Detachment

purplecrayons said:
Lol, no, though I have a roommate that doesn't turn the fan on or leave the door open to air it out, & it's like a stink bomb when I have to go in there!

Manipulation, lies, selfishness, laziness, corruption... mostly like... if you're up front about your flaws and don't try to present yourself as something you're not then I can make a decision to be around you even though I know your wicked indulgences, but lets say you present yourself to me as a fair honest gentleman then flip the script. For example: I was convinced to go skinny dipping with 2 friends, one a married male friend under the directive that his wife was completely cool with it & would be told. He even acted like he tried to call her beforehand. (I was very intoxicated). No sooner than we run back up to the hotel in our towels he & my other friend say it's a secret & not to breathe a word to anyone, and he says he's not going to tell his wife. I was FURIOUS. He then got pissed because he saw the judgement on my face, yelled at me all the way home the next day & had an intense argument w/ his wife who was apparently NOT cool with it. Go figure.
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What a loserface!
 
i emotionally distance myself from others when i feel threatened by actual or potential hurt. self-protect. it’s like inside i’m saying, ‘i will give nothing of myself, and now you cannot hurt me’. but i am a very warm person, and i do desire strong intense connections. just a couple. and how great that is when that happens.
 
I am not a distant person, but I think there is only one person I am still attached to in the entire world. I think.

I detached myself emotionally from my parents as a preteen I think.

Relationships are still relationships without strong emotional attachment, and I still like them to be around. I still like people and I engage them and engage myself with them. But at the end of the day, what do they all mean to me? I don't know.
 
Is it really detachment that we experience, or the need for space/solitude?


The prospect of permanently losing a relationship, quickly sorts out which relationships we are detached about.
 
I get too emotionally attached to relationship partners. I've come to realize that all more meaningful relationships are about balancing emotional energy, so far I've never been in relationship where this balance was maintained.
 
I think for me personally, it is about a number of things- I get so emotionally involved that I've been more depressed over the things that have happened to my friends than they have. I get so invested that it can really affect my mood, my relations, and my work performance- that is part of why I have begun to detach from people.

I also begin to detach if I feel that I might be abandoned, or if I feel closed off from the person that I am with- I have found however that it is usually best to reopen a dialogue to fix things instead of relying on detaching behavior. When I shut myself out, I am the one who suffers- and when I open up dialogue, I open up a gateway to the future. The thing I have realized most is that ultimately it is up to me to create the change that I want.

I also feel a great need for perfection- that I need to be doing something interesting or exciting, that I need to look beautiful, that I need to be witty and clever, and if I feel like I can't perform, then I have a hard time being able to "be there" for others. I want to be this magical awesome person that lights up people's lives, and I have just begun to realize how foolish and stupid that is, and that most people don't expect the same things out of me that I will expect out of them. So I guess you could say that I detach when I think I might fail. Just the same with relationships, if I don't feel like I am living up to my expectations- then how can I live up to my partner's? I very much have abandonment issues, and sometimes I test my partner by putting up boundaries and testing them. This is very negative behavior and it literally makes me physically ill. I just have to work to be healthy and feel good about myself in order to avoid these negative behaviors. This might sound funny, but as a child I idolized Olivia Newton John in Xanadu- who was a muse. I always want to help people, or inspire them, and this is just now something that I am no longer trying to do. The reality is that sometimes I am the "fake" or that I come off that way even when my intentions are good and I do care.

But at the same time, if I see a behavior or action I don't morally agree with, I will stop being friends with that person or interacting with them, until some time has passed, then I will hangout with them again, and see if the behavior has changed. This has happened with friends of mine that got into coke, heroin, and very "open" sexuality. If I think that they will get hurt, but they refuse to change their ways and purposefully hurt themselves or others, then I cannot stand by them. They must make their journey alone, and if they change later, then I am more than willing to befriend them again.


So I would say ultimately, that I care so much, I detach in order to protect myself from getting hurt.
 
I found an interesting article today and thought this would be the appropriate place to put it without creating another thread.

