#fear of vulnerability

[myun-saidthoughts]

Disorganized Attachment Style: What Happens When Someone Becomes "Consistent"

One thing no one talks about with a disorganized attachment style, is the way your brain will automatically block and suppress feelings for someone once these feelings don't mirror the same pain you once felt growing up. Once they become somehow consistent for you, it can feel worse when they come to you because suddenly they don't fill your deepest void, and you'll ask yourself "do i still care?" "why am i not overly attached to this outcome anymore?" "i don't feel fear but i also don't feel this intense need for them, do i even want them?"

Struggling with a disorganized attachment style with abandonment issues creates this idea in your head where those questions causes deactivation and the desire for them somehow vanishes.

The intense lows and highs/feelings that once persisted must always be there or the lack of will showcase a less desire for them.

Therefore a lack of fear = lack of interest.

You feel comfortable with the scarcity mindset, you feel comfortable with "'needing" someone, so when you don't have that need, there's a part of you that feels like they won't be able to give you the "fulfillment" feeling you think you always need in order to like someone.

The truth is, that feeling you are holding onto is just a comfort zone for you and keeps you from letting that one part of you that you hide, out.

That feeling of not needing is something you're not familiar with, so with it brings up the need of past patterns that you once subconsciously or consciously always held onto.

It's okay to not need someone, it's okay to not have this black or white mindset with other souls, and it's okay to just be okay in the moment and not have a constant rollercoaster of emotions embody you. This "desire" you think you always need in order to feel emotionally safe is only because now it doesn't represent the home or care you received as a child.

You're comfortable with the highs and the lows so when someone you once felt you could lose no longer gives you that fear, somehow that need for them dissipates.

Now if you experience this, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you or that you can't fall in love, it just means you now are experiencing love or care in a way that you feel is unsafe because it's the love you've never had the chance to hold onto.

It's okay to not need someone.

[teine-mallaichte]

A-Z of fear of vulnerability prompts:

A-Z of fear of vulnerability prompts:

A. Admittance

B. Betrayal

C. Closed Off

D. Distrust

E. Emotional Armor

F. Fear of Rejection

G. Guarded Heart

H. Hurt Before

I. Insecurity

J. Judgment

K. Keeping Distance

L. Loneliness

M. Masks

N. Not Good Enough

O. Overcompensation

P. Pretense

Q. Quiet Suffering

R. Reticence

S. Self-Protection

T. Trust Issues

U. Unresolved Trauma

V. Vicious Cycle

W. Withdrawal

X. Xenial

Y. Yearning for Connection

Z. Zero Trust

[kuronekochantomidorime]

Me trying to ask for emotional support or affection:

"Would you mind uh being extra nice to me just a little bit if it is not a bother no actually never mind it's fine sorry I'll just kill myself 🙂"

[nekomimithoughts]

Me: I have really slutty and shameful thoughts. Downright dirty. You can't say that out loud without blushing. Degrading shit.

The thought: i wamt... kissie. Pls

[starinthegalaxy34]

Anyone else afraid of getting close to people?

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: I study in a different country to where we live, so my family and I go months without seeing each other sometimes. But for some reason I never miss them. When I get back, they understandably are curious to know lots of stuff, but their questions make me feel uncomfortable, and it doesn’t have to do with the questions themselves. It seems that I don’t feel comfortable sharing myself with my family.

At this point my mom has even mentioned that she’s not sure she knows who I am anymore. Whenever she brings up the way our relationship has come to be, it makes me really sad as well. (Note: my close family is just my mom and grandma, I have an aunt and two cousins that are pretty close as well, and that’s it). It started being like this when I was 13 or 14, and it’s gotten worse and worse. It feels like I don’t love my family. Even though they’ve been endlessly kind to me.

13/14 is the same time I started to feel depressed, and until now Ive only had brief moments of alleviation, when Im distracted from it by socialising or doing a fun activity. I don’t know if one is the cause of the other, or if they have some common cause or are completely unrelated. Maybe the depression isn’t related, since I have great relationships with my friends, and I don’t see why the depression would discriminate between friends and family in terms of how I am with them. During university there were several times that I had nightmares involving my mom and her bad temper.

She was a strict parent but had reasonable boundaries but would explode sometimes and looking back those were emotionally torturous moments. She moved on from them really quickly and was able to make a joke and change conversation soon after, whereas I can’t do that. Maybe I haven’t been able to move on from any of them and this is the result. The nightmares probably mean I have some resentment, right? I feel I shouldn’t have any resentment because she really loves me and her goal is my happiness, and she has made the impossible possible for me.

