I wonder how many of you are familiar with the term fearful-avoidant attachment style.
I’m going to talk about it throughout this article. It describes people who want to be seen so badly, yet they fight another part of themselves that cannot stand the thought of being seen. And it’s usually because they don’t know what being truly seen and understood feels like.
They aren’t comfortable with it, and this article will explore the reasons why.
It’s worth knowing that not everybody who feels this way will have formed this kind of attachment style in childhood. It’s a common misconception, but your attachment is actually dynamic, and many adult experiences can impact its development too.
With that in mind, let’s explore the psychology further.
7 reasons why you desperately want to be seen but still fear closeness:
1. You desire intimacy but associate it with danger.
Quite often, this is what creates a push/pull dynamic in someone who wants to be close to their partner, but at the slightest notion of being so, they suddenly put their guard up and retreat.
It’s not that they don’t want closeness. Often these people do want to be vulnerable. They want the hug, the talk, the more physical side of intimacy, but they see it as taking a huge risk.
Underneath, it can be a person who is afraid of being abandoned, or who fears that their advances will be rejected.
People don’t develop this fear from nowhere. Usually, it’s either from early life experiences where they were repeatedly let down, dismissed, or mocked at times when they dared to be vulnerable, or from similar experiences later in life.
Whatever the driver, living in a constant state of desiring connection while maintaining a loner status has got to be one of the most painful parts of this inner conflict.
2. You want reassurance, but believing it is the real challenge.
Psychologist Dr Abby Metcalf says that people who need constant validation and reassurance can be that way because of their fearful attachment style. But the problem is, the reassurance they receive rarely sticks.
Somewhere in their past, they learned that love or approval could be withdrawn without warning, or that praise was often followed by criticism or inconsistency. As such, you end up with a person who finds comfort in both seeking and dismissing said reassurance.
It’s like complimenting your friend on her new dress and having her tell you not to lie.
The problem is, eventually it becomes as exhausting for the person doing the reassuring as it is for the one who is seeking reassurance but struggling to receive it, and it often creates the very distance they desperately want to close.
3. You believe that if you stand out, you become a target.
My son very wisely said once that he would hate to be famous. Of course, he’d welcome the large sums of money, but his words were, “I’d hate to always be photographed and never left alone.”
He’s right there, not to mention that these days being a public figure means getting totally trolled online.
It’s similar when any of us put ourselves in a position where we might stand out or be noticed, but on a much smaller scale.
You do something or achieve something, and you get noticed, but that can often come with the risk of comments or thoughts that aren’t warm or welcoming. While some of us won’t think twice, other people will avoid anything that makes them feel they’re being judged, or a target in any way.
This usually develops because of an earlier experience where they were noticed for all the “wrong” reasons, for example, being bullied, publicly humiliated, or excessively criticized.
That doesn’t mean they don’t wish they could be truly seen and known by others; they just fear that others might not like what they see.
4. You want to be chosen, but you fear being looked at too closely.
Picture yourself at work, hearing that your boss is looking for someone to step in and be their partner. You’ve waited years for this moment, but it terrifies you. You and your colleagues will all get a chance to prove yourselves with separate interviews.
It means your work, your skill set, your experience, your strategies, and organizational skills will be looked at under your boss’s microscope.
You’ll be vulnerable and exposed, but that’s the only way they’re going to know who to pick, seeing as it’s such a big decision.
You go home with this nauseating feeling in the pit of your stomach. You want to be picked, but the thought of being scrutinized at that level makes you want to run a mile. It makes you feel exposed.
You want to be chosen, but being chosen means being seen. And when you’ve learned to associate scrutiny with danger, that level of visibility feels overwhelming rather than exciting.
5. Trusting the other person’s intentions feels like too much of a risk to take.
When you’re stuck between wanting to connect and wanting to protect yourself, you’re never going to be able to find a place to fully settle.
The question I’d have for you is: who in your past hurt or let you down?
There comes a time when you must address that if you really want to overcome this. You can’t keep carrying it with you if you want to find the closeness you crave.
Not every person is going to harm, betray, or invalidate you like the person or people in your past did.
Sure, there are some people out there who don’t have your best interests at heart, but a healthy portion do.
Those people want to see you win; they want to see you succeed and flourish. They aren’t in it to watch you fail, intentionally hurt you, or take advantage of you. Yes, they may make mistakes because they are only human, but they will want to repair those mistakes.
Trusting feels incredibly dangerous when you don’t know what the outcome will be, but if you never trust, you’ll never have any outcome other than loneliness.
6. You fear becoming dependent on anyone.
To depend on someone you have to let people see your needs, your limits, your fears, your imperfections. And that can be hard for someone who has learned that the only person they can rely on is themselves.
Perhaps at some point in the past, you reached out for support and were let down, ignored, or belittled. Now you fear needing to depend on anyone, and it’s likely that it boils down to a fear of letting people in. You may desperately need support yet be petrified to ask for or accept it.
It’s okay to ask for help or support, or have a shoulder to cry on when you need it. That doesn’t make you dependent, it just makes you human. No one can tackle everything alone. It’s hard to unlearn that when you’ve developed hyperindependence as a trauma response, though.
7. When you’re treated well consistently, it confuses you.
A classic case of not being familiar with being treated nicely or fairly comes into play here, and it happens to more people than you’d think.
Those who want the pull of closeness while also fearing it are often waiting for something bad to happen. They’ve experienced being left out, laughed at, or talked about behind their back, and they don’t want to make the mistake of trusting the wrong person or people again.
To have a person come along who is kind and interested with no catch? Well, that’s just an alien concept to those who are stuck in the limbo state of being seen and, well, being sick.
Stability feels like a trap when you’ve been conditioned to look for danger, but just because you’re used to unpredictability doesn’t mean you have to live that way forever.
Final thoughts…
If this sounds like you – someone wanting to be seen while fearing being under that bright light – you are not broken.
You probably think you are because you never seem to find a happy place to settle. You’ve got this internal system working on overdrive, trying to please two very different needs right alongside each other.
It’s impossible.
You don’t have to suddenly love the spotlight, or pretend it doesn’t make you feel sick, but you can nurture vulnerability with time and patience. You don’t have to stay committed to this tug-of-war you unknowingly signed up for.
It’s okay to start being seen, even in just one single, small way.
