Fearful Avoidant vs Dismissive Avoidant – Attachment Styles 101

CT KauppHey. What's up? Thank you for being here. Appreciate you tuning into today's episode. We are talking about fearful avoidance versus dismissive avoidance.

CT KauppI'll use FA and DA as shorthand as we go through this. But I just wanted to talk about this because this is something that has tripped me up as I have dove into attachment styles. There's parts that feel similar, but they definitely are different. So let's dive into it. For fearful avoidance, it's the, I want closeness, but closeness doesn't feel safe.

CT KauppWhereas for dismissive avoidance, it's I'm safer when I don't need anybody. I can do it myself. I can only rely on myself, that kind of thing. Okay. So more on FAs.

CT KauppThey grew up with inconsistent or unsafe love. They feel an inner tug of war, come close, pull away, come close, pull away. They crave connection, but then fear the rejection or the betrayal. So a lot of times what ends up happening is they, they feel this closeness with you and then they leave you because it feels safer to them to end things. Well, or, well, I should say create distance first and then end things.

CT KauppI've experienced this myself where they're, they're feeling this closeness, which then triggers those fears of rejection, rejection, and betrayal. So they're, they want to essentially get out in front of it. They want to create distance and end that relationship before you can end it. So it's like the control aspect that they're going to do it on their terms and they're going to do it now before weeks, months, or years later, where you end it for whatever that reason, if kitchen would ever end, right? Maybe it never would.

CT KauppThis is something that I feel is really important where when somebody pulls away from us and it feels like rejection to us, it feels like betrayal to us. It feels like we're not enough. We're not lovable. We're not good enough. All those things that we're going to, beat up ourselves, beat ourselves up about in reality, they actually felt so good with you, and they felt so close with you, and they felt like this is so special.

CT KauppMaybe not every relationship out there, but I'm just let's just kinda just talk in generalities. There's a quality that they feel very good about what has been created, but then that also stirs up all the fears from, from their side of like this, this feels so good to say it can't actually be real. This can't actually be true. So I'm going to retreat and end this before they can to me. For somebody that's an FA, their nervous system is anxious and avoidant.

CT KauppSo they can have, tendencies from both of those styles. Their core feeling is fear and confusion. They are triggered by vulnerability and emotional exposure. And for them to start healing, they need safety, consistency, and to be able to regulate their nervous system. For DAs, this is the hyper independence.

CT KauppSo I'm safer when I don't need anyone. They grew up in a space where emotions and vulnerability were minimized or just flat out ignored. So they learned to shut those down and suppress those, which then in turn, as they've gone through life, then in relationships that muscle hasn't been worked as much. So it's very hard for them to be able to express that. And so to not be able to do that, they just want the independence and they just want to do things their own way on their own terms.

CT KauppOftentimes they're gonna create a life that is, I don't want to say like siloed, but just like very much, like their own bubble and it, it like helps to protect them like a self protection mechanism. So they, they might go to this class or do this activity or this social thing. It's I don't, sorry. Like, I don't mean like they're just staying at home and like not going out into the, to the wilderness, into the world, but it's the, like, I guess what I'm trying to say is like the structure of their lives of their life is done in such a way where it allows them to keep that space, allows them to keep that independence. So they don't have to get too close.

CT KauppLike by default, they're creating a life that is allowing themselves to stay in that kind of independent frame of mind. And again, not work those muscles because they see relying on others as a weakness. They may seem calm, logical, even detached and pull away when things feel too emotional or too demanding. So if we think about it in like a relationship standpoint, it may at the beginning, it may feel really good. You know, it's like a, it's like a sense of calm.

CT KauppWe're like we're coming at it from the same wavelength. Everything is good. There's just like a, a nice ebb and flow and bounce to it. And then all of a sudden it gets too, let's say emotionally rich or, too deep. And then they want to pull away.

CT KauppOne idea I just had is that in past relationships, what I have seen as someone, being anxious with someone that is a DA is the anxious person. I don't wanna speak for everybody. From my personal experience, I was holding the emotional weight of that relationship while I felt like it was in a balanced perspective. As I reflected on it, I realized that they weren't being as emotional, emotionally open or, vulnerable in just like things that we're sharing. So I may express.

CT KauppBut what, whatever the thing is, you know, Hey, I send a, like a long message and I'm talking about, Hey, I'm really excited to do this or do that. Or, you know, have you ever tried this? Or like, what I'm trying to say is like the the point of the the message doesn't matter. It's just a fact of like, you're you're expressing something that's important to you and you're being vulnerable, open, emotional, whatever, all those things. And they, they kind of like see it, but they don't really, it doesn't feel reciprocal.

CT KauppI guess that's what I'm trying to express is like, I may have sent a really long message and then I get a pretty short reply. And I think that is just like indicative of their independence, or their, their like kind of distancing, or dismissive nature where they're not, they're not like fully engaging it, I guess. It would be another, would be another way. Cause it's like, it's too, it's too much for them. They're not used to that, that kind of dynamic.

CT KauppTheir core feeling is numbness and discomfort with emotion. So it speaks to what I just said is they're not going to be, they're not going to receive your vulnerability or your openness as, as reciprocal as other people, because they're associating discomfort with that. Their trigger is feeling trapped or controlled. They, they want to keep that independence. For healing, they need gentle reconnection with emotion and expressing needs.

CT KauppI think this is a really tough place to be, especially from the, the anxious avoidant dynamic, because somebody that most people that are anxious, they attached are going to have that deep empathy, that deep intuition, that deep desire for connection where they're on the opposite side of the spectrum, they don't want or need that as much. And so when the anxious person is expressing those things to them, when, when I'm saying like gentle, I'm thinking like the anxious person is, is expressing it at a level that they're not comfortable with. So it's sort of like you, you need to be able to like go up that ladder with them and be next to them and not five steps ahead. But if you're four steps below, like you would feel that you're dimming yourself. So it's just like a hard, I think it's a, it's a hard thing to balance unless both people have done the work or are working together to do the work, to be able to make, to make it kind of feel in sync and moving in the right direction to have that momentum.

CT KauppOkay. So here's some quick, FAs this, DAs that just to show the, the difference. And, and also a quick way to remember is that FAs are torn between connection and fear where DAs are detached to protect that independence. So they're both avoidant, but FAs are avoidant because they're scared. Whereas DAs are avoidant because they're numb.

CT KauppOkay. So here's some quick items. Do they want love? FA, yes, but they don't trust it. Whereas a DA, not really because they prefer autonomy.

CT KauppThe main emotion for an FA is fear. Whereas for a DA it's disinterest or detachment. A pattern for an FA is that that push pull dynamic, whereas a DA they're gonna withdraw or shut down. An FA believes that love equals hurt, whereas a DA believes that needing others is a weakness. And then lastly, the defense mechanism, an FA is going to create that chaos and is like testing to see how their partner reacts.

CT KauppWhereas the DA is going to try to numb and control. Okay. That's all I got for you today. Hopefully that helps talking about the fearful avoidant versus the dismissive avoidant. Look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

CT KauppAppreciate you being here. Take care.