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Fear of Intimacy: When It's Hard to Be Emotionally and Physically Close
Do you find yourself pushing others away, even when you crave connection? Fear of intimacy is an intense aversion to emotional or physical closeness. It is often rooted in anxiety or childhood trauma, and it can hinder close relationships despite a desire for connection. People affected by fear of intimacy may push others away or sabotage partnerships, especially as the relationships show signs of become closer. This can happen early on, or even years into a relationship.
Understanding Fear of Intimacy
Fear of intimacy often stems from deeper anxieties of abandonment, vulnerability, loss of control, and rejection. These fears typically originate from childhood experiences or past trauma, creating significant difficulties in building and maintaining close relationships. You may struggle to open up emotionally or physically, even when you desire a connection.
Anxiety (or social anxiety) can impact your ability to form close relationships. For example, you may fear judgment and rejection, making opening up, or allowing people in to be emotionally or physically challenging. This heightened anxiety can lead to avoidance behaviors, further complicating intimacy.
Fear of Abandonment
The fear of abandonment often underlies intimacy issues. You may worry that getting close to someone will inevitably lead to being left behind or rejected. It can make it almost automatic to start pulling away anytime you feel the potential for connection and closeness happening. This anxiety can stem from childhood experiences or past relationships that have resulted in pain, causing you to keep others at arm’s distance as a protective mechanism.
Growing Up in a Family with Blurred Boundaries
Growing up in a family where boundaries are unclear can heavily impact your ability to form intimate relationships, as well. You may struggle to understand personal space, emotional limits, or appropriate levels of give and take. This confusion can often lead to difficulties in establishing healthy connections as you navigate the balance between closeness and independence in adult relationships.
Surviving Past Abuse
If you have survived past abuse, whether growing up or in another relationship, closeness and intimacy can be very difficult. It is not impossible to overcome, but it makes sense that it would be scary to get too close to anybody when it means you could be hurt, physically, psychologically, or emotionally. While self-protection is important, past abuse can make the balance difficult to navigate, often leaning towards keeping the other at a significant distance, even when you may crave the intimacy on another level.
Experiencing Emotional and Physical Neglect
Childhood neglect can also have a significant impact on your ability to form intimate relationships. When your emotional and physical needs aren’t met consistently, you may struggle to trust others or feel worthy of love. This fear of intimacy often stems from a deeply ingrained belief that closeness leads to pain or abandonment. Especially with a history of abuse and/or neglect, when love and care is offered in later relationships, it can actually become automatic to start pushing away and even destroying the love and care, as a reaction to the fear that comes with becoming close and vulnerable to another. Losing control is very scary in these moments and may feel like it's only going to lead to intolerable pain and hurt that you'll be left alone with.
Overcoming the Fear of Intimacy
It is more possible than people often realize to overcome fear of intimacy. Previous experiences of pain certainly have their lessons to hold onto, however, these lessons can also be combined with the room to allow for growth and trust in relationships so you can have the intimacy and closeness you desire, even while still protecting yourself.
A therapist can help you explore and work through the deeper causes of your fear, which may stem from past experiences and relationships, or things that happened during childhood -- whether trauma, or anything else that had enough of an impact to stay with you deeper down. A therapist can also help you start building trust, closeness, and intimacy, while also helping you break the patterns that have kept you at an emotional distance in your relationships.
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