Being close to someone
How to Overcome Fear of Getting Too Close to Someone
When you begin a relationship, you might feel vulnerable. But overcoming fear of intimacy is possible.
Share on PinterestBeing afraid of getting too close to someone is common, and it can be managed. (Antoine Rouleau/Getty Images)If you’re afraid of getting too close to someone, you’re not alone. It’s a common feeling.
Emotional wounds can stay with you for a while, even if you don’t always notice them. They can make you avoid situations that could lead you to experience that pain again.
When you hold people at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt, you might be living with a fear of intimacy. Uncovering why you’re afraid of intimacy can be the first step toward coping.
Intimacy is a personal connection with someone who makes you feel secure, supported, and bonded. The connection suggests you’ve developed a close tie to another person.
Many people assume intimacy occurs mostly at the sexual level, but most literature agrees there are at least four types of intimacy:
- intellectual: bonding through ideas, morals, beliefs, thoughts, and opinions
- emotional: a sense of trust that allows for expression of personal and private feelings and vulnerability
- experiential: connecting through activities, life experiences, or mutual interests
- physical and sexual: sharing romantic and physical touching or closeness
Fear of intimacy can involve all areas of closeness, but it can all come down to emotional intimacy for many people.
Brenda Wade, a nationally recognized relationship expert and a practicing psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area, says people who live with a fear of intimacy are often fearful of being emotionally hurt.
They may be worried that someone will discover their “dark secret” — like their belief that they aren’t good enough, for example, or fear that the person will leave them when they’re already emotionally invested, Wade adds.
Fear of intimacy and emotional unavailability: The same?
Fear of intimacy and emotional unavailability share many similarities and can overlap, Wade says. Also, one can be the byproduct of the other.
The primary difference, though, comes down to the underlying causes of fear.
A person emotionally unavailable is often afraid of losing their independence or sense of self, so they don’t get emotionally invested in the relationship.
Fear of intimacy can come from avoiding emotional distress after being abandoned, heartbroken, or disappointed.
Relationships can move quickly from joyful to stressful when you live with a fear of intimacy.
Initially, you might feel comfortable when your connection isn’t close enough to cause concern. At this stage, you might enjoy the social aspects of a new friend or partner.
But as the bond strengthens, signs of intimacy fear can surface.
You may experience:
- skepticism when you’re given a compliment or they express love for you
- suspicion of your partner’s relationship motives
- emotional outbursts or relationship cycles
- signs of self-sabotage
- withdrawal from physical contact
- decline in effective communication
Outside of a relationship, signs you might be living with the fear of intimacy can include:
- history of serial dating
- emotional urgency to be perfect and lovable to all
- inability to express your needs or feelings openly
- discomfort when someone expresses needs or feelings
- signs of low self-esteem
Fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment: The same?
Fear of intimacy can also involve feeling abandoned, but fear of abandonment or separation anxiety isn’t the same as fearing intimacy.
A fear of intimacy can prevent you from allowing people to become close — emotionally isolating you to avoid feeling hurt.
The fear of abandonment can do the opposite. It can push you into quick attachments, sometimes keeping you in unhealthy relationships because your greatest concern is preventing the other person from leaving.
Jason Polk, a clinical social worker, relationship coach, and the owner of Colorado Relationship Recovery in Denver, says the fear of intimacy is a self-protective mechanism.
“This reflex is found more in an anxious-ambivalent attachment style,” he says. “The developmental trauma from this is usually an experience of abandonment growing up.”
Attachment style is how you relate to other people or your relationship patterns. Psychoanalyst John Bowlby first developed the concept in the 1950s.
Bowlby said adult relationships are based on early childhood interactions with primary caregivers. Anxious-ambivalent attachment style is one of four Bowlby and his colleagues outlined.
Anxious-ambivalent attachment style develops when you receive inconsistent care during childhood. For example, having an attentive parent one minute and indifferent the next. This can result in a need for attention, insecurity, and anxiety.
But attachment style isn’t the only factor contributing to fear of intimacy.
Clinical psychologist Hüdanur Akkuzu of Istanbul says repeat behaviors or experiences throughout life that encourage someone to feel unworthy of love can contribute to intimacy fear later.
