Fearful Avoidant E-Book

Anton Bogdanov

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 212

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

STOP FIXING SYMPTOMS. REWIRE THE MACHINE.

The Neuroscience-Based Owner’s Manual for Fearful Avoidants

If you’re trapped in the hell of Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) attachment – where love and closeness trigger panic, intimacy and connection fuel constant doubts and breakup urges, and your brain sabotages relationships like a corrupted operating system – this book is your debug tool. No more drowning in anxiety, obsessive loops, or feeling "broken." I survived that war. Let me help you find the way out.

This isn’t another pop psychology book, a self-help workbook that asks you to follow fifty exercises without explaining why they work, or a long textbook by an Ivy League professor. I’m a former tech marketing executive from a Fortune 500 company whose life and a successful 30-year career imploded when my Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) attachment erupted into gruelling Relationship OCD at midlife.

For two years since January 2022, I lived in hell as I worked to crack the code of my condition. Using my experience in technology marketing and behavioral psychology (and two years of intensive neuroscience and trauma psychology research), while battling constant anxiety and panic attacks, I decoded the patterns that trapped me and created a neuroscience-based roadmap to break free from it – without therapy.

I have studied and distilled recurrent themes and complementary ideas from almost a hundred books by world-leading experts on Brain Neurochemistry, Neurobiology of Stress and Anxiety, Psychological Trauma, Complex PTSD, Attachment Theory, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Exposure Therapy, Mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and many other topics. 

You don’t need to waste years searching for answers about your contradictory feelings, intrusive thoughts and puzzling behavior. I basically “opened the hood” of Disorganized Attachment and Relationship OCD and demystified them to the level of common diseases.

Healing is possible, even if it requires learning and patience.

PERSONAL STORY OF USING NEUROSCIENCE TO GET OUT OF PAIN:

- Real Experience of Self-Education and Self-Therapy: combines latest cutting-edge neuroscience with evidence-based healing interventions.

- Actionable: Only practical neuroplasticity-based strategies that helped heal my severe attachment trauma and relationship anxiety.

- Save Years: I distilled 10,000+ hours of research, extracting common themes and complementary ideas by some of the world's best authors in a condensed manual.

CONCISE, IN-DEPTH ROADMAP, WHERE YOU’LL DISCOVER:

- The Neuroscience/Attachment Link: How childhood attachment trauma fuels Relationship Anxiety/OCD.

- The 7-Stage Neuro-Protocol: Science-backed steps to disarm threat responses and build security.

- Why Traditional Therapy Fails Fearful Avoidants: The missing neuroscience interventions most therapists overlook.

- Extensive Curated Further Reading List: Only the most impactful and well-reviewed resources.

STOP TREATING YOURSELF LIKE A MYSTERY. UNDERSTAND YOUR BRAIN. REWIRE IT.

Leseprobe

FEARFUL AVOIDANT

HOW I USED NEUROSCIENCE TO HEAL DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT AND RELATIONSHIP OCD

Anton Bogdanov

PublishDrive

Copyright © 2025 Anton Bogdanov

FIRST EDITIONEbook edition ISBN 979-8-89860-105-8All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the author.

To my wife, the keeper of my fractured heart and healer of my splintered soul.When my fearful-avoidant storms raged, pushing you away while crying to be held, drowning in waves of doubt I mistook for truth, you became my harbor. Not just once, but daily. Every time my chaos threatened to shatter our children’s world… you chose us. You chose me, even when I was a ghost of the man who vowed forever.You saw the war raging inside me and loved the soldier who’d forgotten his way home. When I was lost in neuroscience texts, trembling with the terror I’d ruin us all, you brought me coffee. When I forgot how to hold you without trembling, you held me anyway. You didn’t just withstand my battles – you fought beside me in the trenches, shield raised against the shrapnel of my own unraveling.Without you, I would have become a serial heartbreaker: a collector of abandoned loves and my own shattered pieces. Instead, you helped me understand me that love isn’t the absence of fear… it’s choosing to rewire it, together. This book is your victory, too. For every repaired moment, every salvaged heartbeat, every time you loved me back to life – Thank you isn’t a word. It’s the rest of our lives.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

INTRODUCTION

PART I:

Chapter 1

WHAT IS FEARFUL-AVOIDANT (DISORGANIZED) ATTACHMENT

Chapter 2

NEUROSCIENCE OF DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT AND RELATIONSHIP OCD

Part II:

Chapter 3

WE ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS

Chapter 4

FACE YOUR FEARS  

Chapter 5

HEAL YOUR INNER CHILD

Chapter 6

REBOOT YOUR REWARD SYSTEM

Chapter 7

PUT ON "WATER WINGS"

Chapter 8

TURBULENCE AHEAD!

