Many years ago I made a youtube video about Avoidant/Dismissive attachment style. I didn’t realize how many avoidant people were actually hungry to understand themselves and to know what was getting in the way of having more satisfying relationships (or any committed relationships at all)! I was a little surprised when the video went viral and when I started getting all sorts of emails from people saying “this describes me exactly, how do i get help?”

So here’s the thing about avoidant attachment: it’s a style of coping with vulnerability or distress that masks or minimizes one’s need for connection, soothing, or support.

Looking like you have it all together, if you’re avoidant, people may not realize just how scared or stressed you actually feel. You may not even realize it yourself, if you’re used to picking yourself up by the bootstraps and marching on when things get tough. Or telling yourself “it’s not so bad” when “it” really actually is pretty bad. Feelings that make sense logically to you may feel okay, but the ones that don’t make sense…well, you might feel baffled by those, or surprised to find that feelings don’t always match the objective situation that triggers them. For example, what if you feel sad on one of the happiest days of your life, like at your child’s wedding? What if you don’t feel sad when someone close to you dies? You may feel anxious if this happens to you.

And the avoidant clients are the ones who typically ask me how therapy is going to fix things on a practical level? When I tell them that we’re going to talk about things together, and that this will help, they don’t really see the point. Talking without practical solutions to make feelings go away? This is most baffling to the avoidant.

Well here’s the thing, if you’ve learned to turn away from knowing what you feel, or from sharing your vulnerable feelings with other people, another self-help book or practical strategy probably won’t help you get into a relationship, feel closer to people you love, or cope with your anxiety or your stress-caused stomachaches or headaches.

But here’s what will: a relationship experience where being vulnerable becomes safe, where you let yourself take the risk of trusting someone else emotionally, where you tell yourself the truth about how much things in your life have actually affected you. Self-sufficient practical solutions aren’t the kind of therapy you need. That might actually reinforce the very problem you need help with, which is how to take emotional risks in relationships, and to align your inner experiences with what you show and say on the outside. A relational therapist can help you do this by encouraging you to get attached, to talk and share instead of “doing” something to fix your external reality, and by pointing out when you’re using detachment or self-sufficiency to be your own therapist.

We learn to be avoidant or dismissive when the people in our life reinforce us for being strong or self-sufficient, or offer practical suggestions instead of focusing on our inner experiences and reflecting them back. Some of us get rejected when we act needy or get the message that we should “get over it” and “move on” when we feel sad, hurt, out of control, or scared. Sometimes we develop an avoidant style because we saw a parent who was dysregulated get overtaken by their emotions or neediness and we didn’t want to replicate that problem in ourselves. We may have taught ourselves to shut down, detach, or use self-reassurance to cope with feeling needy, worried, or distraught.

Sometimes we make a virtue out of a necessity. When instead of being validated, affirmed, or soothed when we needed it the most, we were pushed away or left unresponded to, we may have taught ourselves to buck up. Soon we feel superior or at least virtuous for being “strong”… and society doesn’t help when it comes to reinforcing this view. Dependency is seen as weakness, vulnerability as giving power away. We lose sight of our early needs and shelve them far away from consciousness.

And yet, we’re all wired to need attachment relationships, to need others to comfort and hold things for us, and to experience feelings that don’t always make sense on paper. These are the things that make relationships interesting and intimate, and these are the things that keep us regulated and soothed. If this is a challenge for you, it might be time to go back to basics and to let yourself get close and connected in a relationship where you’re not the one taking care of someone or being in control. Sounds scary? Doesn’t have to be!