Also, fear of intimacy can be caused by trauma and mental health conditions, such as avoidant personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
If you feel you live with the fear of intimacy or notice some of the above signs in yourself, these tips may help.
Consider professional guidance
Wade, Akkuzu, and Polk recommend speaking with a mental health professional.
“In order to overcome the fear of becoming attached to someone, you must first look at your own history and the subconscious patterns you have developed,” says Wade.
“This is where you need to work with a qualified professional to work through it because these are complex and sometimes deep-seated issues that need to be carefully and gently examined, confronted, and healed,” she adds.
Professional support can help you work through your emotions and find ways to cope with them.
You can learn more about therapy options if you can’t afford a professional.
Try to work on your self-esteem
You don’t have to live with poor self-esteem to benefit from working on self-love.
When you live with the fear of intimacy, you may feel as if you don’t deserve love or care in a relationship, Akkuzu says.
Focusing on building your confidence, developing your interests, and increasing self-worth can help.
Here are some options to help:
- positive journaling
- staying active and exercising
- exploring your creative energy
- joining a goal-oriented sport or hobby
- working through signs of impostor syndrome in relationships
Learning to reparent yourself can help
Reparenting is about giving yourself the care and support you might not have received as a child.
“You can have a conversation with that younger part of you, the part that experienced the abandonment growing up, and gently say to that part, ‘This was not your fault. I see you, I love you, and I can take it from here,’” says Polk.
This approach can keep you in your adult-self mindset, the part of you that knows and wants to work through the fear of intimacy, he explains.
Try to cultivate your self-worth ownership
Another tactic Polk recommends is actively acknowledging that you — not others, including your partner — have ownership of your self-worth. You can try reminding yourself, through verbal or written affirmations, that your relationship isn’t a reflection of your value as a human being.
“You overcome this fear by remembering your inherent self-worth,” Polk says. “For example, say to yourself, ‘I have self-worth, my partner does not possess it; they can’t walk away with it. I can go after my wants and needs in this relationship regardless of what happens.
’”
This might help you feel more confident about getting close to someone else. They can control what they do and feel, but not what you do and feel, and vice versa.
The fear of intimacy often comes after experiencing emotional distress in relationships, even the early ones.
Getting too close to another person can mean exposing your vulnerabilities — emotional hotspots where you could be hurt. But intimacy can also offer you support, understanding, and a sense of connection.
Speaking with a mental health professional can help you explore why you may be afraid of getting close to others and help you build skills to encourage confidence and self-love.
How to Overcome Fear of Getting Too Close to Someone
When you begin a relationship, you might feel vulnerable. But overcoming fear of intimacy is possible.
Share on PinterestBeing afraid of getting too close to someone is common, and it can be managed. (Antoine Rouleau/Getty Images)If you’re afraid of getting too close to someone, you’re not alone.
It’s a common feeling.
Emotional wounds can stay with you for a while, even if you don’t always notice them. They can make you avoid situations that could lead you to experience that pain again.
When you hold people at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt, you might be living with a fear of intimacy. Uncovering why you’re afraid of intimacy can be the first step toward coping.
Intimacy is a personal connection with someone who makes you feel secure, supported, and bonded. The connection suggests you’ve developed a close tie to another person.
Many people assume intimacy occurs mostly at the sexual level, but most literature agrees there are at least four types of intimacy:
- intellectual: bonding through ideas, morals, beliefs, thoughts, and opinions
- emotional: a sense of trust that allows for expression of personal and private feelings and vulnerability
- experiential: connecting through activities, life experiences, or mutual interests
- physical and sexual: sharing romantic and physical touching or closeness
Fear of intimacy can involve all areas of closeness, but it can all come down to emotional intimacy for many people.
Brenda Wade, a nationally recognized relationship expert and a practicing psychologist in the San Francisco Bay Area, says people who live with a fear of intimacy are often fearful of being emotionally hurt.
They may be worried that someone will discover their “dark secret” — like their belief that they aren’t good enough, for example, or fear that the person will leave them when they’re already emotionally invested, Wade adds.
Fear of intimacy and emotional unavailability: The same?