On the other hand, perhaps her anger and my unconscious resentment is a completely separate issue, since my grandma is probably one of the most kind and selfless people and has never been bad to me, and yet I feel the same with her – I feel uncomfortable sharing myself, I get irritated by them too easily but try not to show anything. And reading this back makes me disgusted with myself. I feel uncomfortable talking to them, hugging them, even smiling at them. For some reason Im better with my aunt and cousins in this regard, but Im not at all like this with my friends.

Maybe Im so knee deep that I’m scared of my family’s happiness if I were to actually change my behaviour at this point. Recently my mom asked me whether I would tell her any secret/problem of mine. She wasn’t asking me to share one, just asking if I would. She said she never told her parents about her problems because she doesn’t get along with her dad, and her mom would just tend to dismiss her feelings, though with good intentions. My mom said she deeply hopes that I would share. I thought about it and concluded that I wouldn’t. Even though she’s the wisest person I know and would be the best at helping me with any problem, I wouldn’t, and I don’t know why. I didn’t tell her this because I don’t want to hurt her. Like I literally cannot remember the last time I smiled at her.

For 19 years I never once thought about my emotions or tried understanding them, I would just ignore them with other activities and they disappeared. Now with more and more problems coming in, and more serious problems, Im trying to teach myself how to be aware of and understand my emotions. I wish I had a good relationship with my mom and I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know why it all went wrong.

I've been depressed without break for 5 years and with emotional problems all of a sudden appearing in the past half year I recently feel suicidal. Of course my mom knows none of it, and the one reason I haven’t done anything to myself is because she loves me a lot and she would blame herself for the rest of her life. So even my emergency exit is blocked off. What on earth is my issue? You owe me nothing. Thank you sincerely.

--------------------

When depression is serious enough to produce suicidal ideation, I very strongly recommend getting professional help. You seem to continually underplay the severity of the problem. Denial only makes the situation worse by allowing mental health problems to fester and worsen over time.

You say you aren't very in touch with your feelings and you tend to ignore them or brush them off. It's actually worse than that because you actively avoid and suppress negative feelings and emotions. Do you know what happens when you do that? You numb yourself and then also lose the ability to feel positive feelings and emotions. Depression is the absence of the positive, is it not? It sounds like one of the first things you need to do is improve your emotional intelligence, consult past posts and recommended books on the resources page.

If you don't mention your type, then my ability to help you is quite curtailed. One deeper reason people get depressed is they get stuck in a rut, existentially. Another way to put it is that they've stopped growing and maturing. I believe this is a relevant factor in your case because you are an adult but still think and behave like a child.

Only you know the reason why you mentally got stuck at the age of 13. For some people, something traumatic happens to them and they can't get past the pain of it, so it halts their growth. For some people, they experience repeated failures and become helpless or destructive, and their dysfunction halts their growth. For some people, it isn't any event that triggered them but a general resistance to change. They get stuck in one very narrow perspective and their mind completely closes to alternative possibilities. Each time the world sends them signs about how their way of seeing things is flawed/wrong, they close up more and more, and they eventually live life as though trapped in a cage of their own making.

Human beings have a natural inclination toward movement and progress - to learn, grow, and evolve. When you stop learning, you stop growing. You've been static for five years. Whatever the reason behind it, understand that resisting the natural inclination to realize your personal potential keeps your mind stuck in the past. The best way out is to make a conscious choice to drop the resistance and embrace the change that would take you to a better place in life.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are many factors that may contribute to a negative attitude toward change, for example:

fear of loss (of something familiar/valuable)

fear of losing safety or stability

fear of losing control (and facing unpredictability)

fear of losing oneself, one’s identity, or one’s freedom

desiring the gains/benefits of unhealthy behavior

low self-esteem

toxic shame

fear of failure

fear of success

pessimism

unrealistic expectations

low frustration tolerance (fear of pain)

lack of resources for coping with the stress of change

lack of knowledge, skill, or competency (regarding how)

What many people don't understand is that the negative things in life are the secret doors to growth. When you avoid the things that trigger your emotional defense mechanisms and run from the situations that seriously challenge you to change your attitude/approach, you will feel bad about yourself. The longer you do it, the more self-esteem you lose, until you eventually feel worthless and, as you say, "disgusted" with yourself.

Negative feelings and emotions serve an important purpose in urging you forward in life, and the more you don't listen to them, the louder they get, until they eventually mutate into a full-blown mood disorder like anxiety or depression. The emotional system is part of your survival instinct as a human being. Negative feelings and emotions are there to prompt action. To fail to act is to fail to survive, to fail to live.

But when you're brave enough to face up to the things that make you uncomfortable, the process of meeting the challenge will reveal new aspects of yourself and you'll have more opportunities to learn about what it means to live life well. Do you care about your potential? Do you care about living life better? Or do you want to stay the same your whole life? You've tried the latter, how is it working out for you? When your life strategy isn't working, it's time for something new, is it not?

