Anxious and Avoidant

Emotions are hard. We all have to deal with them.

Some people spiral. Some people sort them out with proper regulation. Some people avoid feeling them at all.

These people on their own struggle in their own ways.

When it comes to two people in a romantic relationship———anxious and avoidant——-people who love each other, people who want to spend their lives together, things change. Just a little, not a whole lot.

The anxious one gets…well, anxious, and the one who avoids…avoids.

It’s funny, too. When those two, anxious and avoidant, get together because now everyone is hurt when one happens to receive a hit from the other.

Avoidant won’t say what’s wrong. Instead, he plays it off as, “it’s fine,” “I’ve already forgotten about it,” “It doesn’t matter,” and in a sense, they’re telling the truth. It doesn’t matter, they have forgotten, it is fine.

But only because they shut off that part of their brain to process the hurt. Were they to turn it back on, it’d matter. They wouldn’t forget. They’d be hurt.

While the avoidant cries, “It’s fine, I don’t care,” and tries to move on, the anxious knows that it’s not fine. They see the hurt, even if it’s buried deep within them. So, now, while the avoidant pretends to be unbothered, the anxious is crying, “Tell me the truth, it’s not okay, admit it!”

The anxious can’t let it go now, he has to dig those emotions up so they can work it out instead of pretending the hurt isn’t there.

The avoidant gets annoyed. “Stop trying to dig up the past.”

But the anxious is practically dying. At first, the avoidant was hurt, but now that the anxious knows they are and won’t say, they’re hurt that the truth won’t come out.

This reality looks awfully similar to this:

Avoidant is inside a small cage, the key to the cage inside the palm of their hand. The anxious stands outside of the cage and they know the avoidant wants out of the cage that’s locked from the outside.

”Hand me the key,” the anxious suggests, but the avoidant refuses because although they know deep down they want out, they’ve accepted their situation of being stuck within the small space.

While the avoidant silently bleeds, the anxious has to watch. Watch as they refuse to give up the key that sits right inside the palm of their hand yet refuse to hand it over.

So, in the end, they both suffer. The anxious cries, wishing they could help, while the avoidant looks away, evading the heavy weight of the emotions they feel about the cage and in the end killing himself.

And his love.