Mental Health

Yup, avoidant attachment style.

I'm generally seen as pretty emotionally open, but it's always a front, like a negotiation to give the appearance of warmth but I'm terrified to open any deeper. I feel like what people think is the core us just the rind.

Babies will actually show this behavior as well- so this trauma goes DEEP. It might even be more genetic than behavioral. They've shown when a parent leaves a baby for a bit, the baby begins to cry, but when the parent returns, there are three responses (I'll pretend a baby can speak, but this is what they say with body language):

1. Ah! You were gone but now you're back! I missed you and I'm happy you are here let's play with my rattle (stable)
2. OH MY GOD YOU ARE BACK I MISSED YOU PLEASE DON'T LEAVE EVER AGAIN I'M HOLDING ON TO YOU HARDER (Anxious)
3. Oh, you're back? That's fine, I'm not gonna look at you. If I stop caring you can't hurt me again. (Avoidant)

I know I'd keep a pretty clean & minimalist room as a kids- I remember straight up saying "I want to be able to pack up my life and leave at a moments notice and no one will ever know I ever existed" when I was 10. It's still hard to believe people care about me in any meaningful way.

Weird thing- I had a very supportive childhood. Having a sister with intense ADHD was tough though since she took up 90% of my parents time, so I think that's where it comes from.

I don't really worry about abandonment at all. If anything, I'd be more worried about the opposite. People like me, and want to hang out with me, and I do not have the time, energy, or desire to hang out with most people. I've had more than my fair share of clingy, dependent "friends", and I'm not a fan. Hyper-independent aloofness has definitely spared me many additions to that unfortunate list.

I don't disagree that it's a trauma response, but not always to abandonment (I wish), but often necessity. When you have to do everything, you learn how to do everything, and eventually there's not much left to rely on other people for.

And if it continuously gets proven correct over and over? Still just a problem with me right?

Fuck off internet! DON'T ACT LIKE YOU KNOW ME!

Wow. ITT: Several people lashing out defensively at a simple definition statement, which was not directed at them, and they say doesn't even apply to themselves.

You can be all that with no fear of abadonment. Not having the energy to deal with people's constant bullshit, just not particularly liking people, not being very good at talking to people and being heard and not taken advantage of- are all more than enough.

This incessant need by psychiatry to link trauma to abandonment and refuse any other reasoning, has lead to a lot of misdiagnosis, especially in women.

I didn’t need this today, Nicole.

You don't make connections because Yoh believe you will be abandoned.

I don't make connections because I know I would be a shitty friend and incapable of actually maintaining a friendship.

This hits deep. Sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it until we're completely burnt out and wondering why we feel so alone. It takes so much courage to finally reach out and trust someone again.

Always interesting to hear about something new I have had for decades.

What if I'm extremely independent because over the last four decades I have been continuously abandoned, and have learned to adapt to my circumstances?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the line between someone who is hyper independent and someone who is really bad at relationships or someone with preference for frequent quiet and solitude is trauma.

Also I suspect the increase in people with lower social contact not by choice is due at least in part to not enough 3rd places that don't require money to hang out and meet people.

Realizing this was a big ‘oh… that explains a lot’ moment for me. Learning to ask for help is a skill too.

I recognize myself in this one and I hate it

GenX: triggered.

People can’t let you down, if you keep your distance. I think it’s better this way.

I’m hyper independent for two main reasons:

1. Maintaining connections takes too much damn energy, no matter how good the other person is. And as someone with a nasty Voltron of ADD and Asperger’s, there are a myriad of co-morbidities along for that ride.
2. i would rather full-ass something to my own satisfaction than suffer someone else’s half-assed attempts.

It's frustrating that this term:

a) Doesn't appear in any published literature

b) Appears to have been coined in the last decade in a magazine article whose author has a degree from a non-accredited college.

But's let's just make up terms at will so we can pathologize ourselves proudly and not hurt any fee-fees!

Being hyper independent is lonely, but it's better than any of the alternatives I know of.

"Hyper-Independence" is not a problem. Free association is important and strong Independence protects that.