There is certainly a big difference between family and friends. Family relationships have far greater potential for intimacy and, on the flip side, far greater potential to hurt. The fact that you feel so conflicted about them reveals the depth of your care and love for them, yet you don't want to express any of it. Friends come and go throughout life, but familial love is a foundational aspect of your existence, a part of your identity. Denying it means denying an important part of yourself, like locking part of yourself away to wither and die. Until you confront this family conflict and reconcile your feelings about it, you'll keep feeling fragmented and stuck in life. Whether you decide to love them or leave them, commit to a decision so that you can finally get on with your life.

On the surface, this situation with your family likely indicates that you have a fear of vulnerability, but there could be other fears mixed in beneath it as well. You have yet to realize that confronting the fear and working through it allows you to learn how to be a more capable person and how to live your life better. Your life is in your hands. You are choosing to keep yourself closed off. You can choose to open the door at any time. Feeling fear, anxiety, or pain is not the end of the world. In fact, without opening yourself up to those negative feelings, you'll never truly understand what it means to experience positive feelings like happiness, fulfillment, and love.

[ace-of-kats]

Currently have a callus on my toe and am favoring one foot because of that. Thought about how in the wild I’d be targeted by predators for that, so I tried to walk on it normally to see if I could hide it if I had needed to. Apparently, I am Louis from Beastars. This reminded me of when a friend of mine told me that she admires the way I hold myself. I was surprised, for I have always seen myself more like a deer, or a squirrel perhaps, quick to startle, always sniffing the air and testing the ground, afraid of its own shadow and never sure if its next steps will be its last. Perhaps my friend has misjudged me, as she is somehow much shorter than even I, and thus, everyone must look imposing to her.

Or perhaps what my friend sees is real. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am wrong about myself. For a confident appearance can often be nothing but a mask, an overcompensation for hidden insecurity.

Either way, I wish I had told her that perhaps I hold myself with this confidence that she apparently sees in me because I actually lack confidence. My composure is a bluff: the best method of victory; if you can persuade the other side that you are not worth the trouble of fighting at all, you will lose nothing. Conversely, the elk that limps is always the first to die.

[howifeltabouthim]

It could only go wrong — and that would break me, it would break some integrity, some dignity, some pride, something by which I live.

Iris Murdoch, from The Book and the Brotherhood

[slut4poets]

Your fear of vulnerability is killing opportunities!

[cosmicasey]

the tempest

the dark clouds of fear gather in the depths of my heart, heavy with the anticipation of his apology. there's a tempest of emotions swirling within, making me shudder at the thought of allowing him back into my life once more. in moments of solitude, i wrestle with the possibility of caving in under the persuasive power of heartfelt words – words that hold the potential to undo and blur those steadfast boundaries i've built so painstakingly. the uncertainty gnaws at me incessantly, leaving me taut on a tightrope stretched between forgiveness and self-protection, haunted by the silent whispers of vulnerability echoing through my turbulent heart. the cold tendrils of fear snake through me, a chilling reminder of past heartache and painful vulnerability. every nerve in my body seems to scream in protest, warning me of the potential devastation that lies ahead. i can feel the walls around my heart, the walls i carefully built over time, begin to quiver as though threatening to crumble. the very thought of exposing myself once more to the harrowing possibility of rejection, betrayal or loss leaves me gasping for breath, paralyzed by an overwhelming sense of dread and trepidation.

if he apologized and wanted to make amends, would i really refuse?

- tcg ☆

05.30.2023

[feral-ballad]

Savannah Brown, from Closer Baby Closer; “Retroactive jealousy”

[Text ID: “Someday I’ll care for something / without wanting to close a door behind it.”]

[myun-saidthoughts]

Disorganized Attachment Style:

it hurts to wish for a love my own soul is unable of carrying. my wish for romance are like waves, as the wish comes it never stays. my hidden wish to be held only bleeds out when i can't tell, this desire seeps so far into my bones that without that wish whispering in, i can't care to be held

[lucidloving]

David Foster Wallace // Marya Hornbacher, Waiting // Albert Camus, A Happy Death // Kai Cheng Thom, A Place Called No Homeland // Brené Brown, Dancing Greatly // @danielcalmdown // Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love and Leaps of Faith // Marya Hornbacher, Waiting // Sleeping At Last—Neptune

[whumpster-dumpster]

Hey, hey! Friendly reminder to make sure your supposedly “fearless” character gets their darkest fear revealed in the worst way possible so they break down into a vulnerable shaking mess in front of all the people they care about 

[fumrell]

Talking about my OC ships isn't enough I need them to be real <- has written himself into a corner regarding multi-ships/poly ships

[mroddmod]

little scrapped comic bc it felt a bit ooc to me in hindsight