Chapter 9

USE WISDOM OF THE BODY

Chapter 10

CHANGE IS DAILY WORK

CONCLUSION

YOUR WORDS CAN LIGHT ANOTHER'S PATH

GLOSSARY

RESOURCES/FURTHER READING/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

YOUR JOURNEY MATTERS TO ME

Preface

For Those Trapped in the Hell of Disorganized Attachment

If you’re reading this, you likely know the torment of Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) Attachment style. You’ve probably searched for answers only to find superficial explanations or generic advice to go to therapy that ignores how this attachment style lives in your body and brain.

I developed this guide because I lived in that hell. When my own Disorganized Attachment erupted into crippling Relationship OCD, I discovered a surprising gap: most resources sidestep neuroscience – the very key to healing. Shockingly, even in this century, therapists often dismiss neurobiology (mine refused to even look at my neurotransmitter tests results, insisting “Talking is more important”). Yet, my dopamine levels were catastrophically low, which spurred my quest for answers.

I became my own lab

Over two years of anxiety, panic attacks and merciless intrusive thoughts (What if I don’t love my wife? What if I’ve ruined my life?), I have studied and distilled recurrent themes and complementary ideas from almost a hundred books by world-leading experts on Brain Neurochemistry, Neurobiology of Stress and Anxiety, Psychological Trauma, Complex PTSD, Attachment Theory, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Exposure Therapy, Mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT),  among other topics.

My goal? To crack the code of Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) Attachment at the intersection of neurobiology and practical psychology. Not as a clinician, but as a desperate husband fighting for his marriage. I worked daily to extract common themes and weave complementary concepts into a science-backed toolkit for healing myself.

What Started as A Personal Healing Story Became a RoadmapOriginally a viral post at Reddit’s Relationship OCD section (which reached 200,000+ reads in a few months – a huge number for such a narrow niche), this now significantly expanded guide distills:

1. The Neuroscience/Attachment Link: How childhood attachment trauma fuels Relationship Anxiety/ OCD.

2. The 7-Stage NeuroRepair Roadmap: science-backed strategies to disarm threat responses and build security.

3. Why Traditional Therapy Fails Fearful Avoidants: The missing neuroscience interventions most therapists overlook.

4. Extensive Curated Further Reading List: Only the most impactful and well-reviewed resources.

This Isn’t Light Reading

It’s a personal, battle-tested neuroscience toolkit from someone who escaped the labyrinth. While I tried to keep the science accessible, I refused to sacrifice depth for speed – because genuine change requires wrestling with truth, not easy soundbites. Your brain learns best through “desirable difficulty”: Light reading skims neural pathways; engaged struggle rewires them. Where the science feels dense, lean into the friction. That’s where insight crystallizes.

As a technical product marketer (and Stephen King fan), I know this: Just as King’s rich prose makes his stories seep "into your bones", here, scientific depth forges enduring solutions. It dissolves the panic of not knowing into lasting clarity. The labyrinth wasn’t undone by quick tips. I went to the bottom; every concept here earned its place by guiding me out.

So read slowly, don’t rush

This isn’t a distraction. It’s an archaeology of the self. Where the science feels rich, pause. That’s your brain welding a scaffold. Reread if needed. What worked for me can work for you, but only if you meet these insights at the depth they demand.

A Note of HopeToday, my wife and I cuddle almost like newlyweds. Sex is joyful and regular. Obsessive thoughts and doubts? Practically gone. This isn’t just theory. It’s evidence-based and lived proof that healing is possible. My gift to you: the neuroscience-based roadmap I wish I’d had many years ago.

Anton Bogdanov

INTRODUCTION

Like for many with a Fearful-Avoidant Attachment style, relationship anxiety appeared in my first serious relationship around age 20, shortly after the "honeymoon" phase. At the time, I had no understanding of what was happening. Moving in together with my girlfriend after a few blissful weeks suddenly plunged me into overwhelming dread I couldn't explain. Constant heaviness in my chest made it hard to sleep or study. My mind raced 24/7, desperately seeking answers: Why do I feel this way? This soon spiraled into terrifying intrusive thoughts: Do I truly love my girlfriend? She must not be the one if I feel like this!