I know there are negative psychological elements to seeking it. For instance, asking for help makes me feel a sense of debt even when people insist I owe them nothing for it. So I generally dislike asking for help because I despise debt. Its like a grain of sand in my brain that makes me want to give up.

The only time I ask for help is when I realize if I don't I will experience catastrophe without it or the damage of not asking for help will cause more regret than even any debt, imagined or real. And when it comes to that I feel self loathing as I feel like I'm taking advantage of people's generosity. And to some degree: that's true. I'll be a lot nicer to someone who's helping me if my well being depends on that help. I'll hesitate to say what I really think or believe.

Having autism, I don't want to have to follow societal social expectations either. So the more leverage I have the more I can say no or fuck off if something is just expected of people normally suddenly applies to me. Financial leverage seems like my only avenue to freedom from that nonsense. I cannot rely on allistics, and even if they come through I'll be chained down by their social expectations of behavior. Its one of the reasons I reject full collectivist ideologies, and prefer Mutualism/Market Socialism. Mutualism is the farthest left you can go while still featuring a market, and that way I don't have to navigate soft social rules to get stuff or feel guilt for getting it. The market exchange makes things fair and clean in my mind. I can say fuck off I have the money, give me what I need for it and leave me alone if I so desire and I know I'll be able to do so again in the future. There's no pressure to conform.

In a fully collectivist economy, if I separate myself from people I'd risk being viewed as unfit for the collective's well being or some shit would would have to put up with interventions into how I personally live. Maybe be told its for my own good, or be told that its only fair. I couldn't handle that kind of vulnerability so I'd have to work hard to pretend to fit in which I already know is exhausting. It'd be miserable.

People can say all they want "You don't have to try and fit in" and they're full of shit. Collectivists, communists, and "full" socialists might not realize it, but they'd subtly and unconsciously alienate or separate themselves from people like myself if I fully embraced who I am openly without masking. Or they'd insist on dictating to me how I need to do things.

I want to be free of debt (mental or real) and free of social bounds I view as stupid. I view a lot of taboos and social bounds as meaningless gibberish protecting people from things that are fundamentally harmless. I have to navigate that shit for survival, and I want to minimize that as much as possible.

I have hyper-dependence

Mom told me that "we only care about you because we are related by blood, nobody out there will 'tolerate' your 'bullshit'¹"

¹like depression

This type of thinking is why there's a country with 1.4 billion people that's a low-trust society...

All the things I had to do to protect myself from manipulative people.

They needed my attention. I became more independent and denied giving them any attention. They don't like that I'm not giving them the attention they think they deserve so they try and turn everyone against me.

It happens often because I'm quiet and kind. They think that makes me easy to manipulate. I've become hardened to manipulators. So much to the point that physical touch with other people has become awkward or uncomfortable.

It can also happen when you have to deal with the cunts in the medical field.

Well, shit...

I identify with that

Hmm.

I don't ask for help out of stubbornness. I guess I never grew out of "I can do it myself!" But, now, I have no one to ask, so there's that.

I haven't had an actual friend in over 30 years. I had a roommate for four years who was the next-closest thing to a friend I had--mostly a friend, more than just a roommate, at least. Then I got married, and she seemed like a friend until she cheated on me. Other than that, I've had work acquaintances, some of whom I would occasionally hang out with outside of work, but once I quit and left, that ended, too. I've had many girlfriends over the years, but that's not really the same thing. It was never "friend with benefit", it was always benefit with friend. Once the benefit stopped, so did the friendship. So, yeah, not great at relationships.

I don't feel I've ever been outright abandoned. Apart from the divorce, the parting of ways was to some degree mutually agreed to. And, by the time the divorce was finalized, I was on board, too. You might think, "But, she cheated on you...", well, yes, but things aren't always so black and white and simple to parse.

... So that's what it's called. I knew it couldn't just be me. What is it called when one tries not to be this way by reaching out, but finds nobody actually helps anyway?

I have just come to realize I don't like people. Nothing personal, I just don't like you.