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Avoidant Quotes

Browse 45 quotes about Avoidant.

Avoidant Quotes

“The problems arise when they become exhausted with their role of spouse or parent, and life involves more than work. AVPs put in huge efforts toward the tasks they do. They have very little energy left. Their families begin to feel the abandonment when ambivalence replaces the structure of rules or work. They can clean up the kitchen, help with homework, but the needed or intimate parts of relationships are more minimal. The other issue is often trying to hold the line, as it were. Many of the AVP’s psychological symptoms turn into health-related issues, which can further remove them”

HealthIllnessAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“If you are avoidant, the first step, therefore, is to acknowledge your need for space—whether emotional or physical—when things get too close, and then learn how to communicate that need. Explain to your partner in advance that you need some time alone when you feel things getting too mushy and that it’s not a problem with him or her but rather your own need in any relationship (this bit is important!). This should quell their worries and somewhat calm their attachment system. They are then less likely to intensify their efforts to draw closer to you.”

SpaceCalmAloneNeedCloseAvoidantAttach
Book:Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
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“If you are avoidant—the surefire sign that you need to use effective communication is when you feel an irrepressible need to bolt. Use effective communication to explain to your partner that you need some space and that you’d like to find a way of doing so that is acceptable to him or her. Suggest a few alternatives, making sure that the other person’s needs are taken care of. By doing so, you’re more likely to get the breathing space you need.”

SpaceCommunicationAlternativeAvoidantBolt
Book:Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
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“One day my mother asked me what color my eyes were, The bank teller had just said something about a cat's green eyes, and my mother had immediately said that her eyes were green, too. A cat's eyes were green; her eyes were green; what color were my eyes? If they were green, too, then the teller might congratulate my mother on having guessed right. She had no idea that a normal person would find it insane for a mother to ask her only child what color her eyes were. But I sensed that she was also trying to see what it would be like to be that unattached to me. She was practicing, to see what it would be like to hurt me, a lot, to show how much she loved me. She had to be careful. If anyone found out that she loved me, we'd both be in trouble. For a while I'd have to suffer, out in the open, the only girl without extra sneakers for gym class, but it was only because my mother's love was so much greater than all the other loves. It was that much more dangerous, so she had to love me in secret, absolutely unobserved by anyone, especially me.”

AvoidantMommy IssuesNeglected ChildrenUnattached
Book:Very Cold People
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“...romantics are, ironically, the worst culprits for being relationship avoidant. This is for two reasons. The first being that committing to someone would mean they would have to call off the search for love, and nothing is more romantic than longing. The second is that they spend a lot of time thinking about who their partner might be, so it's hard to find the 3D version that matches who they've invented in their mind. It's less about perfection, and more about prescriptivism. They write their own version of how they think love is going to pan out, then they find it perplexing that no one seems to know the specific plot and characters other than them.”

LoveAdviceAvoidantAttachment TheoryRomantics
Book:Dear Dolly
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“To the significant other, the confusion can become enormous. They “hear” the AVP say, I want it, but I don’t. I want it all, not just some. I’m too overwhelmed; I can’t get what I really want. Poor me. I can’t deal with this, and you, too. I’m tired. I’m bored. I don’t care about your situation. Calm down. We don’t need emotions here. Only controlled access is allowed. These statements may or may not be said, but they are acted out.”

ConfusionEmotional AbusePsychological AbuseAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Author:Dr. Sandra Smith-Hanen
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“This means that emotional hoarding is occurring. How to balance the needs of others is difficult for them. Therefore, more AVPs need psychological treatment to assist on an ongoing basis. Add to this the fact that the spouse of the AVP recognizes the AVP has times of clarity. This just increases anxiety and defensiveness for both when the needed clarity is gone.”

AnxietyDefensivenessAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“The AVP’s ambivalence extends to displaying affection. They can at once show interest and then shut this interest off when the spouse responds more intimately. The spouse is left with feelings of disappointment and discouragement, annoyance, and confusion.”

IntimacyAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“The AVP often has intestinal issues. The intestines are indeed a second brain and need a significant amount of support. It may be interesting to note the polyvagal theory of Steven Porges (2011), who wrote about the tenth cranial nerve, which runs from the brain to the gut. Negative responses in the gut can occur when flight/fight/freeze responses are automatically activated.”

IllnessNegativityAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality DisorderDigestive System
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Judgment is literal, even in and with their own health. When someone wants and needs calm or regulation, there is an atmosphere of constraint created. When someone’s regulation is in part a self-created world, the other is now in uncertain territory. In an effort to diffuse the tensions, the AVP will often project an attitude of not caring and one of being overwhelmed.”

OverwhelmedAvoidantAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Empathy is difficult for the AVP. They do care about others and can be very aware of emotional content. AVPs are capable of expressing empathetic thought, though it is usually short lived. Their thoughts are often racing and difficult to find. They vacillate between what is fair or not. You might see an AVP give more empathy to a distant relative at an event than the significant other. They do care, but the feeling of that care response can be problematic. They are still hiding, balancing, and are fearful of rejection. Interactions rarely are confronted or dealt with.”

RejectionAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“AVPs will hold the spouse accountable for “wrong” action. This is true even if the spouse felt he or she was supporting the AVP. The AVP is hypersensitive. They do have a continued suspiciousness of others and what they might do to them. This, in turn, maintains a fairly consistent internal defensive posture.”

SuspiciousHypersensitivityAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality DisorderHypersensitive
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“If you’re avoidant, you need to be able to maintain some distance, either emotional or physical, from your partner and preserve a large degree of separateness. In order to be happy in a relationship, we need to find a way to communicate our attachment needs clearly.”

DistanceCommunicateSeparateAvoidantAttach
Book:Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
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“In the beginning of their relationships, both short term and long term, the AVP seems to welcome assistance. As time progresses, they can see these same helpers as incompetent. This could be from a spouse helper to a therapist. When this occurs, passive–aggressive displays can be apparent, subsequent to distancing from a given relationship.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality DisorderPassive Aggressive Behavior
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Hence, the significant other has little to no input on this process. It’s already been done. The dramas/traumas have already been enacted. Their own memories carry negative emotions, even if they are not able to remember the details of the memory.”

NegativityAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“We know that while AVP may be the least problematic of the personality disorders, it can have serious consequences in the lives of close family members, and particularly the significant other. Treatment can be initiated by an AVP, but often the focus is on other “symptoms,” such as failed relationships, anxiety, or depression. More often, treatment is initiated by the AVP’s significant other.”

TherapyAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“The spouse sees all the wonderful aspects embodied in these relationships, and the missing pieces in their own relationship with the AVP. This is how the spouse would prefer to be treated. This causes anxiety, confusion, frustration, and loss for the spouse. Coworkers, colleagues, employees experience different levels of the AVP. The AVP’s perfectionism is usually full blown on the job, where the AVPs are at their best”

AnxietyConfusionFrustrationAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) also has dissociative symptoms as an essential feature. PTSD has been classically seen as a biphasic disorder, with persons alternately experiencing phases of intrusion and numbing... [T]he intrusive phase is associated with recurrent and distressing recollections in thoughts or dreams and reliving the events in flashbacks. The avoidant/numbing phase is associated with efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings associated with the trauma, emotional constriction, and social withdrawal. This biphasic pattern is the result of dissociation; traumatic events are distanced and dissociated from usual conscious awareness in the numbing phase, only to return in the intrusive phase.”

PtsdNumbDissociationTraumatizedPosttraumatic Stress DisorderAvoidantTraumatic StressFlashbacksDissociatedIntrusive Thoughts
Book:Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders
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“The unconscious operation of the attachment system via internal working models probably plays an important part in the choice of marital partner and relationship patterns in marriage. Holmes (1993) has described a pattern of 'phobic-counterphobic' marriage in which an ambivalently attached person will be attracted to an avoidant 'counter-phobic' spouse in a system of mutual defence against separation anxiety.”

