Stop Running from Love: Three Steps to Overcoming Emotional Distancing and Fear of Intimacy (3 page)

The disappearing distancer usually avoids intimate relationships in order to decrease the risk of dependency and possible emotional devastation. Like every other form of distancing, the disappearing distancer uses distancing as a survival tool by trying to defend against painful loss, rejection, or exploitation. Because of keeping potential partners at a distance, the disappearing distancer may be deeply lonely. She may not know this at a conscious level, telling herself that instead of enduring the hassles that come with a relationship, she is choosing creativity, a brilliant career, dedication to her spiritual practice, or getting to know herself as a single, unencumbered person. But unlike the person who is genuinely content and committed to being single, the disappearing distancer harbors fantasies of being in a happy couple.

The Distancer Who Fears Herself

Sometimes the most virulent force behind the avoidant patterns of the disappearing distancer is the fear of being consumed by her (or his) own desires or needs.

Julie’s Story

Julie is a college student who is terrified by her own hunger for connection. One morning while we were walking in the woods behind my house, she described her fear of engulfing others. She told me, “I sometimes think… I don’t know how to say this, but I think I could just gulp down any person I started to like. Just, like, gobble him up, you know?” It’s a beautiful day, but Julie doesn’t seem to notice the brilliant colors of the leaves on the path as she scuffs along beside me.

I glanced at my unhappy young companion. She is lovely, although her short buzz haircut and many piercings challenge my fashion sense. Like many other women of her generation, tattoos, multiple earrings, and big shoes are her cultural statements, but beneath her in-your-face style is the soft vulnerability of a runaway bunny. I was wearing a long-sleeved jersey and jeans for our walk, while Julie wore a skintight sleeveless T-shirt. She clumped along in her heavy boots, oddly graceful in her long, flowing cotton skirt decorated with colorful embroidery and tiny mirrors.

Julie grew up in a family where there was good reason to be afraid of swallowing someone whole. Her mother suffered from severe depression. Julie has become increasingly horrified by the idea that she could be just like her mother, a woman whose terrible needs threatened to devour her daughter. Julie was afraid she would never escape her mother’s hunger.

“I never invited other kids over to my house,” she told me. “I never knew if my mother would be friendly or if she would start crying in front of them and tell us to go outside so she could go back to sleep. The kids knew there was something wrong with her, so they didn’t really want to come to my house anyway.” Over time, the shame Julie felt about her mother took her over so completely that she developed a pervasive sense of shame about herself.

Julie is already practiced in the self-sabotaging patterns of distancing even though she is only nineteen years old. Although her behavior is not yet at the extreme end of the spectrum, she is driven to keep herself at an impenetrable distance from others. She was quick to tell me that it’s safer to run away from others rather than face her own hungry ghosts. She hides from anyone who might become a potential partner. She said, “Sometimes, people tell me I’m weird. Some of the kids in my dorm even call me ‘The Mystery Girl.’”

Julie illustrates the disappearing distancer who suffers from fear, shame, and self-loathing, feelings that have propelled her into hiding.

The Isolated Distancer

Spending a great deal of your time alone becomes self-sabotaging when it keeps you from recognizing, deepening, and enjoying human connection. The habit of being alone, when generated by negative feelings toward others, can become a chronic condition of isolation. Feeling driven to back away from others is often based on shame.

Isolation, in and of itself, is a by-product of distancing that creates its own problems. In the prison system, being placed in solitary confinement has always been the gravest of punishments. When people put themselves into their own prison of isolation, they lose confidence in their rightful place in human society. Feeling perpetually outside of life can cause you to feel rejected and defective. Over time, you may become increasingly fearful, resentful, anxious, depressed, or angry.

Isolation is self-perpetuating. It is potentially lethal when it leads to extremes of depression and hopelessness and can take someone to the point of suicide. Someone like Julie, who never seems to initiate contact with others, is perceived as aloof, arrogant, or unfriendly. This in turn creates feelings of loneliness and defensiveness.

Andrew’s Story

Andrew was an appealing but elusive client who popped in and out of my therapy practice at erratic intervals. He told me that he had come to therapy because he really wanted a partner, but he couldn’t seem to get anything started. When I asked Andrew if he was committed to doing the work it would take for him to find a partner, he was enthusiastic. “You got it! I’m going to be here, no fear. Definitely! I’m going to make it to every appointment this month and the next and the next. You’ve got my word.”

However, as a rule, long before the hour was over, he sailed out of my office, whistling and humming cheerfully, and greeting anyone who happened to be in the waiting room.

Inevitably, Andrew failed to stick to the schedule. During the first few months with me, he missed many appointments. When we did meet, his ability to pay attention was too scatteredfor him to be able to focus on his distancing patterns. We weren’t making much progress in helping him to identify the specific ways he distanced, although I was beginning to spot his pattern. It was hard to help Andrew to focus because of his speedy monologues and his lightning-quick exits before we had settled into a topic.

Andrew was a complex person who very rarely felt comfortable inside his own skin. Generally, he was tormented by being unable to stick to any given plan. He couldn’t follow through, whether it was a plan to move to another part of the country or go back to school, or even just a plan to get a cup of coffee with a friend. He was reluctant to make choices, from something as small as choosing what movie to see, to something more significant like signing a lease for an apartment or getting a full-time job. Because of his across-the-board style of restlessness and avoidance, Andrew couldn’t even get close to starting an intimate relationship.