Adult Attachment Theory http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/attachment.htm

The idea that romantic relationships may be attachment relationships has had a profound influence on modern research on close relationships. There are at least three critical implications of this idea. First, if adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then we should observe the same kinds of individual differences in adult relationships that Ainsworth observed in infant-caregiver relationships. We may expect some adults, for example, to be secure in their relationships--to feel confident that their partners will be there for them when needed, and open to depending on others and having others depend on them. We should expect other adults, in contrast, to be insecure in their relationships. For example, some insecure adults may be anxious-resistant: they worry that others may not love them completely, and be easily frustrated or angered when their attachment needs go unmet. Others may be avoidant: they may appear not to care too much about close relationships, and may prefer not to be too dependent upon other people or to have others be too dependent upon them.

Second, if adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, then the way adult relationships "work" should be similar to the way infant-caregiver relationships work. In other words, the same kinds of factors that facilitate exploration in children (i.e., having a responsive caregiver) should facilitate exploration among adults (i.e., having a responsive partner). The kinds of things that make an attachment figure "desirable" for infants (i.e., responsiveness, availability) are the kinds of factors adults should find desirable in romantic partners. In short, individual differences in attachment should influence relational and personal functioning in adulthood in the same way they do in childhood.

Third, whether an adult is secure or insecure in his or her adult relationships may be a partial reflection of his or her experiences with his or her primary caregivers. Bowlby believed that the mental representations or working models (i.e., expectations, beliefs, "rules" or "scripts" for behaving and thinking) that a child holds regarding relationships are a function of his or her caregiving experiences. For example, a secure child tends to believe that others will be there for him or her because previous experiences have led him or her to this conclusion. Once a child has developed such expectations, he or she will tend to seek out relational experiences that are consistent with those expectations and perceive others in a way that is colored by those beliefs. According to Bowlby, this kind of process should promote continuity in attachment patterns over the life course, although it is possible that a person's attachment pattern will change if his or her relational experiences are inconsistent with his or her expectations. In short, if we assume that adult relationships are attachment relationships, it is possible that children who are secure as children will grow up to be secure in their romantic relationships. Or, relatedly, that people who are secure as adults in their relationships with their parents will be more likely to forge secure relationships with new partners.
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Click on the link for more information.
 
Another
http://www.stantatkin.com/csg/Articles/Addiction to Alone Time.pdf

SUMMARY
For the avoidantly attached individual the ball naturally rolls in the direction of autoregulation. This
default position of autoregulation is mystifying to the more interactive partner. He or she cannot
understand how the avoidant counterpart can forget him or her so quickly or suddenly seem so
disconnected: engaged one minute and disengaged the next. The partner may feel as if they have been
forgotten ‐‐ and in truth they have. The individual who has an avoidant history is in some ways better off
than the more secure partner. The avoidant partner maintains a pseudosecure relationship that is
internally based on a fantasy of his or her partner's omnipresence. The dissociative aspect of
autoregulation screens out minor intrusions, such as bids for connection and interaction. In this sense the
avoidant can maintain an unawareness of breaches in the attachment system. However, when partners
approach them physically they inadvertently trigger a threat response within the avoidant partner that
results in attempts to withdraw or attack. Once again, the avoidant has a very difficult time shifting states
particularly from autoregulation to interaction.
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Adult Attachment Patterns http://www.psychalive.org/2010/07/what-is-your-attachment-style/

Secure Personality:

People who formed secure attachments in childhood have secure attachment patterns in adulthood. They have a strong sense of themselves and they desire close associations with others. They basically have a positive view of themselves, their partners and their relationships. Their lives are balanced: they are both secure in their independence and in their close relationships.

Dismissive Personality:

Those who had avoidant attachments in childhood most likely have dismissive attachment patterns as adults. These people tend to be loners; they regard relationships and emotions as being relatively unimportant. They are cerebral and suppress their feelings. Their typical response to conflict and stressful situations is to avoid them by distancing themselves. These people’s lives are not balanced: they are inward and isolated, and emotionally removed from themselves and others.

Preoccupied Personality:

Children who have an ambivalent/anxious attachment often grow up to have preoccupied attachment patterns. As adults, they are self-critical and insecure. They seek approval and reassurance from others, yet this never relieves their self-doubt. In their relationships, deep-seated feelings that they are going to be rejected make them worried and not trusting. This drives them to act clingy and overly dependent with their partner. These people’s lives are not balanced: their insecurity leaves them turned against themselves and emotionally desperate in their relationships.

