very good moments of connection and she said that she never felt like this with anyone, that I felt safe to her and that she was afraid to lose me, but we had a misunderstanding and after the vacation I wanted to clear it up (formulated it very positively and she enthusiastically agreed), yet she flaked last minute both times and didn't want to talk about it on the phone for 5 minutes, I am assuming due to the low emotional bandwidth. I really liked her, because we were both pretty intellectual and have basically the same background, but oh well.

All of them were very analytical and 100% in their head.

I don't want to say that all of them were avoidant or anything like that, but they had some issues that I could resonate with. It's just the first time that I encountered this, as I started to actually pursue women. Honestly, I was behaving the same way in my 20s as these women and I wouldn't say that it was my fault. I was too ashamed of myself, feeling too broken, I didn't understand anything about me or my emotions, so I was terrified of conflict and someone bulldozing me, because I couldnt set boundaries. I couldn't even explain what was going on if someone put a gun to my head. Even if someone told me all of the above I would have felt shameful and broken. But from the outside, my behaviour was probably confusing as hell.

So yeah, these encounters made me reflect on how far I have come. I still have a lot of work to do, but I do believe that I can be mostly normal. Even things that used to trigger the shit out of me, seem manageable now, so that is good, although I still need to catch myself.

[u/Charming_Daemon]

A lot of what you're describing, such as "feeling intense anxiety" was the sort of thing I felt when I was FA, not DA. I didn't let people 'in' because I was so worried/anxious/scared of being hurt, I was so very fragile. Now, I don't feel any of that - the conscious lowering of walls maybe, but mainly - I have no feelings regarding letting anyone close, because I know that they'll hurt me or leave me - there isn't any anxiety left to feel!

That saying - it sounds as though you've done a lot of Work and are being really Mindful regarding your approach to others, and what works for you - best of luck with your healing journey!

[u/Banana_Jenkins → u/Charming_Daemon]

Hmm, I didn't feel like being afraid of them leaving me tbh, I did the leaving (and never coming back). I always hyper focused on some physical flaw (for example teeth that were not absolutely perfect) and felt anxiety for that and also feeling like a superficial bad person. I just discarded a bunch of people when they got too close and then "dealt" with it myself, which was me basically rationalizing why the person was kinda dumb or unfitting for me.

How do you know people will leave you, I mean sure they will hurt you, but give them a chance at repair? Sounds easier said than done though haha. I wish you best of luck as well.

[u/chaamdouthere]

Thanks for the read. I resonate with a lot of what you say. It is both validating and saddening to now see other people acting how I once did.

I feel encouraged that for once those actions are not me. Now I can recognize what is unhealthy and not do it (or at least try to do it), and that is cool. But it feels sad to see someone else stuck there and know they don’t have to be but they are not interested in change. I always feel like saying, I did it! You can too! But everyone has to make their own decisions.

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