MarriagePsychologyAmbivalentAvoidantAttachment TheorySeparation AnxietyRelatonshipsPhobic Counterphobic
Book:John Bowlby and Attachment Theory
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“The non-AVP spouse feels the relationship is one sided in favor of the AVP. AVPs try to avoid personal issues and past issues. Let’s just start today is a common theme. After an argument, Doug doesn’t see any patterns in his behavior. June sees the importance of going forward but is frustrated with 15 years of the same situation. The spouse has brought up dissatisfaction to the AVP. They feel uncertain of themselves. They recognize they need more time and space to be or to relate to others. They are aware they don’t have goals. They do not know how to say no gently, yet firmly, so they are ashamed of themselves. They find that demands or suggestions stop them at some level. They have a sense that they need others so they can keep going. AVPs in relationships often feel they can’t give to their spouse. They find their spouse’s marital style intense and overstated. Often, this is how they view the spouse’s parental style as well. They want stress to be gone.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Most spouses of AVPs appear to have an early history of independence in their upbringing. They are often analytical in their approach and overall thinking. Almost all of the spouses state they like to be close. They appear to be planners and goal directed. Overall, they have strong expectations of themselves and others they are close to. They are now unhappy and see their spouse as unhappy. They have an underlying sense of wanting to fix the issues of the spouse.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Others living with avoidant persons will often say the worst thing is that they can’t give to them. This, too, is regulated comfort, love, support; an adult patient stated his worst experience with his avoidant ill mother was not being allowed to comfort her. Turning off the I care for you or quickly withdrawing for no apparent reason is very confusing. They may show great care when others need it, which is often what the AVPs want themselves. Phrases such as I can’t, You do it, That’s past, I don’t have time are used frequently in relationships. When a spouse “quits,” there is a sense from the AVP of I get to quit. AVPs no longer need to be responsible. Ah, but wait—there is no one to take care of … or … take care of me.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“For AVPs, if they find that they are upset and see a caring spouse become upset with them, it is a release. However, since these are repeated patterns and no stable patterns are maintained, the spouse often becomes more anxious and does hold this anxiety. The AVP is able to see this, at some level. The increased agitation has the effect of keeping the spouse preoccupied and more distant. Nothing is seemingly moving forward. The spouse, like the AVP, can become stuck. June and Doug can both be anxious, distant, or preoccupied. Avoidants have found that they can transfer some of their avoidant and angry responses to other family members. In doing this, their intention is to transfer some of their anxieties to another person to act out or hold for them. This can occur due to living together or can be part of the AVP’s messages that a family member hears and then displays. This effect of transferred anxieties can be experienced by the children, the spouse, and maybe even the family pets. The AVP’s inability to positively confront situations produces many scenarios. Unfortunately, this can often produce in others a negative image of the person acting on behalf of the AVP. This, at some level, registers for the AVP, and shame and guilt become the results of this active/passive position.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality DisorderAnxious Attachment
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“AVPs are usually willing to show or tell others about their external or physical pain. In so doing, they avoid sharing the internal pain they feel. They can overdwell on their anatomical issues. This ambivalent thinking can be self-defeating. And AVPs fear finality. Some patients have not had a recommended surgery, due to the finality of having the problem fixed. The avoidant person’s gauging of their own body is flawed. Some avoidants are quick to seek treatment for their bodily concerns. The tensions they absorb have produced some very real problems. On the other hand, some avoidant persons tend to “ignore” these concerns until a significant health event occurs. As a group, they do need rest, less stressful environments, and dietary consistency, but they are not good at these following these restrictions.”

DietAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality DisorderDigestive System
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“They base their behavior on fear of both criticism and rejection. However, they also want to relate. We see them placing their weight on one side of the teeter-totter and then the other. This occurs in most aspects of their lives. On one side, they will strive to look and act close to perfect, in order to establish connections. Then, they will do things to keep others away. They consciously or unconsciously set themselves up to be the first to reject. Others will then respond with the desired rejection or criticism. The dynamic is one of success to failure, failure to success.”

RejectionAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Perfectionism has its own set of judgment issues. The AVP may see the partner as less than perfect and can exclude them on such a basis. These erroneous judgments, at best, impede their social relationships and, at worst, leave them alone. The way in which they reflect on their lives and the lives of others is so often done from one perspective—theirs.”

SelfishnessAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“Over the years, the significant other can come to feel shame, even though this was not part of their coping mechanisms. Shame can therefore be used by the significant other. Either consciously or unconsciously, they may use shame in interaction with the AVP. Part of this is due to the fact that the significant other fears being guilty (hurting the AVP). When communication becomes more and more difficult in relationships, shame increases in both partners. The other may find that, without using shame, the AVP doesn’t respond in any meaningful way: What is wrong with you? One of the major struggles of the partner of the AVP is in the area of whether they need to hold the AVP responsible for his or her actions. This is a truly difficult piece for the spouse. They have a sense that the AVP is not deliberately trying to hurt them. June often is confused. She doesn’t know if Doug is understanding the hurt he is inflicting.”

ShameAvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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“These scenarios are repeated over and over again in daily living. The spouse feels anger, frustration, and confusion. They ask for a different approach, but usually, over years, it ends up in a hopeless state of confusion. AVPs state they love their spouse, but the question remains for them: To what end? The spouses would like their life to be different, but often they end up in stagnation.”

AvoidantAvoidant AttachmentAvoidant Personality Disorder
Book:Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder
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