Fearful-avoidant Personality:

People who grew up with disorganized attachments often develop fearful-avoidant patterns of attachment. Since, as children, they detached from their feelings during times of trauma, as adults, they continue to be somewhat detached from themselves. They desire relationships and are comfortable in them until they develop emotionally close. At this point, the feelings that were repressed in childhood begin to resurface and, with no awareness of them being from the past, they are experienced in the present. The person is no longer in life today but rather, is suddenly re-living an old trauma. These people’s lives are not balanced: they do not have a coherent sense of themselves nor do they have a clear connection with others.
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Those in this forum that have admitted to being what they refer to as "asexual" may in fact have a "Dismissive Personality" associated with Adult Attachment???
 
Some nice info @Sriracha
I would say I am avoidant. I was shuttled around a lot when I was young and my mom's focus was on my older sister. Sis developed leukemia at age 4--I was 3. There were some really tough times for my mom and she struggled to get her healthcare and in the early 70's not much hope of finding a cure. Luckily sis was placed in an experimental program in Children's hospital and given some new treatement consisting of chemotherapy and radiation--we now know it cures cancer but didn't back then. There were 3 choices of experimental treatment and she got put in the right one. So, I learned to be self sufficient. I know how I was left to fend for myself (not by myself but with relatives who could watch me), didn't recieve a lot of attention from my mom coupled with a horrific event at age 4 have a lot to do with my avoidant tendencies.
 
Stormy1 said:
Some nice info @Sriracha
I would say I am avoidant. I was shuttled around a lot when I was young and my mom's focus was on my older sister. Sis developed leukemia at age 4--I was 3. There were some really tough times for my mom and she struggled to get her healthcare and in the early 70's not much hope of finding a cure. Luckily sis was placed in an experimental program in Children's hospital and given some new treatement consisting of chemotherapy and radiation--we now know it cures cancer but didn't back then. There were 3 choices of experimental treatment and she got put in the right one. So, I learned to be self sufficient. I know how I was left to fend for myself (not by myself but with relatives who could watch me), didn't recieve a lot of attention from my mom coupled with a horrific event at age 4 have a lot to do with my avoidant tendencies.
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I lean toward the avoidant as well. I had a good childhood and loving parents. I think it stems from my feelings and opinions never being validated by my parents. So I kind of grew up in this shell, though my world evolved within my own mind (INFJ idealism perhaps? lol.) Long, long ago during my dating years ... my partners would have a hell of a time getting me to open up if there was a problem. I know now why, it was the conditioning to just "take it and receive punishment."

I don't blame my parents for this. I think I have done an incredible job improving it over the years, and most of it was achieved through acknowledgment and understanding. Still there are some things that cannot be fixed ... such as the addiction to alone time and the yin/yang emotional attachments.

This is another interesting article: http://voices.yahoo.com/love-avoidance-treatment-tips-8504287.html
 
I have worked on my stuff too. I still tend to get stuck on "trust" but I'm lots better than I was in my 20's. I am much more capable of telling someone I care about them--however, I will still walk away quick if my "trust-o-meter" beeps. *shrug* It will always be an ongoing process I think.
 
Bird said:
Korg and I were discussing my bad qualities yesterday and one he pinpointed
on was that I am socially fickle. Another way to phrase this would be "prone
to grow detached and disappear". Becoming emotionally detached and then
detaching myself from a relationship entirely is common for me. There are times
when I do not even become emotionally attached to people.

I think I do this because I want more than they can offer. As soon as I discover
that they lack something that I desire in others, I become steadily more and
more disinterested. I like getting to know people but eventually there is a point
I reach where I've gotten to know that person, I know what they're about, I
know how they think and then I'm done. There is nothing left to be discovered.
I cannot make myself remain interested. I set myself up for a life of loneliness.
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It is similar for me... I often work 100X harder to counter this effect only to find myself eventually resenting the object I am trying to force myself to cling to and sabotage becomes almost subconsciously viable.
 
Yeah for the most part detachment is pretty much who I am. I don't do it because I don't care about people but it is just easier to not have emotions involved. I understand emotions can be irrational and can cloud my judgement so sometimes I think it is best to approach others with reason. Of course this is just insane and I can't be this way with people all the time but it happens.
 
^^ yes. if we don't feel, how can we hurt. i can relate.

personally, i truly love 'irrational' emotions sometimes. i cannot imagine myself without them. i rarely share my deepest ones, but when i do, it feels like magic ---- oh, lets share our secrets. lets share our truths! just you and me (don't tell a single person). what a strong force.

at this point though, there's a lot more to lose.
 
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