the glossary · concept
what is avoidant attachment?
avoidant attachment
Avoidant attachment is a style that handles closeness by making distance. It tends to form around caregiving where needing things did not get you much, so self-sufficiency became the safest available setting. In adulthood it looks like valuing independence out loud, finding other people's intensity faintly suffocating, and pulling back at exactly the moment things start going well. That timing is the confusing part, for them as much as for anyone dating them. It is not an absence of feeling. It is usually a great deal of feeling, plus a very old rule that says feeling this much is not safe.
where it comes from: Attachment theory ↗
how to tell
- things get good and you immediately notice everything wrong with them
- you need a lot of time alone after closeness, and you cannot fully explain why
- independence is the first thing you say about yourself
this one has a whole chapter under it. read: your type is not your type →
what to read on this
- Attached Amir Levine & Rachel Heller why anxious attachment is limerence-prone. the obsessive machinery was already running before you met them, it just found a target.
- Hold Me Tight Sue Johnson adult love as an attachment bond, a safe haven and a base you leave from. the science of why calm is the signal and not the absence of one.
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also asked
why do avoidant people pull away when things get serious?
Because seriousness is the trigger, not the person. Closeness activates an old expectation that depending on someone ends badly, and distance is what turns the alarm off. From the outside it reads as losing interest. From the inside it usually feels like needing air.
come think with me
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this is one of about thirty words i have collected for feelings most people never got names for. i send one a week, with the reason it works that way.
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