I didn’t like who I’d become—a shell of a person. I had no sense of self outside of the relationships I had with others. Through messy mascara and soiled tears, I knew the only place to go was up. I didn’t know where I was headed, but continuing to marinate in a pool of my own tears was no longer an option.
Diving deep into my own story, I uncovered this dance I’d been doing for ages. It’s like being caught in a seesaw of wanting to pull people super close because of my anxious attachment, then almost shape-shifting into whatever I thought they wanted to keep the peace. It’s that fawning response, you know? I was people-pleasing to avoid conflict, and to avoid my own emotions. It felt like I was constantly trying to dance around emotional landmines. Here’s what helped me:
Mindfulness Meditation: This wasn’t about sitting in a quiet room with candles. Meditation allowed me to clearly identify moments where my anxious attachment was pushing me to cling, or when my fawn response triggered self-abandonment. By grounding myself in the present, I learned to recognize and resist these urges.
Establishing Boundaries: I always thought boundaries would make me come across as “too much.” But you know what? An anxious heart often believes that boundaries push people away. In reality, boundaries are expressions of self-respect. I began to understand that it’s not only okay but necessary to communicate my needs, without fear of driving someone away.
Seeking Therapy: My therapist? Game-changer. We dug into some old stories, and man, it made things clearer. Seeing where my fears came from was like turning the lights on in a dim room. With my therapist’s guidance, I unraveled how past experiences were the culprits behind my attachment fears and my tendency to appease. By understanding the root, I could address the symptom.
Journaling: Writing gave me a mirror to my subconscious. As patterns emerged on paper, I could pinpoint triggers and situations where my fawning or clinging tendencies took over. For example, if something triggered that clingy or people-pleasing side, I’d jot it down.
Self-soothing Techniques: It sounds cliché, but when the emotional roller coaster hit, just taking a moment, feeling my feet on the ground, and breathing deep … it made a world of difference. Over time, deep-breathing exercises and grounding techniques became my go-to during intense emotional tides, giving me a moment of pause to decide how I genuinely wanted to act.
Once I was armed with these tools, and using them consistently, the transformation began. Things started shifting. The once-overwhelming urge to cling began to diminish. The habitual need to pacify or change myself to avoid conflict started to wane. Instead of being tossed around by emotional tempests, I found myself navigating with intention. I could actively choose my responses rather than being instinctively yanked by old patterns.
So, if you’re feeling like you’re in a maze right now, trust me: it’s not forever. It’s a chapter, and there’s a whole lot of book left. It’s perfectly okay if you’re in the midst of this emotional whirlwind. Recognize it as a chapter, not the entire story. The pain, the confusion—it’s all forging a path to a brighter, freer you. Each challenge is a stepping stone, leading to a stronger, genuine, and beautifully empowered version of yourself. Hold on; the journey is worth every teardrop and every revelation.
3
Hermit Mode
Haley walked into my office with a broken heart, her eyes red and swollen from crying all night. She collapsed into the chair across from me, barely holding back tears.
“I just don’t know how to let go,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
“What makes it hard for you to let go?” I asked softly.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, the relationship was so toxic. Everyone around us knew it wasn’t healthy. But I can’t help feeling like I’m betraying myself by ending it.”
I nodded. “I can understand wanting peace but not being quite ready to let go of the chaos.”
She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “Exactly. I just feel so lost.”
We talked about her past relationships and how they all had a similar pattern of fighting and breaking up, only to make up and start the cycle all over again.
“I know this must be exhausting,” I said.
Haley nodded, still in tears. “And I just don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to set healthy boundaries.”
As we unpacked her Pandora’s box in our therapy sessions, I learned that Haley had grown up in a dysfunctional family with distant parents who never modeled healthy relational dynamics. We talked about her past traumas, including a toxic work environment that mirrored her childhood home, with parents so preoccupied with their own toxic dynamics they had ignored Haley’s emotional needs around connection and validation. It became clear that Haley had a pattern of betraying her emotional needs so that she wouldn’t feel lonely, even if it meant staying in abusive relationships.
“It’s all you’ve known,” I said. “But it doesn’t have to be all you know.”
Haley wiped away her tears and nodded. “I know. I just don’t know where to start.”
We often embark on our healing journey after a tragic event brings us to our knees. In those dark moments, we contemplate our life and the changes that need to happen for us to live better. Otherwise, we reinforce that it is more important to be in codependent, even toxic love than it is to love ourselves enough to break away from:
Broken hearts
Distant relationships
People-pleasing
Boundary violations
Living and marinating in a perpetual trauma response
Immature parents
Dysfunctional family dynamics
Toxic work dynamics
Stressful co-parenting situations
Betraying our emotional needs to avoid feeling lonely
Staying in abusive relationships because it’s all we know
Take a deep breath and feel the resolve building. You know this can’t be all there is to life and relationships. There has to be a different path. You might be here if you’ve hit rock bottom or found yourself at a dead end in the relationship you have with others or yourself. The pain and despair can take your breath away when you consider the impact and consequences of your decisions and how they’ve shaped the path that brought you to this exact moment. It’s at this place that you might find yourself entering hermit mode.
Maybe you’ve crash-landed here after a breakup. You hate everyone who wants to get close to you, but you’re also struggling with loneliness and rigid boundaries. Sometimes, all you want is to shut the world out, even when that loneliness is hitting hard. It’s a tricky spot: wanting to keep everyone at arm’s length, but also wanting, well … someone. And it’s super tempting to make snap decisions just to fill that void. That’s where those consequential decisions come into play. Like, maybe pulling someone new into your life on a whim, and before you know it, you’re all tangled up. Is it genuine connection, or just a knee-jerk reaction to not wanting to feel alone?
Deep breath. Let’s try to sit with those feelings, not run from them. Rushing won’t mend your heart faster. Remember, reacting on a whim might lead to detours, more pit stops, and rebound tours. Taking it slow and feeling through it all will pave the way for healthier, conscious love.
The primary relationship you have is with yourself, and during this stage, it’s the one that matters the most. You can heal while being in a healthy relationship, but only if you’re also in a healthy relationship with yourself. You have to make sure you aren’t choosing unhealthy relationships due to your vulnerable emotional state and unchecked destructive patterns. Make sure you have healthy boundaries, good standards, solid core values, and deal breakers you’re willing to stand by. Without this key step, you risk returning to old patterns, choosing toxic and tumultuous people, or even jumping into another trauma bond.
When you are in a raw state, your feelings are valid, but they may not be your best guides for finding new, meaningful, and healthy love. Often, after a breakup, you feel unlovable, so you seek attention more than anything else, even if it means tolerating hurtful behavior. It’s completely natural to need this validation when you are heartbroken. However, at this stage in your healing, when you seek love in a new partner instead of through friends, self-care, and other sources, you can end up with a partner who reflects your current emotional state back to you in their behavior. Instead of attention from a dating app, what you really need is someone like a friend or therapist to tell you that you matter. It’s perfectly fine to tell your friends that you need them to love you a little extra during this time. At this stage, it’s also best to indulge in copious self-care and consistent self-soothing while surrendering to the feelings that come up.
I remember when Haley sat on the couch in my office, fidgeting with her fingers as she tried to explain her decision to take time away from dating after her recent breakup. It was a decision that had surprised both of us, as Haley had always been the type to jump back into the dating scene as soon as possible.
