u/MothraLovesLamps

Preface* every avoidant is different and avoidance is a spectrum. These are simply patterns of behavior I have noticed.

You don't want a relationship with an avoidant. Here's why.

1). They lie.

Avoidants are not emotionally honest. When they start to deactivate and slow fade, they will deny it is happening.

"No, I'm not avoiding you! I'm just very busy with work."

2). They get the pre-date jitters X 10

Avoidants will cancel last minute to make their anxiety go away. "How about sometime next week?"

3). They are dopamine deficient

Avoidants don't generate enough dopamine on their own. They are constantly looking for dopamine sources via: other people, addictions, reckless behavior, overspending... etc.

4). They have emotional harems

You are not their only source of connection. Avoidants have rosters and a plethora of "friends." They enjoy getting attention from multiple avenues like social media, co-workers, and ex partners. You aren't enough to satisfy the void.

5). They have philophobia

Avoidants literally fear intimacy, which is the entire point of even having a relationship.

6). They are bad at texting

I've known some avoidants who take DAYS to respond to a measly 2 sentences worth of texts...no thank you.

7). They start withholding sex around the 3 month mark.

Their fear of intimacy forbids them from being physical with you. They reject your efforts and make you feel unwanted.

A "slow fade" is something avoidants do when they are deactivating and aren't sure how to handle it, so they make a bid for time.

Mentally, they want to make it work with you, but their body/nervous system will not let the avoidant live out and execute that choice.

Deactivation is what occurs when an avoidant's fear of intimacy overrides their attraction.

Deactivation can present in different ways. Sometimes it is overwhelming anxiety and feels terrible. It can also show up as dread, a gross, sinking feeling, and depression.

So, why don't avoidants share what they are feeling? Why don't they tell you they are deactivating?

There are a few reasons for this:

1). They do not want to upset you.

There simply is no polite way to tell your partner you no longer find them attractive. In fact, you're kinda repulsed and are feeling the ICK. Hearing something like that would only hurt you.

2). They aren't aware what is even happening.

Avoidants can be just as hurt over deactivation as you are. It can be a scary, confusing place to be. Cognitively they care for you, but physically they feel nauseated over the relationship.

3). They hope the dread will just go away on its own.

This never happens, of course. Deactivation only gets stronger and more agonizing the longer the relationship continues.

So the avoidant doesn't warn you or clue you in. That's why the eventual breakup or discard hurts all the more, it is completely unexpected.

What they do instead is minimize contact and withdraw

If you have been following me, you already know what the trauma beast is. It is the metaphor I use to explain deactivation. Deactivation is what occurs when an avoidant’s fear, via nervous system dysregulation, overrides their attraction for their once beloved partner.

I will tell you what helped me subdue my beast.

1). Identify your core wound.

Every beast has a central fear that drives what they do. My core wound was “ABANDONMENT / BEING ALONE.” I was deathly afraid of being left the way my father left when I was only 5 years old.

This core fear meant I was hypervigilant to signs that I was unwanted. It also meant I would steer clear of anyone I perceived to be a playboy or cheater.

Safety and security in my relationships had more value to me than attraction.

I often chose partners I believed to be less attractive than me because I thought that meant they would be less likely to cheat or leave me. I figured they would be too grateful to do so. (Wrong!).

I would even be drawn to men in wheelchairs, or with physical disabilities as I assumed they would also be too grateful to dump me (Also Wrong!).

I realized I had this core wound after watching “The Substance.”

Spoiler Alert*

For anyone with a core wound of being alone…this film is pure nightmare fuel. The main character loses her appeal, becomes unwanted, rejected, a dies alone. I had been watching the movie with an “ex” who had been busy trolling people in TikTok lives. “You’re AI, I can tell by the eyebrows.” (WTF was I doing with such a guy? Not being alone…or so I thought. This moment showed me I WAS VERY MUCH ALONE with him).

Just because someone is physically present does not mean they are with you.

I ran out of the apartment sobbing. I scream-cried when I was in my bedroom.

“I’m alone!!! I’m utterly alone! No one loves me! No one cares about me!”

I even texted my “Pleasure Dom,” desperate for some reassurance.

“Someday someone will love you. Go meditate.”

That only reinforced my fear. He did not love me. And I was tired of men telling me “Someday you will find your person. Until then you can have some temporary fun with me.”

I decided these shallow relationships were an unfulfilling, waste of time.

I realized being alone, was better than being with someone who doesn’t choose you fully.

Not long after that I thought I found my person. I was elated. “At last! I have my moving buddy! I’m not alone!”

Two months later I was discarded and devastated.

To come so close to my “happily ever after” and lose it was utterly crushing.

I had a body fever, aches, and chills. I trembled and cried in my bed and over and over again I said,

“We are safe. We are safe. We are safe.”

Eventually my nervous system believed it. And I had a life altering revelation.

For two years I had been desperately trying to find my “soul mate/forever person.”

I kept saying to myself, “I don’t want to die never experiencing true love.”

I realized then the reality that, that might not ever happen for me. And for once, instead of being sad and terrified, I saw the truth:

I had experienced true love. I had glimpses of it in my own life during the good times with my exes. I knew what it was like to be adored, wanted, and cherished. I had experienced it. I had also experienced the love of being a daughter, friend, sister, and mother. And I had witnessed the majesty of love in others, and I had felt it in movies in books.

I wasn’t going to die never being loved. I had been loved.

I no longer felt the need to find “my special someone.”

I recognized, “I am my OWN special someone.”

I had been waiting for some hero to come and rescue me.

But I am the very hero I had been waiting on.

I no longer think, “Why won’t anyone help me?”

I think, “Who can I help?”

I was looking for my Edward Cullen, my Batman, my Natty…

Only to realize.

I don’t need anyone. There is no one to look for. No one I am waiting on.

I am the hero I always wanted and longed for.

I am she.

Im gonna make an "Avoidant Bingo" card.

Tell me what you think deserves a square!

Here are some of mine:

Long Distance Relationship/LDR

"My ex is crazy"

Marathon runner/Hiking enthusiast

Owns a motorcycle 🏍

These are up for debate as reader response matters, but these are the ones I have clocked as Avoidant.

1. Peter Pan. "The Selfish Avoidant"

The guy just wants to goof off and be a kid forever. He's also got an emotional harem: Wendy, Tiger Lilly, those psychotic mermaids who think trying to drown someone is no BFD.

2. Link from "The Legend of Zelda" "Scared Dismissive Avoidant "

Link is a workaholic who places duty above relationships. He travels around alot and doesn't stay in one place. He also has his own harem: Water princess girl (sorry forgot her name), Midna, wild woodland girl, Lon Lon ranch girl. He also explains in "Breath of The Wild" that he stopped talking because everyone expected him to be brave and strong.

3. Batman "Scared Dismissive Avoidant"

This one is pretty obvious IMO. Stoic, srcretive, and prone to going MIA. The traumatic loss of his parents at a young age gave him a core fear of abandonment.

He's a single billionaire bachelor with a crush on a criminal (cat woman). This infatuation seems odd given how obsessed with justice he is. I think they have a DA/FA dynamic. She excites apart of him that he tries to keep locked up. DAs, being dopamine deficient, are thrill seekers. This would explain why Bruce struggles with his civilian life. He gets bored of it and would rather fight crime than grease elbows with social elites.

I"ll end by saying having a relationship with an avoidant often did make me feel like Lois Lane or Mary Jane, ever accepting and making allowances for sudden drop offs and last minute cancelations...

Only my exes were not out protecting the city.

They were protecting their sense of comfort and safety.