Relationships: What you may not understand about the Love Avoidant… {part 2}

[Read part 1 here]

Remember this article above? About the Love Avoidant and their shame cycle? The scarcity-story that runs in their minds?

Well, that’s not all.

The pattern doesn’t always end or begin there.

For some, there’s another trajectory. Sometimes it follows the shame-cycle (making themselves small), sometimes the shame is only there for a split second and they may become grandiose.

What does that look like?

The Inner Dance of Shame & Grandiosity

It may have many faces, but the most important element of the love avoidant who moves into their grandiosity is that they will want to have power over you and the relationship.

• They decide how close you two get.
• They may dismiss your feelings.
• Perhaps become passive-aggressive by giving you the cold shoulder.
• They will ignore you willingly, because they feel entitled to withdraw.

The commonality between the cycle of shame versus grandiosity is the feeling of contempt. The difference is that the contempt is directed elsewhere.

The love avoidant who sinks into shame, feels contemptuous about themselves and gets stuck there. The love avoidant who moves up into grandiosity turns their contempt towards their partner.

Sometimes, though, this is an inner dance of up and down. Like a ping-pong ball.

Imagine being stuck in a shame cycle for a long time. It’s horrible!! It’s deeply painful to feel that you fail and that you’re not good enough. The scarcity hurts.

This leaves the love avoidant in a state of powerlessness. And at some point, that becomes too much.

When somebody has low tolerance for shame, they may shift towards grandiosity after two seconds.

But for the love avoidant who can revel in their own misery for a long time (without having the tools to get out of it), it may take a longer time.

The Nervous System versus Power

At some point, though, their system wants to feel some kind of inner power again. They need some agency. Ideally, they’d regulate their emotions and get back to a state of healthy relating.

That doesn’t always happen straight away.

Sometimes they think they first need to reclaim a certain power again.

After all, in a shame-based state the main narrative is ‘I can’t’. It’s a lot more empowering to say ‘I won’t’.

I don’t want to means I have agency over the situation, rather than being a victim of this misery.

Unfortunately, it’s power over, rather than power with. 

Why does this happen?

To understand this, we need to take a look at the nervous system a little more.

Basically, our autonomic nervous system, as related to our emotional regulation, consists of three main parts. These three parts act according to a hierarchy. As if you climb a ladder.

When we’re up on the ladder, feeling great and connected, we’re in the ‘ventral vagal’ part of our nervous system.

When we get triggered, we slide down the ladder into the sympathetic part of the nervous system: the danger zone, a state of protection, not connection. This is where we mobilize ourselves to fight, run away (flight), or fix (fawn is a form of fix) the situation. There’s energy here, which is needed to defend ourselves. The love-avoidant uses the energy to run (sometimes also fix). The love dependent uses it to fight or fix.

At some point, if the system can’t get itself back to ventral (connection) and has been working its ass off, it may sink down into what we feel as the zone of life threat: dorsal vagal. This is where we’re in ultimate protection, but there’s little to no more energy left. The body feels exhausted, it’s done fighting, fleeing or fixing, and it may find itself in freeze: dissociated and detached. This is a dark, indifferent state for some and highly sad for others. Being here for a long time may lead to depression.

The good news is that our nervous system will always want to find its way back to homeostasis. Meaning: health, connection, calm.

But as with any other ladder, we cannot skip the steps…

This means that the system needs to move through the sympathetic nervous system first. A state of empowerment, energy, and justifying all the reasons to stay disconnected.

You could say that the love avoidant who has been in a dorsal state for a while - hidden, protected, feeling shitty - and then starts showing controlling behavior that pushes you away even more might actually be moving up the ladder again. They’re moving from ‘I can’t’ (disempowerment, lethargy) to ‘I won’t’ (empowerment, grandiose energy).

The Love Avoidant who has two seconds tolerance for shame does the same, except a lot quicker. The majority of the time is spent in sympathetic, being walled off and dismissive as a way to empower themselves and not sink into intolerable shame. They like it here. It's a lot more comfortable. 

No, it doesn’t excuse it. But it makes sense on a nervous system level.

The non-helping part is that they may not have any awareness of their behavior. They feel so unsafe that they need to do something to fix that unsafety, which means controlling the proximity of the relationship. Even when their internal state has nothing to do with you or the relationship!

The narrative, after all, is that they are safest on their own, because that’s the only way they can prevent a sense of failure, rejection or maintain enough space, time, freedom. It’s the only way they won’t be confronted with their shortcomings.

If they can control how close you get, they can maintain safety. 

This can feel very unfair to the partner on the receiving end. When will my needs be met?! Are you even there for me??

Needless to say, this partner may have to do their own share of inner work to stay grounded and maintain inner safety when this dynamic shows itself. Sometimes, it may even mean walking away permanently.

Understanding the complexity of this love-avoidant pattern may give you a lot of inner peace. It may help you to stop questioning yourself.

Remember that the love-avoidant who is willing to walk down the path of healing with you, a beautiful relationship might be possible.