Fear of intimacy and emotional unavailability share many similarities and can overlap, Wade says. Also, one can be the byproduct of the other.
The primary difference, though, comes down to the underlying causes of fear.
A person emotionally unavailable is often afraid of losing their independence or sense of self, so they don’t get emotionally invested in the relationship.
Fear of intimacy can come from avoiding emotional distress after being abandoned, heartbroken, or disappointed.
Relationships can move quickly from joyful to stressful when you live with a fear of intimacy.
Initially, you might feel comfortable when your connection isn’t close enough to cause concern. At this stage, you might enjoy the social aspects of a new friend or partner.
But as the bond strengthens, signs of intimacy fear can surface.
You may experience:
- skepticism when you’re given a compliment or they express love for you
- suspicion of your partner’s relationship motives
- emotional outbursts or relationship cycles
- signs of self-sabotage
- withdrawal from physical contact
- decline in effective communication
Outside of a relationship, signs you might be living with the fear of intimacy can include:
- history of serial dating
- emotional urgency to be perfect and lovable to all
- inability to express your needs or feelings openly
- discomfort when someone expresses needs or feelings
- signs of low self-esteem
Fear of intimacy and fear of abandonment: The same?
Fear of intimacy can also involve feeling abandoned, but fear of abandonment or separation anxiety isn’t the same as fearing intimacy.
A fear of intimacy can prevent you from allowing people to become close — emotionally isolating you to avoid feeling hurt.
The fear of abandonment can do the opposite. It can push you into quick attachments, sometimes keeping you in unhealthy relationships because your greatest concern is preventing the other person from leaving.
Jason Polk, a clinical social worker, relationship coach, and the owner of Colorado Relationship Recovery in Denver, says the fear of intimacy is a self-protective mechanism.
“This reflex is found more in an anxious-ambivalent attachment style,” he says. “The developmental trauma from this is usually an experience of abandonment growing up.”
Attachment style is how you relate to other people or your relationship patterns. Psychoanalyst John Bowlby first developed the concept in the 1950s.
Bowlby said adult relationships are based on early childhood interactions with primary caregivers. Anxious-ambivalent attachment style is one of four Bowlby and his colleagues outlined.
Anxious-ambivalent attachment style develops when you receive inconsistent care during childhood. For example, having an attentive parent one minute and indifferent the next. This can result in a need for attention, insecurity, and anxiety.
But attachment style isn’t the only factor contributing to fear of intimacy.
Clinical psychologist Hüdanur Akkuzu of Istanbul says repeat behaviors or experiences throughout life that encourage someone to feel unworthy of love can contribute to intimacy fear later.
Also, fear of intimacy can be caused by trauma and mental health conditions, such as avoidant personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
If you feel you live with the fear of intimacy or notice some of the above signs in yourself, these tips may help.
Consider professional guidance
Wade, Akkuzu, and Polk recommend speaking with a mental health professional.
“In order to overcome the fear of becoming attached to someone, you must first look at your own history and the subconscious patterns you have developed,” says Wade.
“This is where you need to work with a qualified professional to work through it because these are complex and sometimes deep-seated issues that need to be carefully and gently examined, confronted, and healed,” she adds.
Professional support can help you work through your emotions and find ways to cope with them.
You can learn more about therapy options if you can’t afford a professional.
Try to work on your self-esteem
You don’t have to live with poor self-esteem to benefit from working on self-love.
When you live with the fear of intimacy, you may feel as if you don’t deserve love or care in a relationship, Akkuzu says.
Focusing on building your confidence, developing your interests, and increasing self-worth can help.
Here are some options to help:
- positive journaling
- staying active and exercising
- exploring your creative energy
- joining a goal-oriented sport or hobby
- working through signs of impostor syndrome in relationships
Learning to reparent yourself can help
Reparenting is about giving yourself the care and support you might not have received as a child.
“You can have a conversation with that younger part of you, the part that experienced the abandonment growing up, and gently say to that part, ‘This was not your fault. I see you, I love you, and I can take it from here,’” says Polk.
This approach can keep you in your adult-self mindset, the part of you that knows and wants to work through the fear of intimacy, he explains.
