I Can't Stand Close Relationships. What's Wrong With Me?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How does it feel to feel emotionally cut off from other people, closed in your inner world, without any feelings? Choose isolation when everyone is looking for strong bonds. At some moments you may need a loved one, but if the relationship moves from the format of rare and short meetings to something more serious, then you literally feel stuffy, cramped, and you want to free yourself from these shackles.

In this note, I will try to describe the psychological characteristics of extremely introverted (ie, absorbed in their inner world) people, whose main internal conflict lies in the area of "proximity-distance": being alone is bad (although you may not admit it to yourself), and in a relationship - unbearable.

They may appear to those around them as passive observers, uninvolved and indifferent.

At the same time, a person distances himself not only from other people, but also from a part of himself, from his feelings. We can say that he is not in contact with himself. And this is a more fundamental problem than the outwardly observable behavior of the "typical introvert."

Without pretending to be an exhaustive analysis, I still hope that this information will help someone to better understand that part of themselves that is usually hidden from awareness. And understanding and acceptance is the first step towards change.

So, why does a person “choose” (in quotes, since this choice is rather unconscious) withdrawal into oneself? what is the function of alienation? Why does a person behave, at first glance, unnaturally, isolating himself from the world?

Any behavioral style, no matter how strange it may seem to others, has its own logic, its reasons and its own history of development.

In this case, relationships are needed for security, and distance is for a sense of autonomy and individuality. Getting closer to another person generates intense anxiety, and distance is precisely what helps to reduce it. Such people constantly feel the inability to express themselves and, as a result, find solace in the fantasy world, sometimes in virtual reality, sometimes in spiritual teachings, etc.

** Natural hypersensitivity and parental influence

People of this psychological type constitutionally have high sensitivity, quickly get tired and satiated, that is, what is a normal pastime for a sociable person, for them is excessive stimulation of the nervous system, according to various studies.

Increased susceptibility to external influences usually manifests itself from early childhood. Hypersensitive infants, initially attuned to contact with adults, react sharply even to a belated response to their needs, and even more so to signs of rejection or irritation. An extreme case is open ignorance and neglect of the child's needs (which can happen both in orphanages and in an “ordinary” family).

It is common for such babies to instantly withdraw into themselves in an unfavorable situation for them. It turns out that the more often the mother (or another caregiver) does not respond in time to the child's signals, the more often the infant “has” to freeze, turn off his needs, and this form of response to the external environment is fixed. The natural desire to be loved and to show love is suppressed. The child unconsciously extrapolates his first experience of a relationship to subsequent social contacts. As an adult, a person is likely to find it extremely difficult to believe that other people can accept him for who he is and treat him warmly.

In addition, due to the feeling of lack of attention and warmth, the child seeks, figuratively speaking, to absorb as much as possible, and to express emotions it is necessary to be able not only to “take”, but also to “give”. Communication becomes a tiring process for such people, they seem to lose their inner content and they need to be alone to restore emotional balance.

** The split between parts of the personality

So, it's time to discuss the structure of personality and add some specific terms to the description of the psychological type.

This post is about schizoid character (not to be confused with schizophrenia, mental illness!). The definition of schizoid is rooted in the Greek word schizis, which means splitting. A hypersensitive child, forcibly withdrawing into himself, seems to split off his vulnerable, direct part from the rest of the personality. This hidden part of the personality loses its emotional connection with the outside world, contacts with people around them become mechanistic, superficial, they lack sincerity.

External deficit is compensated by a rich internal life: a world of fantasies, dreams, illusions. Under the guise of aloofness and indifference, there is a hunger for relationships. But the more a schizoid person needs them, the more she fears them.

Moving away from others and from a part of yourself is a reliable protection against disappointment and unbearable experiences. Defense mechanisms mean the ways in which the psyche adapts to reality and maintains balance. For this purpose, sensory experience is partially or completely removed from consciousness.

In other words, there is a split between thoughts and feelings. It is difficult for a schizoid person to express himself spontaneously and sincerely, as a result, she tries to solve her emotional difficulties through intellectual efforts. A person can either deny that he has any feelings, or talk about them without a shadow of emotion on his face and voice.

** Relationships are so addictive but so intimidating

The schizoid personality, deep down, yearns for other people, and on the surface, denies their significance. A relationship for such a person is always the loss of a part of himself. Where does such a radical view come from? It can be assumed that the tendency to fully identify with others plays a role. As usual, legs grow from early childhood, in this case it is about the habit of identifying with the mother (or other significant adult).

Identification means the inability to draw the line between oneself and another, and this prevents the establishment of a strong connection with a real person. Oddly enough, identification with the mother most often occurs when the mother does not meet the needs of the infant.

As the famous psychoanalyst Fairbairn believed, the child's psyche tends to absorb exactly bad external objects, since it is not able to come to terms with their badness and frantically strives to control and change them, at least in its inner world. Of course, this is an illusion, but the child's psyche often operates with magical "thinking". As a result, the image of a bad mother remains in the child's mind and affects his perception of the world around him.

It turns out a vicious circle:

1. The schizoid personality identifies with another person
2. As soon as the relationship with another person becomes emotionally strong, the schizoid personality begins to feel completely dependent and afraid of being absorbed (i.e., losing oneself)
3. In response to this fear, the schizoid personality distances itself from the other person.
4. The highest degree of alienation reaction is a departure from external reality into the world of one's own fantasies.

A characteristic feature of the schizoid character is constant internal rushing from one extreme (craving for merging with another for the sake of a sense of security) to the other (striving for absolute independence from others = breaking off relations).

** Summary. Features of the schizoid personality and focus of psychological work

Having painted a portrait of a schizodin personality with broad strokes, I will now briefly list its main psychological characteristics:

• Extreme introversion
• Alienation, withdrawal from the outside world as a result of strong introversion
• The tendency to reproduce relationships with images of significant people in your inner world instead of building interactions with real people in the real world
• Feeling superior to others (in order to compensate for feelings of dependence on others)
• The impression of an emotionally empty, cold person unable to empathize with other people
• Feeling lonely (as a consequence of all of the above).

And some about psychological work with schizoid personalities.

People with a pronounced schizoid radical often resort to help when they realize that they are paying too high a price for self-sufficiency and absolute independence, when isolation becomes unbearable. It also happens that a person turns to a psychologist not in connection with the peculiarities of his personal disposition, but about some specific symptoms or conditions: depression, anxiety, obsessions or other adverse manifestations.

The global goal of psychological work with a schizoid personality is to help the “inner child” of this person (that is, that vulnerable, hidden and helpless part of the personality that remains locked in an imaginary cocoon from childhood) to go through all the necessary stages of development and grow. Among the stages on the way to achieving this goal will be: the destruction of identification with significant objects, drawing the border between one's own "I" and others, strengthening the ability to independence, cooperation and understanding of others, the development of one's true "I". Taking into account the individual characteristics of each individual person, this path can be winding and long. And sometimes in order to grow, you first need to go back, i.e. provide controlled and time-limited regression.