Hey, everybody. Today, we're gonna talk about the fear of intimacy. Where does it come from? And what can we do to help it? So like I said today we going to talk about fear of intimacy. Many of you reached out and asked about this.
And I know that there's a lot of talk and chatter online about the fear of intimacy being related to social phobia or different anxieties. But I think it's more important for us to actually dive into where the fear of intimacy comes from, so we can work in therapy or on ourselves individually and help better our relationships.
First of all, I just want to say this, if you are out there and you're in a relationship with someone who has the fear of intimacy and you find them often putting you off, or maybe not giving you as much attention as you need or you don't feel their emotionally available like you want.
Know that that doesn't always mean that they don't care. Often, people who struggle with the fear of intimacy will think that they're giving you as much attention as you possibly need and being as emotionally available as they would want.
Because it's really difficult for them to understand what a quote, and quote, normal amount of this is and they feel like they're doing everything they can.
Now, it's my belief that the fear of intimacy comes from us not having a secure attachment. Now, I know I've talked about this in the past but just to refresh your memory.
A secure attachment is what forms when we are babies or small children whenever we express discontent or being uncomfortable or something, maybe hurting us a parent comes in soothe as lets us know that our emotions are okay.
How we feel is normal it makes us feel a sense of Validating and we feel taken care of and soothed. That's how we form a secure attachment.
An insecure attachment or what we call avoidant or dismissing type or reactive attachment is when we cry or we express discontent and a parent doesn't show up.
They are not around or they're like, oh, he'll cry out or we have a completely smothering parental type where they're all about and they worry so much about how we're feeling, and that anxiety gets picked up on and either way either extreme Creates insecure attachment.
Now, the reason that I believe, this leads to fear of intimacy, is because many people grow up thinking that the emotions that they feel are not okay.
Either (A), No One's Gonna Come to our rescue, maybe we're making this up, maybe I don't have the right to feel this way, or if we're on the smothering and it made we may think oh I'm gonna burden that person too much.
It's gonna be too stressful if I expressed what is actually happening. So the only safe way to be is to not feel any of those emotions.
So, we stick them deep within ourselves and taking them away, and hope that it goes away.
And then when we're adults, it can even be scary to consider feeling things and letting those emotions out.
Because, if you think about all of our experience, hasn’t been good and it can make us feel very vulnerable and wonder what we're gonna get out.
Are we gonna have somebody completely abandoned us? Because that would be another deep wound, right? Or are we going to have someone freak out and make things feel worse for us? And then we worry about what we've done to them and we freak out in the end also,
And so you can see, how could be really scary to go from having an insecure attachment, to try to learn how to properly express emotions.
But don't worry, you can do it. Now, before I get into the way that we can fix it, I want to address the fact that those of us who really struggle with fear of intimacy, don't usually know that we do.
It only tends to come out most commonly through work and work relationships because we're forced to work we have to pay our bills, right?
And so we're forced into relationships with people and then these situations may arise, where we maybe end up the therapy or talking to someone else like what happened, and or in romantic relationships.
And so, usually, it takes us a while to even recognize that this is something that we struggle with.
So now let's get into how to fix it, and I have five ways. The first is
01-CBT OR DBT THERAPY.
Now before we can get into the five ways that we can fix it, know that CBT and DBT therapy tend to be best. Now there's the most research about CBT, so if you go looking yourself you'll find that they recommend CBT, but because of a DBT therapist as well I find a lot of overlaps with the ways that I would help treat this in my practice.
And so I think that CBT and DBT can be both beneficial. The first way that we can help fix it is by
Practicing Expressing How We Feel.
I know that sounds really hard and difficult but instead of just saying, oh I'm fine don't worry, I'll be okay No, I'm fine I'm gonna try to brush things off.
What if instead, we said, yeah, I'm just feeling really overwhelmed right now? Give me a minute. And then we take the time to kind of decompress.
Maybe we check in with ourselves? Maybe we click the link in the description and find this feelings wheel that's amazing.
And we highlight one or two of those feelings, we come back and say, you know, just feeling really angry, but I think I'm feeling angry because I'm actually feeling really hurt that would great
And practicing communicating, our emotion is the first step to helping with fear of intimacy.
And then I actually go into the second one, because I've already kind of talked about it.
02-Talk Using Feeling Sheets.
I have my clients do it at least twice a day. I know that sounds like a lot, but imagine all the emotions that are actually going through your head every day or your body that you're kind of trying to ignore.
You'll be surprised how many feelings and emotions that you have. And so I use these feelings charts for my clients so they can Circle them, maybe once in the morning and once in the evening so that we can kind of track how they're doing
And I would encourage you to do the same. Like I said, there's a link in the description now. The third way to help is to
03-Practice Reading, Emotions on Others.
Many of the people that I've talked with those who struggle with fear of intimacy, have a hard time reading other people, and knowing when other people are upset.
Because some people might not come out and say it to us directly, we may struggle to read it on their body language and their face.
And so I would encourage you to have a trusted friend, family member loved one who you can bounce this off of as you practice.
So as you meet other friends and family members maybe afterward, you say to them, hey I got the feeling they actually were having a pretty good time and doing well is that correct? Or maybe she seemed a little distraught, kind of scattered? Like she's really busy. Am I right?
And checking them with them because the more we practice the better we improve and the quicker we can actually read people's emotions and make sure that we're doing the best we can to support them.
Because the more we practice this, the better will get and the quicker will be able to recognize emotions in others.
04-Fourth Be Patient.
As you can tell all of these things that I'm asking you to do, take a lot of time to practice, but it does get better and it does get easier. Just give yourself a little time, and cut yourself a little slack. It just takes us practicing day in and day out before it becomes actually like an automatic thing that we do. So just be patient. You're doing the best you can.
And the fifth and the final way to work on fear of intimacy is to
05-Practice Calming Techniques.
Whether or not we're in a distressing place, I want you to start practicing now, breathing techniques distraction techniques, maybe there's a way that you know, tense and relaxes muscles without people really noticing, there can be a bunch of different things you do to help yourself relax.
But practicing when we're not distressed environments helps us so that when we go into maybe one of those conflictual situations, where we normally would numb out and distance ourselves or maybe you walk away, or maybe just go deep inside, you know, feel like we're kind of dissociating, maybe that is the way we cope with it?
Instead of doing those coping skills, let's try relaxing. So we can stay present and we can actually have conversations, even if they're a little uncomfortable and hey, maybe soon we'll be able to say, you know, I'm feeling really overwhelmed.
I'm gonna have to walk away, but can we, you know take up this conversation again about 30 minutes when I feel a little better?
You’ll find the people actually respond well to that and you can get better with practice. Just like I said, be patient. It does get better. Know that you're not alone. Like I said, only 55% of people grow up with secure attachment.
So how many of us are rolling around struggling with intimacy? Because it feels unsafe and it's hard to be vulnerable. We may not even know how to be vulnerable.
I hope this helps, I hope you find all of these tips and tricks and where it comes from interesting and hopeful in your daily life and please share, and you never know who would need this information. And if you're new to my channel, click here to subscribe
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