Hi! I’m Paulien and I’m so happy you are here! In this blog I’m going to tell you about five reasons why you deactivate as a fearful avoidant. Deactivation is confusing. But there are reasons why you deactivate and I think it can be very valuable to know why you do it, why you push your partner away, because that’s what deactivation is. It’s breaking the connection and pushing your partner away. So let’s just dive in! It might be valuable to read my blogs on deactivation too, so you get the full picture on this.
#1 Letting someone close can mean harm
So the first reason why you deactivate is because letting someone come close can mean harm. You associate that with harm. And let me explain all sides of that because fearful avoidants want connection.They want to be close to other people, but they are also very afraid of that. And deactivating is a way to push your partner away, to break that connection. So it could be that you’ve actually been working to get your partner close (activation mechanism), but then when they come too close: all of a sudden your fear brain jumps on and it’s like: nope, nope, nope, that’s too close. And now I’m going to deactivate!
Why you do that is because you associate people coming close with harm. And that could be because you believe that you are a bad person and that when somebody comes too close they will see that. Or they will find fault in you and they will reject you or leave you.
But it could also just be that your experiences with people coming close, and most of the time that’s your parents or caretakers when you were little, that was always followed by them becoming angry, hypercritical, lashing out or being very uncomfortable. It is more obvious when you have been abused as a child (physically or sexually) then it could be that that fear is still ingrained or stored somewhere in your body or energy system. In all cases it can lead to you feeling very uncomfortable with letting people come close. It’s just doesn’t feel safe for you to allow somebody in, to allow somebody to come close.
#2 You are not allowed to have negative emotions
So what you might experience is that you deactivate when you have negative emotions. So somebody comes close or something happens or you just feel all kinds of things and you just don’t know how to handle that. And what you have learned is that when you have them, your parents (for instance) got angry or rejected you or just weren’t there for you. So negative emotions also have a very negative association in the sense that it feels unsafe to have them.
And that’s why you deactivate, because it feels safer to be alone. Because in a way you’re convinced that your partner or that person will get angry, leave, reject, dismiss or harm you because you have a negative emotion. And none of the emotions are negative, but that’s how you label them. For instance when you cried when you were younger and your father said “don’t be a wuss, don’t cry”, was just very dismissive or got angry when you cried: you labelled that emotion as a negative emotion. And when you feel that coming up, you suppress it. But also you deactivate because it feels unsafe to have somebody close while that emotion comes up.
It could be that this is happening even when you don’t really feel that you are getting sad or that you feel like you have to cry because this all happens within like a millisecond. Your body feels sad, feels that emotion, and even before you really consciously process you’re feeling that: your body will repress that feeling and deactivate your partner or whoever is close to you in that moment.
#3 You haven’t been taught how to express needs and boundaries
This is so very important for all the insecure attachment styles and definitely also for the fearful avoidant. Maybe even the most. When you haven’t learned how to communicate your needs and your boundaries, there’s just no other way for you to feel safe than to deactivate. To break the connection and to push the other person away.
It could very well be that you weren’t allowed to have boundaries when you were a child, that there was enmeshment or codependency (which are big words: you can definitely find out what that means by just Googling them). And when you weren’t allowed to put up boundaries: the only way to do that is to deactivate.
The thing I used to do was just becoming really cranky. Like I would not speak, I would not talk, but I would just exude this extreme crankiness. And it was a way of putting up a boundary that I just never learned to express because when I did, it wasn’t acknowledged. So I just kind of gave up on that because you just don’t know a different way.
And you will see that as you heal this attachment style and as you start to express your needs more, express your boundaries more: you will have less need for deactivation. This alone can heal a lot in your attachment style. You will notice that your deactivation mechanisms are just becoming less and less and less, which is awesome.
#4 Your body is used or addicted to the chemicals being released in your body
For instance, certain beliefs or the addiction to the feelings that come with chaos of deactivation: if those are what you’ve learned or were used to in childhood, that’s what you take with you. And it can really genuinely be a kind of addiction to the cocktail of hormones and chemicals that are released when you deactivate or when you have deactivated. And they don’t feel good. So it’s not a ‘good feeling’ addiction. It’s not like you want to feel that way, but your body is just so used to them that in a way it feels good too.
I’m not sure if I’m explaining it right, but maybe you just recognize this like: oh yeah, I know what you’re saying. I know what you mean. So when things are stable in your relationship for a long time, this is when this can happen. You’re actually in a healthy, good relationship and all of a sudden you deactivate out of nowhere and you don’t know why and your partner doesn’t know why.
It could be that your body just kind of craves a hit of those chemicals and of feeling guilty and feeling ashamed. So all of a sudden you deactivate and you feel like such a bad person just because your body is used to that or addicted to that. And in a way your fear brain feels safer when you feel that every once in a while, instead of being safe and keep being safe. Because your fear brain is just so used to having this chaos and this roller coaster of emotions that when things are stable and safe, it’s like: when is the other shoe going to drop? And if it’s not dropping, I’m going to drop it. I’m going to do that myself because that feels safer than not knowing. That feels safer than the uncertainty of when or where it’s going to happen. And it might not happen at all, but your fear brain is just convinced that it will. And so you deactivate just to be in that familiar pattern.
And it could be that you did that in a mean and hurtful way. And then you have the feeling that you have to reel your partner back in (activation mechanism), to be a good person and get that approval again, which feels good. And it’s almost a way of relieving. Your fear brain is like: okay, now we have to fix this. So yeah, it’s so confusing. If you’re in the middle of it, I really hope this helps to at least know what’s happening.
#5 Being angry feels safer than being vulnerable.
Being vulnerable as a fearful avoidant can feel so unsafe. And so the moment you feel vulnerable or the moment something happens in your relationship that invites you to be vulnerable can feel as a shock. You just cannot handle that feeling because it’s associated with rejection, hurt or abandonment in a way. And so feeling angry feels much safer because it feels powerful. And you want to feel powerful in that moment.When you become angry, helps to see whether it might be because you’re feeling vulnerable (and that just does not feel good).
All of these things are not weird. You are not wrong. You are not broken. You make sense.
It all makes sense. So much sense. It all stems from something. It stems from survival. And you can heal it. I really want you to know that you can heal it. You don’t have to keep lugging this around for the rest of your life. It can feel totally safe to be vulnerable. It can feel totally safe to be in a safe, healthy, steady relationship. And you can enjoy that. And it can feel so much richer than that emotional rollercoaster that you might be addicted to.
Now, if you really want to get to the root of this, you can join my online program Healed & Happy. We dive deep and we heal. We heal through EFT, that’s one of the ways I use.
As always, I am so very happy you are here. Let me know in the comments below whether this was helpful, whether you knew why you deactivate or whether you found out some new things. I would love to know.
Thank you for being here!
Much love, Paulien
This is not to diagnose. I’m not a psychologist and it’s not black and white. You can definitely recognise so much of the fearful avoidant attachment style and maybe you’re even dominantly securely attached. So don’t see this as this is a strong diagnosis. I am just here to tell you all about it and really help you understand yourself a little bit better.
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