After several painful breakups, culminating in an ultimatum, "Marry me or we are done", I reluctantly walked down the aisle on stiff legs, consumed by near-panic anxiety. The first year of marriage felt like a life sentence. Sensing my turmoil, my mother-in-law offered blunt advice: “It’s easy to get divorced without children; relax.” I started to feel better only when I launched my career, channeling all my anxious energy and avoidance into climbing the ladder. I pursued promotions, power, money and achievements with obsessive zest. Only years later did I recognize this workaholism as a coping mechanism. My career in Marketing Communications (a creatively rewarding field, offering near-daily Dopamine surges) alongside video games and, ahem, pornography, became addictive buffers against intimacy. These distractions dulled my anxiety just enough to sustain the marriage and even allowed us to have three children.

Then, 25 years later, my career plateaued. The Dopamine well ran dry. As someone whose entire self was based on a job title and long resume, I collided head-on with a Midlife Crisis (MLC). An MLC doesn’t just cause discontent with life. It tears open old wounds and frees "caged monsters." The coping strategies that had muffled my relationship anxiety for decades stopped working and the sudden anxiety storm let the beast loose. COVID-19 lockdowns compounded this: accustomed to "living at work," I was now constantly at home with my wife. Constant proximity fueled fresh anxiety; my libido went downhill, adding more "kerosene" to the firestorm in my head. Work stress shattered my already weakened mental defenses, eroded by career dissatisfaction and MLC pressures. As a result, my relationship anxiety returned with brutal vengeance as full-fledged Relationship OCD with thought-anxiety loops running literally 24/7. Years of confinement seemed to have strengthened it. Now, ugly somatic symptoms erupted: Panic Attacks, Overactive Bladder, Irritable Bowel, Weather Sensitivity, and finally, Erectile Dysfunction. At forty-five, the body forgives far less. This perfect storm forced me to confront what I had avoided for a lifetime.

I had to face the monster within me, understand it and learn how to overcome it. Since early 2022, for over two years, I've been spending at least half an hour every day, sometimes more, researching why it reappeared, how it works within me and how to heal. This journey led me to read over a hundred books on neurochemistry, anxiety, OCD, Attachment Theory, Childhood Trauma, CPTSD, CBT, ACT, and many other topics. Through steady work, including Self-Discovery, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) exercises, Inner Child Work, Mindfulness practices, SSRI medication, physical exercise like jogging, and other strategies, I’ve slowly rebuilt my life. Today, I stand at the edge of the woods, nearly clear. Disorganized Attachment, especially manifesting as ROCD, is a formidable adversary: vicious and resilient. But with true grit and the right tools, it can be overcome.

My first platform for sharing these insights was Reddit, the self-titled "Heart of the Internet," specifically its subreddit dedicated to Relationship OCD. For two years, as I was going through my own painful healing journey, I responded to posts by fellow sufferers, distilling recurring themes from those books I was studying. If multiple esteemed authors converge on the same truths, there must be wisdom there. My responses evolved into comprehensive guides, eventually hitting Reddit’s character limit for comments. At the end of 2024, I assembled everything into the "masterpost" about my healing journey, barely fitting it into Reddit’s 40,000-character limit. It resonated instantly: 200,000+ reads within six months, hundreds of comments and questions. Engaging with readers (as I continue to do while readership grows) made the next step obvious.

Recent studies suggest that prevalence of Disorganized (Fearful Avoidant) Attachment has surged from about 2% in the 1960s to as high as 15% today, affecting up to one billion people worldwide. While not all develop Relationship OCD (or rather, stay in a relationship long enough for it to emerge), many suffer from relationship anxiety and could benefit from understanding this pattern and how to address it. How could I help more people awaken and find their way out? The answer was clear: This book. So here we are. You’re reading words, forged in my own living hell – a hell I’ve escaped. I sincerely hope the knowledge assembled here from leading minds in neuroscience and psychology lights your path to freedom as well.

