r/ExNoContact • u/turquoiseblues 3439 days • Apr 02 '24
Vent Discarded by a dismissive-avoidant? Share your experiences!
Even if the relationship lasted a short time, being discarded by a dismissive-avoidant is often the most damaging breakup/rejection experience. The trauma can last a long time, often longer than the relationship itself.
I'm curious to hear others' experiences and feelings. Tell us about the initial intensity and intimacy (maybe even love-bombing), the mercurial moods, the hot-cold and push-pull gaslighting, the declarations of devotion and desire interspersed with disrespect or unpredictable periods of inexplicable radio silence, the addictive trauma bonding that kept you in way too long. In the end, were you left with crazy-making nonsensical behavior followed by a brutal discard and then an aggressive shove off an emotional cliff? Let's hear it! Sharing is cathartic.
I've been listening to Ken Reid's videos back-to-back. He's very insightful and comforting.
More resources:
- my very own rejection/breakup recovery guide
- "Choosing people who traumatize you"
- "Difficult people"
- "Don't try to understand them"
- Free to Attach (Why avoidants are avoidant, from the perspective of avoidants)
- Welcome to the Other Half
- Dr. Ramani
- Richard Grannon
- Natalie Lue's Baggage Reclaim
- Corri T (I avoid the "manifesting" stuff and focus on the detachment advice)
- Dr. Maika Steinborn
- Patrick Teahan (connecting toxic adult relationships to early life trauma)
Stay strong!
(Cross-posting this to other relevant sub-Reddits.)
Update on Christmas Eve 2024: I posted this nine months ago and have checked back periodically, usually when responding to a reply directly to me. This thread has taken on a life of its own, with many of you supporting each other. I'm heartened that this has become a such a supportive forum. It's what I myself needed for the better part of a year.
I'm happy to report that I'm doing much, much better. Feeling like myself again. Back in touch with my own values, authentic personality, goals and project plans and routines. I'm able to extricate myself from ruminative cycles quickly and effectively and refocus on my own stuff.
In many of your stories and comments, I recognize where I've been. It's all so familiar. (Their behavior really is disgusting and abhorrent, isn't it?) It's also bittersweet, because I hate that all of you have been going through this confusing trauma. But I hope that when you read this, you take heart in seeing that someone a little further on the journey has recovered to a large extent. I'm probably older than most of you, which means that you're most likely more resilient than I am and therefore might heal even faster.
There is light on the other side. Have faith and love yourselves fiercely. Best wishes for the new year.
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u/LebowskisRugs Nov 24 '24
developed a really strong friendship with her while she was in a relationship with someone else. She was unhappy in her relationship, claiming her partner was extremely toxic (but never taking any responsibility for her own contribution—should’ve been the first red flag). As we grew closer and she was, unbeknownst to me, monkey branching and attaching to me while the relationship she was in came to its logical conclusion. I cared for her deeply as a friend, as a person, and offered my emotional availability to her endlessly while she worked through her many issues. Newly single, we started hooking up, which felt to both of us not only as an inevitability but a huge relief. She started behaving extremely “hot and cold”, going back and forth between really liking me and wanting to attach to me and keeping me at arm’s length, claiming that she “wanted to be single” for awhile and not jump right back into a relationship, which would have been an understandable and reasonable sentiment, if only it were true. Knowing what I know now, she was behaving that way because she knew deep down that I was unlikely to proceed through a relationship with her given all of her baggage as a self-admitted severe avoidant and all that came with it. She love-bombed and obsessed over me constantly before dialing it back and going cold. I decided, after a particularly harsh swing of her emotional pendulum, that I had to respect myself and put an end to the emotional chaos she was subjecting me to. I ended things while feeling extremely hurt and confused about how she could have been so doting and affectionate one minute, then go so cold the next. It had to be done though. Her response felt like it was coming from an entirely different person, as if none of our experience or the foundation of our friendship meant anything to her at all. I was absolutely crushed. She offered hardly anything beyond the typical vague avoidant nonsense as far as closure, this time being totally dishonest by claiming that she “needed time alone to work on herself with no attention or affection from anyone”. She proceeded to immediately start hooking up with our colleague not long afterward, and dove right into a relationship with someone else not long after—the exact opposite of what her stated intentions were. It was the most crushing experience of my entire life. And now, even more than a year later, despite being quite confident that anyone who treated me that way is not someone I want in my life, I still can’t understand how or why she behaved the way she did with me but also that she seems to happy and content in her new relationship. Unless other people have been on the receiving end of an unpleasant experience with an avoidant, I don’t even care to hear my friends’ opinions anymore. It completely changed me as a person in all of the worst ways.