Labeled Avoidant

I wake up

Sun is out

Hopeful for the day to be beautiful

Then she tells me another thing I did wrong

My walls rise higher

With each pointed finger

Each suggestion that I

Should be different, better, more

I retreat to safer spaces

Where criticism can't find me

Where I don't have to explain

Why I need distance to breathe

They say I'm running

I call it surviving

They say connect

I hear surrender

In the quiet of my solitude

I find peace that others

Would dismantle with their needs

Their endless expectations

I've learned to live

In the spaces between people

Where disappointment can't reach

Where I don't have to fail again

When they reach for me, I flinch

Not from their touch, but from the weight

Of what might follow—the inevitable moment

When I'll disappoint them once more

I've memorized all the exit routes

From every conversation that turns too real

Practiced the art of the gentle deflection

Perfected the smile that reveals nothing

At night I replay each interaction

Searching for the cracks where I let too much in

Where I might have shown too much need

And left myself vulnerable to the pain of rejection

They wonder why I keep my distance

Why my messages come days later

Why I decline invitations with vague excuses

Why intimacy feels like drowning to me

What they don't see are the years of lessons

Each one teaching me that closeness brings pain

That to need someone is to hand them a weapon

That silence is safer than risking my heart

So I build my life in careful compartments

Keep people at calculated distances

Close enough to not feel completely alone

Far enough that their leaving won't destroy me

Every therapist has a name for it

"Avoidant attachment," they say with knowing eyes

As if labeling my survival strategy

Could somehow make it less necessary

They suggest exposure therapy

Small doses of vulnerability like bitter medicine

While I nod and promise to try

Then retreat further into my shell

Sometimes I imagine what it might be like

To trust someone completely, without reservation

To fall asleep with my defenses down

To wake up without scanning for threats

I've watched others do this dance with ease

Opening themselves like flowers to the sun

While I remain tightly budded

Afraid the frost will come again

They tell me healing comes from connection

That the very thing I fear could save me

But they don't understand how many times

I've tried to cross that bridge and found it burning

The cruel irony that haunts me:

I need people too, perhaps more deeply

Than those who wear their hearts outside their bodies

Who never learned that love and danger share a face

I hunger for connection in silence

A yearning that finds no voice

For to admit I need is to become vulnerable

And vulnerability has never served me well

There is no room for people like me

In a world that demands constant connection

That mistakes my boundaries for coldness

My self-protection for lack of care

They want access to all of me at once

Cannot understand the slow unveiling

The careful trust built over patient time

Not realizing their rush only pushes me away

My need comes in whispers, not shouts

In rare moments when my guard slips down

But by then, most have grown tired of waiting

Have labeled me broken, too difficult to love

One day they might understand

That some of us weren't built

For the constant collision of hearts

That others seem to navigate with ease

That my avoidance isn't rejection

But a fragile form of self-protection

A shelter built from the wreckage

Of too many times I tried and failed to connect

And maybe someday I'll find someone

Patient enough to wait outside my walls

Who doesn't demand entry but earns it

One small, frightening surrender at a time.

Derek Hart

This is one of the most heartbreaking poems I’ve ever read on the agony of living with an avoidant attachment style.

Many people I work with have grappled with the guilt and shame they feel about their avoidance.

They wrestle with vulnerability and finding ways to surrender and uncover their own inner self, to themselves and to others.

Other people I work with are the partners troubled by how shut out and cut off they feel by being in relationships with avoidants.

Avoidant attachment style isn’t narcissism. There’s no manipulation, control or coercion with avoidants; they just want to feel safe, and the only way they know how, is to close themselves off, to avoid judgement, criticism or accountability.

Behaviours are sometimes similar, but it’s extremely important to note the intention is different.

Your attachment style isn’t permanent unless you want it to be. The first step is getting to understand why you feel think and behave the way you do. Self awareness is the key to emotional freedom.

Through inner child healing and learning how to create healthy boundaries, you will finally be able to let go of all the barriers to your own happiness and through joy and acceptance of your own vulnerability, you will discover that limitless and abundant love exists within you.

Come to RECALIBRATE on 29th March central London for a full day workshop on learning all about how you developed your beliefs, where you have been self- sabotaging, and most importantly what you can do about it.

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