Try to cultivate your self-worth ownership
Another tactic Polk recommends is actively acknowledging that you — not others, including your partner — have ownership of your self-worth. You can try reminding yourself, through verbal or written affirmations, that your relationship isn’t a reflection of your value as a human being.
“You overcome this fear by remembering your inherent self-worth,” Polk says. “For example, say to yourself, ‘I have self-worth, my partner does not possess it; they can’t walk away with it. I can go after my wants and needs in this relationship regardless of what happens.
’”
This might help you feel more confident about getting close to someone else. They can control what they do and feel, but not what you do and feel, and vice versa.
The fear of intimacy often comes after experiencing emotional distress in relationships, even the early ones.
Getting too close to another person can mean exposing your vulnerabilities — emotional hotspots where you could be hurt. But intimacy can also offer you support, understanding, and a sense of connection.
Speaking with a mental health professional can help you explore why you may be afraid of getting close to others and help you build skills to encourage confidence and self-love.
"I prefer to be alone, but next to someone..." - 25 quotes by Sergei Dovlatov
Self-development60.2k.
“They don't ask God for more”
“Envious people think that women are attracted to the rich by their money. Or what you can buy with that money. I used to think so too, but then I became convinced that it was a lie.
Women are not attracted to money. Not cars and jewelry. Not restaurants and expensive clothes. Not power, wealth and elegance. And what made a man powerful, rich and elegant. A power that is endowed by some and completely lacking by others.
Sergei Dovlatov is one of the most famous and widely read Russian-speaking writers of the late 20th century. His books have been translated into a huge number of languages. Many of his novels and short stories have been filmed. Incredibly humorous and at the same time sad prose of Dovlatov became a classic and, like almost any classic, went to the people in the form of proverbs and sayings. For a long period of his life, being in exile, he published about twelve books.
There are no righteous in the books of Sergei Donatovich, because there are no villains in them either. His idea is simple and noble: to tell how strange people live - sometimes laughing sadly, sometimes saddeningly. Sergei knows that both heaven and hell are within ourselves.
Kluber collected the best quotes and sayings of Sergey Dovlatov about a person, life and love:
- A decent person is one who does nasty things without pleasure.
- Most people consider insoluble those problems, the solution of which suits them little.
- A person is used to asking himself: who am I? There is a scientist, an American, a driver, a Jew, an immigrant... But you should always ask yourself: am I shit?
- The introduction was delayed. We must sleep or part.
- When a person is left alone and at the same time called the most beloved, one becomes sick.
- All my life I have been blowing through a telescope and wondering that there is no music. And then he carefully looked into the trombone and was surprised that not a damn thing was visible.
- We endlessly scold Comrade Stalin, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask - who wrote the four million denunciations?
- The only honest road is the path of mistakes, disappointments and hopes.
- What else, but there is enough loneliness. Money, let's say, I run out quickly, loneliness - never ...
- It's crazy to live with a man who doesn't leave just because he's lazy...
- I was walking and thinking the world is insane. Madness is becoming the norm. The norm evokes a sense of wonder.
- Do you know what is important in life? The main thing is that life is one. A minute passed, and the end. There won't be another...
- The more hopeless the goal, the deeper the emotions.
- Love is for the youth. For servicemen and athletes... But here everything is much more complicated. This is no longer love, but fate.
- “The main thing in a book and in a woman is not the form, but the content…” Even now, after countless disappointments in life, this attitude seems a bit boring to me. And I still only like beautiful women.
- I prefer to be alone, but next to someone...
- I no longer divide people into positive and negative.
And literary heroes - even more so. In addition, I am not sure that in life, a crime is inevitably followed by repentance, and a feat - bliss. We are what we feel. - For a whole year there was something like intellectual intimacy between us. With a touch of enmity and depravity.
- I live quite tolerably now, I don't do a damn thing, I read and I'm getting fat. But sometimes it happens so badly in the soul that you want to fill your own face.
- I think love has no dimensions at all. There is only yes or no.
- Man to man - anything ... Depending on the combination of circumstances.
- It's okay to visit when you're invited. It is terrible to go to visit when you are not invited. However, the best thing is when they call, but you don't go.
- Family is if you guess by the sound who exactly is washing in the shower.
