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De-activating Strategies, “You’re trying to control me, aren’t you?”

Welcome back to Don’t Leave!!! With Mary Crocker Cook. Last time we looked at activating strategies we use when threatened by abandonment. Today, we’re going to turn our attention to people who use de-activating or avoidant strategies when faced with threats of abandonment. These are the armadillos in the crowd who always look independent until they allow themselves to try to attach to someone and then become a train wreck!
Reminder: We are still addressing our second piece of our Codependency definition:

When timely and accurate response to distress is unavailable or met with rejection our attempts to attach shuts down or deactivates. These deactivating strategies aim to avoid the distress and frustration caused by the unavailability of our caretaker or partner.
Shutting down our attempts to connect inhibits seeking support and creates a focus on self-reliance. We may cling to “things” and “ideas” because we find people too threatening. Why do you think I have so many letters after my name, lol!
What would this look like?
Might be suspicious of another’s intentions when they want to know about us “Why do you need to know where I am? You want to put a GPS on my ass?”
It doesn’t occur to us that they are genuinely curious or actually LIKE us!
Assuming others are plotting to control us if they get close to us

It doesn’t even occur to us to ask for help
Being visible makes us feel exposed and uncomfortable, so don't accept praise or gifts graciously

Not noticing ourselves or even self-neglect
Refusing to let others be of assistance, assuming that we will owe them or there will be a “tab” later

Interpreting questions or asking for more details as intrusive, anticipating criticism and unasked for advice. By the way, since we see questions as intrusive we don’t ask many.
Have difficulty admitting needs and wants, so find excuses to get what we want, like pointing out how what we want will benefit YOU.

Always have a back-door, or "Plan B" expecting the relationship to inevitably end.

Of course, this sets up a self-fulfilling pattern because we are never fully “in” which can create the distance leading to the relationship to crater. You know this is you if people feel lonely with you.
Attachment needs are consequently denied and dependence on others is avoided. A general distancing from distress is achieved through deliberate inattention to emotional vulnerabilities and threats, including the suppression and closing off of related memories or thoughts. I just don’t “go there,” and if I have to, get back up in my head as quickly as I can.
When we start to feel strong emotions we get up in our head and think about something or distract to avoid feeling “out of control” For the Avoidant De-activator, staying in my thinking is my safe zone.
Story About Me

Anything that would normally activate the system, such as physical or psychological threats to the self, feelings of vulnerability, or wishes for someone’s protection or support, is defended against, suppressed, denied, or countered with grandiosity. I don’t need anything from you – I got this!

Psychobabble Alert!
Brain scans show that people who lack emotional awareness because we’ve shut down emotionally have lost interconnected neurocircuitry in critical areas. The more emotionally unaware we are, the less activation we show in an area of the brain known as the “insula,” a region involved in introceptive awareness – how aware we are of our bodily cues that tune us into what’s happening to us at the moment. If our feelings are defensively restricted and cut-off, we cannot access the hormones that warmth and closeness would normally create to soothe us in our distress.

So, avoidant de-activators have a tendency to not inhabit their own bodies, not necessarily recognize the emotional cues their bodies are trying to give them, and then feel flooded when they Do allow feelings to break through.

Unfortunately, that flooded feeling reinforces their tendency to not let themselves get attached. “See, I knew letting them in was going to be a problem!” and justify going back to shutting down.

So, at the end of the day, de-activating avoiders, like myself, need to learn to see other people as part of their emotional regulation system. To allow ourselves to be comforted by others who can see and hear us accurately.
We crave this, actually, but get freaked out at first when we get it because it can almost feel like a spotlight and we feel exposed. Most of our skills are designed for emotional invisibility to not overwhelm or irritate others with our “neediness.”

So, it takes practice for us to trust that emotional vulnerability will create closeness instead of end it.
In our next episode we will focus on strategies we use when relationships are scary and hard to read. See you then!

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