Avoidant Attachments & God.

A Wrestle Between a Mind and its Creator.

Courtesy of Pinterest

Attachment styles. Haven’t we heard enough about them yet?! The answer is no! We can’t exhaust them enough actually! The understanding of our attachment styles, and how they were developed has been very beneficial in our inter, and intra- personal relationships. They have played a key role in helping humans understand their behaviors and reactions. Why someone is so distant, why another feels the need to chase when they sense retraction. It helps us to understand not only ourselves better, but one another.

“Why does she always need reassurance that I am not mad at her?”,

“why does he always pull away when asked about his feelings”?

Attachment theory rears its head into all of our relationships without permission. One relationship in which we don’t often talk about attachment, is our relationship with God.

Why is that?

Our relationship with God is the mirror in which our relationship with man is reflected. How we relate to one another essentially points back to how we may be relating to God (knowingly, or unknowingly). If you find it difficult to be vulnerable with your loved ones, chances are, you probably aren’t being vulnerable with God either. So not only does your attachment style affect your carnal relationships, it’s affecting your relationship with the Most High.

There are several attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Today, I will be focusing on the avoidant attachment style (surprise, I’m an avoidant, don’t hate me lol).

Avoidants typically present with a low tolerance for intimacy, and struggle to engage in relationships. For me, avoidant attachment presents itself as a sort of resistance to feelings, a certain fear of being let down. Somehow, my brain had attributed feelings to danger. Red flags, and alarm bells ringing every time someone tried to peek into that overly-protected part of me. Calculating every move to avoid the acknowledgement of emotions. You become aware of everything you say and share, conscious of every power dynamic, and seem to never need help (or so we think).

Self- reliant becomes a title you become so accustomed to. It seems admirable at first, praised even. “Vanessa will figure it out”, a song that rings incessantly in the mind. An expectation others have of you from a game of catch. You toss out perfectionism, and they toss back more expectations. It’s as if you hand them the key as you yourself close the door of dependency over and over again. Forcing yourself to never be able to reach out for help, even if you desperately needed it. Even when you bang on that door for help, they are unable to open it because they misplaced the key.

When you seldom emotionally react to situations, others begin to see you as someone with a high tolerance, even when that is far from true. What others see as “handling it well”, is in most cases, severe disassociation and emotional detachment. It is a feeling of knowing that you are in need of help (or love for some), that gets lost in translation once faced with the opportunity to get it. It’s almost like you freeze up once presented with an emotional situation, being taunted by memories of when being emotional was punished or shut down.

You kind of get away with this avoidance of emotions for sometime. It is only until you come face to face with God, that the veil is torn from your face, that your bubble is popped, your mirror is shattered. What we wear as a badge of honor, He calls pride, a heart sinking revelation.

It was in His presence that He stripped me bare, calling me out by name, pointing out my facades, demanding my pretenses. He required me to lay down every tool of avoidance I had used to keep myself safe. I couldn’t. Letting go felt like I was being backed off a cliff. Unfortunately, in those initial stages of my walk with God, His demand of my faulty wirings felt threatening. Everything I saw as danger, was everything He required of me for a healthy relationship with Him. Go figure right, haha.

Intimacy, a sword, and the acknowledgment of my need for it, my death. Depending on anyone other than myself felt like driving on the wrong side of the road, and just hoping there were no cars incoming.

(“you’re asking for it, you idiot”- my mind).

He asked for everything that went against my desire. Vulnerability, trust, closeness, communication, intimacy. I wanted to scream and run. I wanted to point a finger at God and accuse Him of something I couldn’t put a name on. I was mad at Him, yet, He had done nothing wrong.

“What is it that you are avoiding my daughter”?

I was upset with God because He was proving me wrong. He called my mind a liar, and at the time, my mind was my safest friend. How could He?

I was upset because I started to realize God was right. That maybe it is me, maybe I am messed up, maybe my mind is faulty. But how could this be, who is this King of Glory? Who is this Lord whose light exposes every darkness within me? I had never experienced a relationship like this. A relationship that asked more of me, and wouldn’t leave until I gave it. This Love was an anomaly.

He was not supposed to be safe,

He was not supposed to be reliable,

He was not supposed to ask more of me,

He was not supposed to see through me.

But He did.

Everything I had feared someone doing, God did just that.

At His altar is where I finally gave an answer to His question.

“I am avoiding disappointment Father”.

Silence filled the air, but the silence felt like a hug.

I couldn’t avoid disappointment when all of my faith was in His hands. All of my hope, trust, and desire was in Him alone. It was the most frightening place I had ever been, yet, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. It was too late now, I had laid it all at His feet. There wasn’t a thing I could hide from Him anymore. Where could I go from His presence, where could I flee from His Spirit?

Unfortunately, some cycles take extensive periods of time to break. I realized I was still anticipating a let down. I began to distance myself out of protection for me and for God I told myself. But, what would I need to be protecting God from when He welcomes all of me? He knows me before I can even know myself.

I just didn’t want my trust to be broken I guess. As if it was in God’s nature to be untrustworthy, how foolish of me. But it genuinely came from a sincere place. When my trust is broken, trust me, I kind of never trust again. Unfortunately. (I am working on that though, hehe). But with God, it was different. When I felt (emphasis on “felt”) like my trust was broken by Him, for some reason, I trusted again. And again, and again. I think it is because I know His character. What he does, stems from who He is. So when a situation doesn’t go in a way I had prayed it would, I don’t see God as untrustworthy, rather, I recognize Him as intentional. That, there is a reason for this. That right there, was a major re-wiring of my brain.

Yet, if I am to be honest, it is at times still so crushing when I “feel” disappointed by God. When He seems quiet, when a prayer seems to go unanswered, the temptation to run back to my old toxic traits that I deemed to be safe arises. “I let down every wall for you, please don’t do this to me, don’t prove my brain right”.

That old avoidant brain still at times mocks me.

But God is my Lord, not my brain, not my thoughts.

Growing up, I had always desired to build a home out of distance, and give it the name, “Safety”. I did, but God moved in, He lives here with me now. And truthfully, I am more than okay with That.

My avoidant traits still rear their head to this day however, I immediately surrender them to God because He is closer than ever now. Thank you.

Your support helps me keep writing. Thank you.