Do you find yourself alone? Do you struggle with building connections with other people?
If so, you may be stuck repeating fear-based patterns that cause you to push other people away. Most often, this kind of behavior comes from trauma. It’s a behavior that many people with childhood or domestic abuse trauma subconsciously engage in as a means to keep themselves safe. It can also result from bullying or isolation during your formative years.
Their trauma and the wrong actions of the people who were supposed to love them conditioned them to believe that closeness will get you hurt. Because when you got close, you were vulnerable to whatever maliciousness they had in store for you.
These subconscious patterns are some of the common reasons for that behavior, and it’s worth exploring them further.
1. You are confusing emotional distance with strength.
Some trauma survivors develop a streak of hyper-independence. Now, in general, independence is a good thing. There’s a lot in life that you need to handle on your own. No one else can do it for you. However, independence becomes an issue when it causes you to refuse connection by maintaining distance.
I have a good friend who is hyper-independent. She doesn’t feel like she can rely on anyone, because a lot of people who said they would be there for her were not. The fear and anxiety that stemmed from an inability to trust the people she was supposed to be able to trust amplified her independent streak. Yes, she can carry a heavy weight on her own, but she shouldn’t have to.
In relationships, this causes problems because emotional distance is contrary to emotional intimacy. You can’t be both distant and intimate. In a romantic relationship, distance will kill the relationship. And in friendships, emotional distance makes it much harder to forge strong bonds. You both have to be willing to make mistakes and fix them together for a friendship to last.
2. You leave before you’re abandoned.
There are some people who will light the match to burn their bridges before they’re even off them. It may be that there is nothing wrong in the social connection, but the intimacy starts creating problems. As Psych Central informs us, anxiety builds because once you’re emotionally attached to someone, losing them becomes devastating.
Those who have a history of loss or abandonment are going to feel that more intensely than the average person. So instead of having their heart broken when a connection doesn’t work out, they decide to end the connection first. By doing that, they can’t be abandoned, again.
The obvious problem here is that you simply can’t have healthy relationships if you burn them down whenever you start feeling vulnerable. And so you just end up alone or with superficial connections.
3. You assume people will eventually leave you disappointed.
People are flawed creatures at the best of times. Even the most well-meaning people will eventually make a mistake sooner or later. But those who are trapped in an unhealthy thought pattern will look at the fallibility of humans and see only disappointment. And that isn’t exactly a fair or balanced perspective because it’s only focusing on one small component.
No one should enter into any kind of relationship with the expectation that the other person will be perfect. That’s just not real or reasonable. They’re going to make mistakes, and so will you. Greater trust, respect, and deeper relationships aren’t built by avoiding difficult situations. They’re built by coming together to solve the problem. But that doesn’t mean people are inherently bad or that they’ll ultimately let you down.
What’s more, you also have to separate mistakes from active maliciousness. Someone who accidentally pushes a boundary is not going to be the same as someone who purposefully crosses it. Identifying that distinction is important if you want to open yourself up to connection.
4. You mistake familiarity for safety.
The people who struggle with these patterns and push people away typically have some kind of traumatic relationship history. It’s common for child abuse survivors to grow up and end up in domestic abuse situations because of the familiarity. It may be dangerous, but it feels safer than actual healthy intimacy. You can’t be truly open and intimate with someone that you subconsciously fear.
So, because it’s familiar, it feels like the safer option. After all, if you have that in your history, then you’re already experienced with it. It’s not new, so it’s not as intimidating as trying to develop a healthy relationship with someone.
A healthy relationship can create a sense of anxiety in itself, because you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, when will this person reveal who they actually are? Well, they likely already have, because healthy people aren’t hiding nefarious ends.
5. You struggle to receive affection.
Survivors of abusive situations may feel uncomfortable receiving affection because of conditioning. Their abuse may have subconsciously taught them that affection given was either transactional or only given to repair harm caused by the abuser. So instead of being able to receive affection from another person, the act causes anxiety because their brain remembers the connection. The result is that they shut it down.
Yet you may be able to give affection. Many people, particularly those with traumatic pasts, use sex as a means to provide worth to their partner in a relationship. That’s not a healthy way to look at it. These folks often struggle with feeling as though their presence is enough. They feel compelled to give more of themselves, even if they don’t want to. And that will damage the relationship, because eventually it will feel like resentment.
6. You test people instead of trusting them.
Many healthy relationships have a cadence to them. People come together, and their natural qualities will often inform how they belong together. Maybe they’re just meant to be friends, maybe they’re meant to develop into something more. Trying to force the issue can be so detrimental to the relationship. It can destroy it before it ever gets started.
What does forcing the issue look like? Well, you may find yourself running small tests. Examples include things like not messaging first to see when they reach out to you, acting hot and cold to see how they respond, or creating distance to see whether or not they close it. The problem is that anyone with healthy boundaries and expectations is going to look at that behavior and decide something is amiss.
Healthy people don’t do these kinds of things. And, personally, I’m the kind of person who will lean into the wrong answer for any kind of test. I know I’m far from the only one. If a person wants to run some kind of test on me, that tells me they are likely someone I don’t want around me. And I oblige them.
7. You identify your distance as “just who I am.”
People who are hyper-independent tend to look at it as a good thing. Sure, you can go out and conquer the world on your own. I imagine you can probably hold it all down exceptionally, especially if you came from a background where you had no choice. I understand that. I’ve reached points in my life where I had no choice but to succeed.
Unfortunately, that isn’t tenable long-term. Long-term, the weight gets heavier and is sprinkled with anxiety. Then, something might happen where you do need help. Maybe you get sick, have an injury, or lose a job. You need the help of other people, but you won’t ask or turn it down because you got this. It’s just who you are.
Except it’s not. It’s more likely a trauma-driven behavior that is undermining your relationships. And it’s one you need to work through for your own sake.
Closing thoughts…
Humans are social animals. We derive many benefits from community and socialization. But, to do that, you’re going to have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Yes, some people are going to disappoint you, but that isn’t a reason to stay shut down. That’s a form of avoidance that is preventing you from having happy, healthy relationships.
It’s okay to be flawed. It’s okay to rely on other people. It’s even okay to be disappointed once in a while. Fixing the problems together just helps build greater trust and a deeper connection. And that can only be a good thing.
