Anxious - avoidant 'trap' visible in forum threads

Trigo, I want to help to answer your question. There was an issue with a thread I posted on the DA support forum yesterday. Since I have been on this forum, I have had very amicable conversations with many avoidantly attached persons, I don't even like calling people FA or DA because there are not "avoidant", they are people with an attachment style, just like me.

There was a post where an avoidantly attached individual expressed how they feel when they are facing a breakup.

What I gleaned from that post was that the avoidantly attached individual only seems to be unemotional about the breakup. The distancing and bids for more space seem to be a way of communicating that they want out. But that is not necessarily apparent to their partner because it is not being directly communicated as such sometimes because the avoidantly attached person is not really sure that they really do want out or even why they want out, it is very confusing for them.

By the time they do end it they have worked it all out in their minds, this is what they need to do to protect themselves from harm, real or imagined.

So, They only seem lack empathy to an outsider because they tend to grieve the relationship before it ends. It is silent internal grief process. Their partners, however, have to grieve the loss after the relationship ends and don't have the needed closure to move on because the reason for the split is largely unknown to them.

I ended the post by asking, 'Is this correct?' and then thanked my avoidantly attached acquaintances for their feedback in helping me to know if I was understanding this correctly. I could have been WAY off for all I knew but I didn't want to sit with the wrong understanding so I asked for clarity. I felt that understanding this very vital piece of information was essential to my being able to more fully support the healing of the avoidantly attached people on this forum and that of the one I personally care about.

I did posted this to the DA support forum with the disclaimer that, if the post was offensive to the avoidantly attached people on that Support forum, to please let me know and I'd would be happy to move it.

Someone with an attachment style other than avoidant, took offence that I had started a thread in that support forum and chose to address their concern in a 'shame on you, you know better than that'  approach to my post not realizing that I am a secure individual who supported the very same avoidantly attached people who were being accosted the day the Support Forums were created. Supporting, in fact, the very person, who then tried to recruit this non-avoidantly attached person to their personal private DA support group. This crossed my personal boundaries.

I will not cow-tow to attachment styles. I didn't do that in my relationship with the avoidantly attached man I was involved with and I won't do it here either; especially by the individual was fully supported and received the board they requested because people drew attention to the abuse that this person was experiencing.

I will also not I sit back and be shamed for trying to gain clarity, THAT is the purpose, the single goal of communication.

It is my opinion that the Support forum is a failed experiment. Or as Jeager pointed out, a successful demonstration of the anxious-avoidant trap.

For the most part, the people here are here to heal, to learn from one another, and to have the healing discussion and, when possible pay it forward to help others toward the goal of secure. For that to happen, there can't be special areas as if we were in a Jr. high lunch room where the preppies sit at one table and the goths sit at another. There is private messaging which can even be a private group message, if that is the level of privacy that is desired on this forum. If anything, this needs forum needs to be more of a "Breakfast Club" Saturday detention situation....(FIST PUMP annnnnnnnnd....FREEZE FRAME!...queue music!..."I said A-LA  LA-LA-LA-LAAAAA")
...LOL! I crack myself up!

I feel that romantic or not we have relationships with people of different attachment styles every day. Those attachment styles are affecting more than just our love lives. If we allow it, the interchange here could help us all in EVERY aspect of relating to people day to day. If we can develop secure relationships in general, it will help us in our love lives.

The drama is a rarity on this forum from what I can see and that is the reason I even began posting here because it is a mature community and for the most part very positive.

I hope this helps to fill in some of the blanks for everyone.

Well...if I was one of the individuals who you thought your healing process triggered their relationship with their mom....I actually thank you because it caused me to take a really close examination of that relationship and realize that she was simply addressing her own wounds...but boy those boundaries were really hard to grasp as a young child.  Interesting you speak to feeling like you had to walk on eggshells....it seems that across insecure types, there is this fear of either being left or being overwhelmed. Typically I have heard the walking on eggshells concern primarily from APs who did not want to offend/smother/overwhelm their DA or FA or Narc partner.  I wish you well on your journey with healing.. 

oh dear, not as tho i have to answer to you froggy!
but I do believe this forum could benefit more people who suffer from attachment issues, with some good boundaries in place.

I can still benefit from reading here, and do- and can reply as i wish to without your approval or agreement.

i can delete my account as i wish, to avoid communication via message because i don’t want to exchange private messages here any more, it’s my own preference and i have good reasons. i come back as my original user name, as an honest presence so i’m not sure what your beef is with that or what it takes from you.

anyway, i think that the lurker Dd said it very well, in his response to your question about breakups in the support forum. You took issue with him as well, but you may consider what was said because it has some merit in my opinion.

I am simply offering another perspective here that you may want to consider if you truly hope to have active engagement or offer a good environment for avoidants.
I’m not the only avoidant who has expressed things of this nature.
Take it as you will

what do you think, wouldnt it be good for people suffering with avoidant attachment issues to have one small slice of the forum to post their own recovery in and share, without being asked for explanations and insight into the breakups and relationships of other members?

how about just one small space where they could post without answering questions that have nothing to do with their recovery?

just one part of the forum where the point is not to help non-avoidants “understand” them and where they can work out their own thoughts and feelings without trying to help anyone else?

we all have only so much time in our day, and i haven’t seen anyone else here targeted for information the way avoidants are. There is a section for open Q&A, isn’t that good enough for information gleaning?

Maybe you could reconsider your hard stance against me and be open to letting the. “failed experiment” succeed with better boundaries in place FOR THE PEOPLE IT INTENDED TO SERVE, Avoidantly attached individuals seeking to heal their issues.

It’s not so much to ask, for you to consider that your perspective may not be the most important one in the avoidant support forum.

i don’t know, i’ve seen forum headings worded thoughtfully to create better boundaries around what is welcome there.
Obviously it works to some degree because people know generally which sections to post under already.

I think it’s a reasonable boundary and so do others who would like to use the forum, both to post in and to lurk on to seek non-invasive insight.

If it’s too much to expect from this forum it is what it is, but i certainly don’t feel bad for asking what you think. we just disagree.

i think it’s fine the way it is.

you got that right, maybe someone will eventually use that forum, who knows.  I wouldn’t bother with it further personally but I can adjust my use of the site to suit my preferences.
it was worth a shot, I didn’t think it would go over here but you never know till you try.