What Avoidants Think And Feel Just Before They Pull Away

When trying to understand an avoidant attachment style and why they need to pull away from relationship from time to time, it’s important to understand not only how avoidants think and feel when they’re pulling away but also how their thinking and feeling interacts with other attachment styles, and how it affects their experience of love and of relationships.

In this article, I outline how each attachment thinks and feels when faced with a situation that either requires a flight, flight or freeze reaction.

1) Securely attached think and feel, “I can handle this“.

A secure attachment style is formed when the attachment figure or primary caregiver is available; and responds quickly to a child’s emotional needs in a consistent and sensitive way while supporting the child’s independence.

Theses childhood attachment experiences create adults who have low attachment anxiety & low attachment avoidance. When a securely attached is upset, sad or when they’re hurting what they’re thinking is, “I don’t like how this feels, but I can handle this”. Because securely attached believe that they can handle whatever they’re faced with, they’re able to remain calm, unassuming, empathetic.

2) Anxiously attached think and feel, “I need to do something, anything”.

Anxious preoccupied attachment style forms when the attachment figure or primary caregiver is inconsistent and unpredictable with their availability and responsiveness; or overprotective, excessive with physical affection and closeness.

These childhood attachment experiences create adults who have high attachment anxiety and low attachment avoidance. When they’re presented with a situation that makes them uncomfortable upset or sad, people with an anxious attachment will have a fight reaction. What they’re thinking is, “I don’t like how this feels, I need to do something, anything”. These thoughts trigger an anxious, panicked and worried response and/or protest behaviour.

3) Dismissive avoidants think and feel, “I need to put a stop to this”.

A dismissive avoidant attachment style is formed when the attachment figure or primary caregiver is dismissive of the child’s emotional needs. An attachment figure or primary caregiver who is so detached, cold or punishing can result in the child being too afraid to communicate their emotional needs.

These childhood attachment experiences create adults who have low attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance. When they’re presented with a situation that makes them uncomfortable upset or sad, a dismissive avoidant’s automatic programmed reaction is flight. What they’re thinking is, “I don’t like how this feels, I need to put a stop to this”.

What you see on the outside is calm, cold, distant and maybe even angry behaviour but what a dismissive avoidant is really thinking as they’re pulling away is they need to stop the uncomfortable feeling, and the only way to do that is create distance from what or the person causing me to feel the way they feel.

4) Fearful avoidants think and feel, “It’s going to get worse and I don’t know what to do”.

A fearful avoidant attachment style is formed when the attachment figure or primary caregiver is neglecting, rejecting and/or abusive. A fearful avoidant attachment style can also be a result of an emotional environment that is volatile and unpredictable. Recent studies show that a disorganized attachment can also be inherited from a parent who faced traumatic experiences in their own life, or has mental health issues.

As adults fearful avoidants have high attachment anxiety and high attachment avoidance, that’s why they’re called anxious avoidants. When they’re presented with a situation that makes them uncomfortable upset or sad, they have both a fight (anxious) and flight (avoidant) reaction, but what actually ends up happening most of the time is that fearful avoidants freeze because they’re thinking “This is only going to get worse and I don’t know what to do.” They stay in freeze until either the fight reaction (anxious) or flight reaction (avoidant) kicks in.

How anxious attachment (fight reaction) interacts with Avoidant attachment (flight reaction)

You find that in the same exact situation where both people feel uncomfortable with what’s happening, an anxiously attached person will be trying to do something, anything to feel less anxious, sad or upset, and an avoidant will be trying get as far away as they can. An anxiously attached person thinks an avoidant is refusing to resolve the issue or fight for the relationship, and an avoidant is thinking an anxiously attached person is being annoying, pushy and even needy and clingy. The harder an anxiously attached tries to “fix the problem”,  the further an avoidant pulls away.

It’s even more tricky with fearful avoidants who want to resolve the problem and fix the relationship but also fear that they may not be able to, and things will only get worse. They’re torn between “Do they stay and try to fix things or do they run before it gets worse?”

This “do I fight or do I run” is what creates the pull-push dynamic fearful avoidants are known for, and one of the major differences between fearful avoidants and dismissive avoidants. Dismissive avoidants simply pull away, but fearful avoidants stay conflicted for a while before they pull away.

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