- “Life is wonderful and amazing! "- as Comrade Mayakovsky exclaimed on the eve of his suicide.
- I will not change the linoleum. I changed my mind, because the world is doomed.
self-development quotes
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I prefer to be alone, but next to someone
His prose was rejected by magazines for ideological reasons. Only the story in the Neva and the story Interview on the production theme in Youth were published. He also managed to print more than 10 reviews in Neva and Zvezda.
In 1978, due to persecution by the authorities, Dovlatov emigrated to Vienna, and then moved to New York. He published the "dashing" liberal émigré newspaper The New American, from 1980 to 1982 he was its editor-in-chief. One after another, books of his prose are published - “The Invisible Book”, “Solo on Underwood”, the stories “Compromise”, “Zone”, “Reserve”, “Ours”, etc.
By the middle of the 80s, he achieved great reader success, was published in the prestigious New-Yorker magazine, becoming the second Russian writer after Vladimir Nabokov to be published in this respectable publication.
During the twelve years of his life in exile, he published a total of twelve books that were published in the USA and Europe. In the USSR, the writer was known by samizdat and the author's program "The Writer at the Microphone" on Radio Liberty.
Sergei Dovlatov is one of the most popular Russian writers. His incredibly funny and piercingly sad books have become classics and have been translated into many languages. A close friend and colleague of Dovlatov, Alexander Genis, wrote a philological novel "Dovlatov and environs", not only a fascinating story, but also a manifesto of new literature. The author combines a writer and a journalist with his texts, exploring the Dovlatov style and dottedly sketching the biography of a representative of the "roadside generation", an emigrant of the third wave.
However, it is impossible to imagine Dovlatov without his entourage and creative people of that era - prose writers, poets and playwrights, who often became characters in his works. Joseph Brodsky is a truly cult poet, he knew Dovlatov from an early age. He can be called a writer's mentor, if not creative, then spiritual.
A year after Sergei's death, the poet said:
Thirty years ago, when we met, there was no talk of covers or literature in general. We were Seryozha and Joseph; moreover, we addressed each other as "you", and to change this sublimely ironic, slightly detached - from ourselves - form of communication and address turned out to be beyond the power of either alcohol or the absurd leaps of fate. Now nothing will change her.
10 quotes from famous writers about Sergei Donatovich Dovlatov
Many episodes in his prose are "stray", but in different contexts they can play a different role, sometimes directly opposite to that which was intended for them originally.
Andrey Ariev
Dovlatov's stories act immediately and without error. A jazz lover, he dreamed of an immediate impact.Peter Vail
He always spoke of himself with exceptional and unusual modesty for the so-called writers, but readers and listeners rated him much higher than he rated himself.Vladimir Voinovich
Dovlatov, both a writer and a character, has chosen an extremely advantageous position for himself. Chinese wisdom teaches that the sea will always win over the rivers because it is below them. So Dovlatov won readers over by the fact that he was no higher and no better than them: describing a miserable world, he looks at it through the eyes of a flawed hero.Alexander Genis
He writes simply and chastely. It seems impossible to come up with a phrase that would be simpler than the one that he creates.
Fazil Iskander
He gave the impression of a man to whom everything he desires is available: any friendship, any reciprocal love, freedom, money, an elegant suit, unlimited strength, any talent. In reality, however, things were not so luxurious. There was practically no money, not only fell in love with him, people became friends, even for a few days, people whom he did not know by name. Even the strength turned out to be sufficient only to move one of his mighty bodies in space.Anatoly Naiman
He could talk for hours about literature; Only a literary dispute could drive him out of himself, drive him to rage, to despair. I remember almost verbatim how Sergei, during some conversation, got excited and shouted: “I won’t spend a single minute of my life repairing a fan pipe or an iron, because I have a lot of literary affairs, and reading is also my literary business!Eugene Rein
Dovlatov is a talented Russian immigrant with a typical American sense of humor.
Joseph Heller
He was Hamlet. And he pretended to be Schweik.Nikita Eliseev
He had a talent of a special kind - a talent for direct conversation with the reader, so that everyone could consider him his own and only his own.Yuriy Karabichevsky
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