DISCLAIMER: This book reflects my personal healing journey as a Fearful-Avoidant and ROCD survivor. It is not medical advice. Insights and recommendations are based on lived experience and my curation/interpretation of neuroscience research (directionally accurate, but quite simplified specifically to provide a practical self-help foundation without overwhelm). I am not a licensed clinician. Brain chemistry, trauma histories and neurodiversity vary significantly; what rewired my nervous system may require adaptation for yours. Neurobiology evolves rapidly (this represents my 2024 understanding). Some concepts may initially heighten anxiety, so proceed gradually with support systems in place. This book complements, but never replaces professional care. All copyrights belong to original authors.

PART I:

FACE THE BEAST

Chapter 1

WHAT IS FEARFUL-AVOIDANT (DISORGANIZED) ATTACHMENT

I discovered Attachment styles on a long winter night during the New Year holidays of 2022. Extended holidays are well-known catalysts for major change: the abrupt shift from busy days can trigger deep introspection. When you are alone with yourself, you might not like what you see. For me, it meant the sudden return of dread, anxiety and old fears about being in the wrong relationship – thoughts I was sure I had conquered years ago. This threw me into debilitating anxiety, which I somehow managed to hide from my wife. So, my search for answers began. Attachment theory provided the first key. After taking an attachment quiz, I was dumbfounded: Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) – the most insecure style. Perplexed (and somewhat relieved), I began digging deeper.

First identified through experiments with toddlers by the now-legendary psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in the 1960-70s (most notably Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" experiment), our attachment style fundamentally shapes how we connect with intimate partners throughout life, rooted in early experiences with our caregivers. Originally met with skepticism, Attachment Theory (AT) has been extensively validated by decades of research, including long-term studies, neurobiological investigations and clinical applications across diverse populations, cultures and age groups. It is now one of the most empirically supported and universally accepted models in developmental and relationship psychology. Understanding your attachment style isn't pop psychology; it's engaging with a deeply researched model of human connection with extensive implications for relational health. Many books have been written about it by respected authors, such as the famous Attached by Amir Levine and The Attachment Effect by Peter Lovenheim, Love Sense by Dr. Sue Johnson, Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin, and many others. This is not merely a theory anymore. Though it is still called Attachment Theory (AT), it deserves the title of Attachment Science.

Heidi Priebe, a prominent relationship coach, offers a great summary of the four attachment styles, one secure and three insecure, ranked by severity of attachment disruption and average prevalence in the population:

1. Secure (≈50% of people): These lucky people benefited from consistent, unconditional love and emotionally attuned "good enough" nurturing from stable caregivers. They possess an effective "emotional immune system," perceive the world as safe, feel capable of both giving and receiving love and can self-soothe or co-regulate effectively.

2. Anxious-Preoccupied (≈20%): This style often is often rooted in interrupted or inconsistent love and attunement, perhaps experiencing temporary abandonment or the absence of one parent. These people anxiously seek love and, because of its perceived unreliability, fear abandonment, and develop clingy, anxious dependency. Their "emotional immune system" is weak; love and connection feel like essential medicine they desperately crave. They feel okay only when receiving it and panic at a mere hint of abandonment, sometimes overwhelming partners with jealousy and clinginess.

3. Dismissive-Avoidant (≈20%): Raised by emotionally distant yet relatively stable parents, these people suppressed their attachment needs, relying heavily on intellect and self-reliance. They also need (some) love, but they feel "allergic" to it, tolerating only small doses. They often depend on "painkillers" (distractions, self-reliance). With reliable escapes and self-soothing, they can maintain a facade of being okay and stay in the relationship.

4. Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) (≈10%): This group, emerging from toxic, unpredictable homes marked by crises, conflict and unhappy parents, faces the greatest challenge. They crave love intensely like the Anxious-Preoccupied, but feel "allergic" to it like the Dismissive-Avoidant. Their "painkillers" are ineffective or short-lived, leaving them constantly unsettled, often blaming their partner for their distress. This chaotic inner state led to the term Disorganized Attachment, which I will use interchangeably with Fearful-Avoidant in this book.

Initially, the Fearful-Avoidant attachment style wasn't even detected in early experiments and thus was considered relatively rare (~2%). This is reflected in the noticeable lack of coverage in many books on attachment. Older ones don’t mention it (including the famous Attached), while newer ones often dedicate just a single page. The situation is slowly changing, as recent studies show it now affects 10-15% of people – unsurprising given constantly accelerating world stressors and the overall degradation of the traditional family institution.

