Update / FA expresses wanting to be together

Just, childhood memories can be hazy and inconsistent. Chronology doesn't always make sense. It can be related to coping mechanisms (issues with memory tend to happen with abuse) or a lot of the FAs in my life tend to be pretty disorganized people so it follows they don't always remember things well because they're scattered. There's some research around that correlates ADD with FA as well.

But no, I don't think that's why they cycle. The cycling is related to the amount of time they need to calm their nervous system down from whatever triggered them (which sounds backwards, as they've deactivated, but it still needs to reset). Though I'd agree they may not have processed yet.

And to mrob 's point, sometimes the trigger is a real and direct reaction to the situation. It's not always projection or overcoupling, even if the attachment stress makes it difficult to communicate about it directly.

I know my FA having flight and freeze.

The engulfment trigger is something I have read being about violated boundaries in childhood, like when an abused/neglected mother spousifies her son and puts her excessive adult needs onto her son. It can also be a result of sexual abuse in the physical sense.

I've known guys like this, and the ones who feel most easily engulfed, tend be lower on natural empathy. The ones who are only `a bit sketchy' about engulfment were higher on natural empathy and could be taken over by their mothers in adulthood.

Seemingly it's totally linked to the 'flashbacks' ("triggers" that an F-A does not identify with until self aware), which in turn instigates the critical inner voice (low self esteem, negative self talk, literally talking themselves out of the relationship anyway they can) and is tied to whichever of the 4F response combinations you identify with due to the trauma experienced, one or more of these will be instigating responses as opposed to a blend of all 4F responses to a stimuli. 

Same happened to me, chased me for 15 months via mutual friends, was all over me 8-9/10 attraction level, was talking about the future etc (but was also negative self talking herself openly with low self esteem at the same time), was fawning after me (cooking stuff and bringing it around, 10-20 texts a day etc was very over the top in the beginning), then after I tried to sit calmly and talk about the negative self talk in a centred way, that was the first signs of pullback, then an excuse she had her kids for a month with no days off and was flat out (meanwhile was literal 'people pleasing' strangers running after them), which I questioned after 3 months of dating and said 4 weeks not seeing each other was not really acceptable. We went out to dinner with mutual friends that introduced us, and the next week she blamed her ailing health and that she wanted to work on herself and catch up again in 3 months time hopefully.

Here is a very interesting thread from partners of individuals with ADD.  It asks whether they would date/marry their ADD partner again knowing what they know now...

www.additudemag.com/forums/topic/if-you-could-go-back-in-time-and-do-it-all-over-again-would-you/#post-134017

of course every person is different and some of these sound very extreme.  I have been following this page since I started dating B because he said he was diagnosed with ADD.  You will have to scroll to the top of the page as it seems to link to the end.

No worries nyc, I hope i'm not triggering/hurting anyone in here, not the reason I posted obviously, only purely to try and help. I'll remove if required. Goes for anyone else here, let me know if i'm stepping over the line. It's a good book that, very enlightening though. It's just a pure extract table of "possible" more negative displays from those 4F responses, there is also a positive displays table, and he breaks them down in more detail. Just an overview.