The anxious-avoidant attachment style is often due to trauma that includes physical abuse, chaotic or scary environments, and/or inconsistent care. This can help explain why they are both attracted to and fearful of closeness.
Attachment trauma is considered to be a traumatic experience an infant or child has when a primary caregiver does not or cannot provide adequate care, affection, and comfort. When the caregiver ignores a baby's distress, for instance, this can be a traumatic experience.
If an adolescent experienced neglect or abuse, they may develop fearful-avoidant attachment style. As adults, this attachment style may make it difficult for them to trust people, may cause them to feel uncomfortable with showing affection, and they may close themselves off emotionally.
What causes fearful avoidant attachment? A person with fearful attachment may have grown up in an environment where their source of comfort and safety was often compromised with fear and unpredictability. This may involve a neglectful or unpredictable caregiver, or experiences involving abuse.
Dismissive-Avoidant Emotional Abuse
Adults who have an avoidant-dismissive insecure attachment style are more likely to instigate such abuse. Instead of desiring intimacy, they are so afraid of closeness that they avoid emotional connection with others. They'd rather not rely on others or be reliant on others.
Much like the anxious attachment style, the avoidant attachment style is often due to early childhood experiences. Trauma that could cause avoidant attachment includes neglect. This can explain why they fear getting too close to others. Or, why they feel they have to be so independent.
For instance, avoidant personality disorder is more common in people who are anxious and tend toward depression. Parental emotional neglect certainly can play a part in exacerbating these issues, and sexual and physical abuse also can give rise to the disorder.
Emotional avoidance is a common reaction to trauma. In fact, emotional avoidance is part of the avoidance cluster of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, serving as a way for people with PTSD to escape painful or difficult emotions.
Anxious attachment is associated with dependent, histrionic, and borderline disorders, whereas avoidant attachment is associated with schizoid and avoidant disorders.
Fearful-Avoidant, aka Disorganized Attachment
The fearful-avoidant attachment style is the rarest, and "develops when the child's caregivers — the only source of safety — become a source of fear," according to the Attachment Project, an attachment style education site.
The avoidant one of the pair then has someone who is constantly after them, even if they put in little effort. While the anxious person's fears of not being enough are validated, the avoidant person is safe in the knowledge their partner won't hurt them. It's a familiar — yet toxic — cycle.
Trauma bonding happens when we get lost in the “we” because we are too scared to just be “me” - an anxious attachment - or when we get lost in the “me” because we are too scared the “we” might consume us - an avoidant attachment.
Attachment trauma often leads to a “disoriented-disorganized” attachment — a pattern that, in turn, imparts an increased risk of further abuse and neglect. In addition to relationship difficulties, attachment trauma is also linked to our overall mental health, according to a 2012 study .
Children with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid parents and caregivers. This avoidance often becomes especially pronounced after a period of absence. These children might not reject attention from a parent, but neither do they seek out comfort or contact.
Parents of children with an avoidant attachment tend to be emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to them a good deal of the time. They disregard or ignore their children's needs, and can be especially rejecting when their child is hurt or sick.
With avoidant attachment, Dr. Pratt notes that fathers are more likely to ignore their child's needs. "Fathers with anxious and avoidant attachment styles are more likely to have anxious children," he says.
Intriguingly, avoidant attachers may only repress their upset and distress in the direct aftermath of a breakup. In contrast to anxious attachers, who typically brood and focus on why a relationship ended when it initially happens, avoidant attachers may only do so after considerable time has passed.
Avoidant attachment style is an insecure attachment style. Avoidantly attached people generally have a dismissive attitude towards close relationships*. They are often uncomfortable with intimacy and may seem emotionally distant. They may also have difficulty trusting others and may be hesitant to get too close.
You feel you can't bring your emotions or your real self into your relationships because you fear you'll be dismissed, minimized, shamed, or abandoned. Further compounding the pain and confusion you feel while in a relationship, you tend to dismiss and control your own feelings.
Impairments in interpersonal and social functioning must be observed in one of two areas: Empathy. Others are perceived as hostile and judgmental rather than sympathetic, which causes people with AVPD to avoid many social contacts.
Demands for time and attention
Since dismissive avoidants tend to value independence and focusing on themselves, focusing on others can be a considerable burden. They're likely to get triggered when their partner demands too much of their time and attention. They perceive the situation as follows: “I'm losing myself.”