Like all insecure styles, Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment is a subconscious survival strategy, formed from very early childhood experiences (ages 1-2), when an infant cannot find a consistent way to get their emotional needs met. It combines the worst aspects of Anxious-Preoccupied and Dismissive-Avoidant styles, causing confusing, contradictory behavior. The unstable environment of family homes forces infants into an impossible, paralyzing paradox. The very caregivers who should be the source of comfort are simultaneously the source of perceived threat; approaching them for soothing risks fear, while avoiding them risks abandonment. The child cannot develop a cohesive strategy to get needs met because approaching the caregiver for soothing might trigger fear (because of anger, withdrawal or anxiety), while avoidance leaves them abandoned and unsupported. This unresolvable conflict of needing the parent for survival yet fearing them or their unstable environment disrupts secure attachment formation.

As German psychologist Stefanie Stahl writes in her bestselling book The Child In You, small children cannot judge whether their parents’ behavior is good or bad. From a child’s perspective, their parents are godlike and infallible. If a father yells at or hits his child, the child won’t think Daddy can’t control his anger and needs psychotherapy. Instead, she associates the punishment with her own “badness.” Before acquiring language, she cannot articulate being bad, but senses the punishment and internalizes wrongness. As a result, chronic stress wires the brain for fear and distrust, leading to the contradictory, fear-based behavior in adult life (craving love yet fearing intimacy, blaming partners, volatile relationships), characteristic of Fearful-Avoidant Attachment in adulthood.

While abuse is an obvious cause, Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment often develops not just from direct maltreatment, but from parental struggles, seemingly unrelated to the child. Young children are naturally egocentric in their early years, interpreting all chaos around them (loud parental arguments, economic stress, a parent's emotional unavailability or unmanaged anxiety, marital difficulties) as being about them and their fault. Even without ill intent, emotional neglect (the precise term for a chronic lack of emotional attunement) and the absence of a secure base also create an atmosphere of perceived danger. Parents, preoccupied with their own unresolved issues (often stemming from their own insecure attachment), lacking self-soothing skills or simply emotionally unavailable, can not provide the consistent safety essential for healthy development. The child is traumatized not just by negative events, but by the absence of positive ones – reliable comfort, connection, and security – core required elements that were simply missing. This type of environment shapes the more common variant of Fearful Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment, when people function well in work or social settings, but struggle in intimate relationships. In contrast, direct abuse is associated with a more severe form of Disorganized attachment, bordering on or overlapping with more debilitating conditions, such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD).

Whatever the cause, in adult lives we as Fearful-Avoidants yearn desperately for love, yet are terrified of intimacy and connection. This internal conflict often manifests subconsciously in partner selection: we are often drawn to emotionally unavailable, distant or troubled people. This seemingly counterintuitive attraction actually resolves our paradox as it allows us to pursue attachment (satisfying the yearning) while the partner’s unavailability prevents true intimacy (avoiding the fear). Once we get into the relationship, we project our remaining terror onto partners, believing safety depends on their change. Familiarity to our past reinforces this, drawing us to fixer-upper partners, leading us to try fixing them, hoping this will finally make us feel safe. This strategy inevitably fails, leaving us drained and resentful. Partners feel invaded and inadequate as we "disassemble" them, nitpicking and fault finding.

We devalue both ourselves (like Anxious-Preoccupied) and others (like Dismissive-Avoidant), operating on "I'm not OK / You're not OK." We feel chronically unworthy and unlovable, yet can be hypercritical, even contemptuous, towards partners. Our relationships are volatile, characterized by a frustrating, confusing paradox ("can't leave but can't stay"). When we chase or feel undervalued by a partner (especially with avoidant attachment), we behave like Anxious-Preoccupied. When being chased or paired with a secure, committed, or worse – an Anxious-Preoccupied partner – we turn avoidant and want to flee.

We subconsciously associate closeness and connection with confusion, pain, fear and distrust, yet feel we can't live without it. We flip-flop, act hot-and-cold and send mixed signals, bewildering partners and ourselves about when to approach or withdraw. True relaxation within a relationship feels impossible; safe distance remains elusive. Burdened by core guilt and shame, we have many emotional triggers, frequently become overwhelmed and may withdraw completely for periods.

