Why I Am Avoidantly Attached

I really want a relationship. Technically.

Of course, Disney infiltrated my mind to seeing relationships as the only way to happiness. I know this is not objectively true. At least, my head knows. And still, my heart craves a relationship.

And still, closeness feels like a burden to me.

And still, I am Single.

Manipulating myself into hiding from love

This is because I subconsciously (and sometimes consciuosly) deprioritize love so effectively that no one would question my singlehood.

I run marathons. I captain a tennis team. I have an ambitious corporate job. My entire life setup screams: No space for anyone but me.

Am I covering up my true needs – even from myself? Am I hiding? Why do I put questionmarks behind these facts?

Well, it’s because I am avoidantly attached.

Explaining avoidant attachment style

For those unfamiliar with the term: being avoidantly attached means valuing independence so strongly that emotional closeness feels threatening. Even (or especially) when avoidant people care deeply about someone, their instinct is to create distance.

But that’s just the clinical description. The more uncomfortable question is: why did this strategy become mine?

Let’s dive into the very person, very uncomfortable truth of why that is so in my case.

My avoidance-building process

I once read that people develop behavioural pattern due to

• a) high-impact events that rewire their behaviours — e.g. a trustful person who is left by surprise by their partner can become generally mistrustful through that event or
• b) a sum of many experiences that made one behaviour the best strategy — e.g. an avoidantly attached person that learned on many small occassions that closeness is not safe

I am clearly the latter. From a young age, I learned that expressing emotions and vulnerability isn’t safe. That closeness is a risk — not a reward.

Hyper-independence didn’t happen overnight. It was built, layer by layer, through repeated experiences that nudged me toward self-reliance as the most reliable strategy.

The roots of my avoidance go back further than I’d like

The first time I remember covering up my emotions was in the first grade in school. We had three “powerful” girls in class. They were bullies and you definetely didn’t want to be their next target. I figured out how to be liked by them, even though I didn’t like them at all. I was just scared.

So I laughed at their jokes. I let them copy my homework. I learned how to be liked by them. Despite I did not like them. Yup. Super scared.

People pleasing and avoidance

Also, I have a mom that leans extremely into people pleasing. And while she is not aware of her own pattern, I am. And I know this is the pattern I learned from as a child.

I continuously saw my mom overperforming for others, always feeling she owes them something and deprioritizing her own needs to be liked and get connection.

Without reflecting, I adopted her behaviour (Of course I did. I was a kid).

I ignored my own needs (not sure if I even knew them) to be liked by others. And it worked. In high school, I was always one of the cool kids and liked by everyone.

What no one saw: My people pleasing patterns made all kinds of relationships feel extremely exhausting, as I was always performing rather than being.

Somewhere along the way, I internalized a quiet rule:

I can only be my true self when I’m alone.

First love: Unsafe

At seventeen, I had my first serious relationship. I was in love. I was also too shy to say it. So I chose the classic teenage workaround: get drunk, make out, let events define themselves. Eventually we called it a relationship, though I rarely voiced my needs, perspectives, or emotions.

After five months, he started going cold. Then he ghosted me. I asked to talk. When I showed up at his apartment and said I saw no future, despite still loving him. He looked relieved.

“Oh, that’s what you wanted to say. I was afraid you were pregnant.”

That sentence burned itself into my memory.

Love: Unsafe.

Second love: numb

My second relationship was a haunting repetition.

I was madly in love; he kept emotional distance. I tolerated it because distance was familiar. Almost comfortable. I let him set the tone. I went along with it. No clear needs. No strong opinions. No visible emotions.

He went cold. Disappeared. I initiated the “we need to talk” conversation again. Delivered the “no future” speech again.

This time, I felt nothing. I was nineteen.

Love: Unsafe.

The consequences I still see in my thirties

These early experiences became the blueprint I carried into my twenties and thirties. I chose partners who loved me more than I loved them -withdrawal felt easier that way.

Once, I fell deeply in love and then ran as fast as I could because he was anxiously attached and needed intense closeness to feel secure. That level of intimacy overwhelmed my nervous system.

Right now, I’m low-key dating someone who appears emotionally available. It feels good. He creates space for me to show more of who I am. There’s currently a pause because I’m spending three months in Spain, but even this distance feels different. Less like escape, more like circumstance.

And I know this:

If I want something different, I have to show up differently.

Taking responsibility for my childhood pattern

Taking responsibility

None of the girls in first grade. Not my parents. Not my ex-boyfriends. They are not to blame for my avoidant attachment.

It is my responsibility to work with the coping mechanism I developed. It was my nervous system’s smartest solution at the time. But it’s outdated.

I have to teach my body that being seen, truly seen, is safe. That expressing needs doesn’t equal rejection. That vulnerability won’t automatically end in humiliation. I could spend years playing the blame game. But it wouldn’t bring me closer to the kind of relationship I say I want.

“Many of us carry wounds from our childhood. Maybe someone didn’t treat us right. Or we experienced something terrible. (…) These raw spots shape decisions we make and actions we take — even if we’re not always conscious of that fact.” —

Ryan Holiday

, Stillness Is Key

Awareness is step one. But awareness alone doesn’t rewire anything.

How I work on myself

Micro-steps toward security

So I practice micro-steps. I remind myself daily to say what I actually think and feel — and then act in alignment with it. I work on setting boundaries and saying “no” more often.

Trust me, it’s a magic word. And it sounds simple. It’s not. But it’s powerful and a muscle that needs to be trained in many situations.

Being honest about my boundaries makes me feel more grounded and more at home in myself, especially in romantic contexts. Each small act of authenticity is a signal to my nervous system: this is safe.

Progress isn’t always measurable. Sometimes it feels invisible. But I trust that repetition compounds.

Healing is ongoing

Maybe people hurt us in the past. It’s still our responsibility to unlearn what no longer serves us. I’m convinced that if more of us were willing to do that work, we wouldn’t suddenly create a perfectly peaceful world. But our relationships would be deeper. Kinder. More honest.

Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story.

– Gary Zukav, American author and spiritual teacher

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