Like many other distancers I have known, Andrew had a history of drug and alcohol dependence, but, miraculously, considering his restless style, he had been able to stay clean for ten years. He attended a 12-step meeting almost every day, but could rarely make it through the entire hour. Yet despite his extreme restlessness, he remained determined to stay clean and sober. Most of his siblings were in various stages of physical and economic failure because of their active addictions. Andrew’s mother desperately wanted more for her youngest son, and her support was the foundation of Andrew’s tenuous abstinence. Being involved in 12-step programs was his only successful effort at risking connection. I understood this single area of success: it felt safe because Andrew was relating to an entire group rather than allowing himself to be vulnerable with one person.

When I asked Andrew to describe what it was like for him to sit with me in therapy and try to talk about himself, he described extreme mental restlessness. He gave me a quick sketch of his internal and external process whenever he was alone with one other person. He said he couldn’t concentrate on the other person, changing his mind every few minutes about what he wanted to do next, or thinking about someone or something else, instead of staying focused in the present moment. As soon as he settled down physically, he would begin to think of something else he should be doing instead. Because of his extreme agitation and trouble with committing to the moment, he would precipitously leave whatever he was supposed to be doing, abandoning people even in his casual encounters such as coffee dates with friends. As you might imagine, his attempts to date were disastrous.

“My AA sponsor said to keep telling me ‘be here now’ but I just couldn’t do it,” Andrew confessed. Although it seemed clear that he was suffering from attention-deficit disorder and extreme anxiety, the support provided by medication and anxiety-focused behavioral modification therapy did not seem to help him approach intimacy with a partner.

As I got to know Andrew better, I began to understand that despite his hyperactive avoidance patterns, he had a lot going for him. He was an optimistic, loving person who sincerely wanted to find relief from the self-sabotaging behavior that kept him running in circles. He was capable of changing, but not until he was ready to understand how his distancing style controlled his life. It would require both willingness and openness to new insights and new activities before he would be able to take his first step in successfully challenging his relationship problems.

Janine’s Story

Janine, a baby-faced blonde in her late twenties, was a participant in one of my trauma and addiction recovery groups. Like many other disappearing distancers, Janine habitually spent much of her time alone. She was fearful of others and she suffered intense shame about her experience of having been victimized.

At nineteen, Janine had been sexually assaulted by several men she met at a bar. After her traumatic efforts to disclose the rape, she grew increasingly silent and withdrawn. Her friends and family either doubted her story or blamed her for the assault. It was even suggested that she had been at fault because she had been partying like everyone else at the bar.

When she first met with a counselor she disclosed the details of the rape, but she had already given up trying to explain her complex and painful reactions to the entire traumatic experience, including the sense of betrayal she’d felt when those close to her blamed her. She had made up her mind to trust no one and built a fortress around her body and spirit; the main foundation of her fortress was her addictive overeating.

When Janine’s weight gain became a potential threat to her health, a friend suggested she should try going to the nearby women’s community resource center where she could participate in a free exercise and nutrition program. It was there that she became willing to join one of my recovery groups, encouraged by the stories of other women who were regulars at the center. She became willing to try again, knowing that she would be with others who shared her experience of violation and shame.

Before Janine came to the women’s center, she had stopped going out at all. She ordered take-out deliveries and got her sister to shop for her other necessities. She did not use her time alone in pursuits that satisfied her. She was trapped in a prison of isolation by the shame and hopelessness of feeling damaged beyond repair. Until Janine found a way to begin trusting others in the group, she had been the victim of her self-imposed isolation. Later, she would take on the challenge of moving toward an intimate relationship.

Exercise

Are You a Disappearing Distancer?

Here is a simple exercise to help you compare your behavior with this style of distancing. Use the following scale to rank yourself:

1 = This doesn’t describe me at all.

2 = This describes my behavior a little bit.

3 = This describes my behavior in some ways.

4 = This describes quite a lot of my behavior.

5 = This is definitely me.

Now, read the following statements and rate each answer from 1 to 5.

Scores

Now, add up your total score.
Total
Score
___________

If your score was under 35,
that means this category doesn’t describe you.

If your score was between 45 and 50,
then you are very likely to be a disappearing distancer.

If you scored somewhere between 35 and 45,
there are definitely some aspects of the disappearing distancer that fit your relational style.

Use the information you just obtained from answering this questionnaire to make a few notes about yourself in your journal. Notice which aspects of the disappearing distancer seem to resonate most strongly with your experience of yourself. Note whether there are some things you feel okay about and don’t plan to change. Notice what upsets you the most. Which things would you most like to change?

The Defended Distancer

The second category of distancing includes women and men who do get involved in intimate relationships but have trouble staying the course or being really open and vulnerable within a close relationship. Defended distancers may be commitment phobic and very ambivalent about intimacy; they move in and out of relationships, often seeming to have one foot out the door when in an intimate relationship. Defended distancers may be a part of a couple but they remain emotionally and/or sexually walled off, so they are unavailable to meet their partner’s relational needs.

This form of distancing can occur along a spectrum of behavior. Some defended distancers are actively resistant to emotional or sexual intimacy, refusing to share their feelings or erecting impenetrable sexual barriers, while others may not be aware that they are shut down. Some defended distancers use criticism and frequent conflicts to create distance even though they may be unaware that they are doing this.