One specific consequence of our early deficits is the internalization of the "Myth of The One" (MOTO). Without healthy, realistic models of love and partnership observed and experienced at home, we are exceptionally vulnerable to absorbing the hyper-romanticized narratives, promoted by mass media such as movies, songs, novels and social media. This cultural brainwashing sells us on the fantasy of a perfect, predestined soulmate, who effortlessly ignites unrelenting passion, erases all insecurities and fulfills every unmet need. The absence of concrete examples of enduring, workday love (the quiet compromises, the repaired ruptures, the warmth of steady companionship) creates in us a vacuum filled by these impossible ideals. Consequently, we often enter relationships, subconsciously seeking this mythical ideal figure, setting partners up for inevitable failure against an impossible standard of constant euphoria and zero conflict.

Recognizing this origin (trauma born from neglect of core emotional needs and absorbed family chaos) is critical for understanding and healing this attachment style. Yet for many, the mystery surrounding the origins of unhealthy patterns is one of the most acute sources of additional anxiety. Why am I like this? Am I broken? These questions haunted me too when my attachment style first manifested as exhausting relationship anxiety and years later blossomed into full-blown Relationship OCD. Once I took an attachment test on the dark night of 2022 New Year’s Eve and discovered I had a Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment style, a wave of relief washed over me. So, this is why, I thought. But the relief didn't last, as the discovery felt incomplete. Why had I become a Fearful Avoidant? I wasn't abused, after all, and didn't remember any obvious trauma. I went on to learn more about my attachment style by taking the quiz at The Attachment Project website (attachmentproject.com/quiz). This site provides excellent reports, visually diagramming the severity levels and specifics about how each parent contributed to your attachment style.  Going deeper to make sense of the attachment test report helped me close the 'open gestalt' (a term denoting an unfinished situation that creates mental unrest).

The next step was understanding my parents' attachment styles and how these manifested in their lives, contributing to my relationship insecurity. How exactly did they make me like this? Like many, I used to perceive my family as relatively normal – what family is without challenges? Boy, I was wrong. Learning from attachment books such as Attached by Amir Levine and The Attachment Effect by Peter Lovenheim, I realized I had an extremely Dismissive-Avoidant father and an Anxious-Preoccupied mother, who suffered covert depression for years – a textbook Anxious-Preoccupied/Dismissive-Avoidant (AP-DA) trap.

This is the most toxic attachment pairing because it creates a self-perpetuating cycle: The AP partner’s need for constant reassurance triggers the DA’s fear of engulfment, causing withdrawal. The DA’s withdrawal then intensifies the AP’s abandonment anxiety, fueling desperate pursuit – trapping both partners in a dance of mutual trauma. This deadly combination left me a Fearful Avoidant.

Both parents came from unhappy families: my father was raised by traumatized war veterans; my mother's father abandoned her when she was just a toddler. I was fed, clothed and given medicine when sick, but I was never taught about emotions or relationship skills, because my parents couldn't manage these themselves. Physical affection was almost nonexistent; touching was very rare in our family. I can’t remember my parents hugging or being hugged myself. I never saw them express love or affection genuinely, and forced gestures, like anniversary kisses, elicited subtle cringes in me.

I feared my father, who always was keen to "toughen me up", spoke only of practical matters and kept to himself and his sport hobby (he was an avid soccer player). My mother was anxious and chronically depressed from being mostly dismissed (partly because of his obsession with soccer). She sometimes complained that "he was married to soccer, not her." She never received emotional closeness from him and used me as her emotional crutch, "caring" in ways that addressed her own state, not mine. Even now, her "I care so much about you" feels to me like "I need to feel okay about you", rather than "I want you to feel okay."

Once I read Kenneth Adams' Silently Seduced, I understood this was an obvious  case of emotional incest – parentifying me, creating enmeshment trauma and a deep fear of being smothered in relationships. This aversion to engulfment manifested physically too; I even developed a preference for cats, who ‘never gave a damn,’ over dogs who seemed to cling needily to their owners. Because I lacked any model of healthy affection, I came to perceive touching and hugging as highly charged, meaningful acts that always required a grand purpose – like a prelude to sex. That showing affection could be natural and easygoing, with no strings attached, completely eluded me.

The predominant family emotions were anger and stress from debates and fights. Otherwise, the “normal” state was a “cold and gray indifference" Later I learned that early disagreements about my nurturing were so unmanageable that my father resorted to passive aggression. He wrote notes to my mother (sic!) about how to raise me. They're still “buried” somewhere among old documents. I can only imagine the preceding turmoil. I also remember my parents frequently giving each other silent treatment for days. When I cried, I was predictably told to stop (I recall thinking, How can I stop when the problem causing the crying is still there?