7 Signs That You Have Emotional Avoidance

Some of the most successful and seemingly well-balanced people are secretly dealing with emotional avoidance. Every relationship they have is surface-level, and they are frequently described as mysterious, private, or driven. The truth is that inside, they are afraid, exhausted, and lonely. It’s difficult to spot emotional avoidance in others, and more so in yourself.

The Cluttered Closet

In one episode of the popular 90s sitcom Friends, Chandler discovers a locked door in the apartment he shares with his strict, neat-freak wife, Monica. Determined to see what secrets it holds, he uses all the tricks he knows to try to open it, eventually resorting to taking the door off the hinges. Inside, he finds many decades’ worth of mess, clutter, and discarded items.

When Monica returns home to the scene, she is overcome with shame and self-loathing at having her darkest secret exposed, while her husband is delighted to find a flaw in her otherwise perfect character.

This is the perfect analogy for emotional avoidance. Rather than confronting and processing painful or complicated things, they compartmentalize their experiences and suppress their emotions. Intimacy becomes an issue then, because what if someone comes into their lives and begins poking around for information as they get to know each other? They risk having their secret cluttered closet being found and opened, decades’ worth of mess tumbling out.

More Than Meets the Eye

Emotional avoidance is not the absence of emotions, but rather the constant organizing and managing of them. Emotionally avoidant people often appear unfazed and unaffected. Beneath the surface, however, they are desperately afraid of intimacy and don’t allow themselves to be vulnerable.

Wherever possible, they keep their relationships surface-level, and if someone gets too close, they withdraw and distract themselves with work or other coping mechanisms.

Outwardly, they prize independence and look content with their lives, while inside, they are lonely and physically exhausted. They like controlling every aspect of their lives because, like Monica in Friends, they are afraid of what others would think of them if they saw the truth.

In moments when they connect with someone, they can be some of the most emotionally intense people you will ever meet. However, they will then suffer from shame and fear at having let their guard down. They will put their guards up again and allow time and distance to neutralize the intimacy.

Romantically, people with emotional avoidance are drawn to people who are as emotionally unavailable as they are. They tend to idealize their crushes to the degree of being disappointed by reality because this person does not live up to their imaginary standards.

People with emotional avoidance intellectualize in place of feeling, and rationalize instead of processing. They are fully functional in some ways, often appearing content. Yet, it is a matter of time before that closet door opens and all the mess tumbles out. Emotional avoidance helps protect them from pain, but it also blocks out love, acceptance, intimacy, and fulfillment.

7 Signs That You Have Emotional Avoidance

“I’m fine” is your armor

To some degree, everyone hides behind a mask. It’s simply not feasible to display all of your emotions to everyone, all the time. However, you are emotionally avoidant if you can never allow people to see that you are struggling. You might even try to convince yourself that you are fine when you are not. Intimacy is about risk, and vulnerability will always hurt if you never allow yourself to experience it.

You busy yourself as a distraction

Emotionally avoidant people love to distract themselves with anything they can find, and if it adds to their impressive persona, that’s all the better. Many of the most successful, goal-oriented achievers are emotionally avoidant and lonely inside. It’s good to stay busy, be successful, and move forward in your career, but success does not equate healing. If you keep ignoring the holes in your ship, it will sink.

You avoid conflict at any cost

Ever since you were a child, you have hated arguments and avoided conflict. Sometimes, even a direct and honest conversation makes you uncomfortable. You don’t like to speak up for yourself, share your opinion, or express your preference, especially if it will rock the boat.

People who avoid conflict often end up feeling bitter, resentful, and frustrated because of all of the ways that they have allowed others to hurt them and get away with it. Honesty comes at a price, but the cost of avoidance is greater.

You have sudden emotional outbursts

If you have ever suddenly burst into tears despite not normally being a crier, or flown off the handle over a minor issue, that is often a sign of emotional avoidance. When you have held everything inside for so long, it sometimes takes the smallest of triggers to open that closet door and turn everything inside it into a projectile.

Afterwards, you feel shame and annoyance with yourself because sharing your emotions in that way feels like weakness or a failure. You likely don’t judge others for having visible emotions, but you hold yourself to a stricter standard.

You experience emotional exhaustion

It takes physical effort to keep your thoughts and feelings locked up in that little closet. You might feel as if life is easier when you are less emotional, and to an extent, that might be true. However, your nervous system gets tired from holding you in survival mode all day, every day, for decades on end. It costs real energy to remain guarded and to always be on the lookout for the threat of friendship or intimacy.

You exhibit physical symptoms

Suppressed emotions do not disappear. They reappear weeks, months, or years later as muscle tension, cramps, migraines, headaches, disrupted sleep, high blood pressure, and digestive issues. Despite how it seems, emotions are physical things. You feel emotions in various places throughout your body. Ignored emotions remain in your body and eventually convert into aches, pains, and chronic illness.

You are disconnected from yourself

Despite staying busy and focusing on your career, and despite any successes and breakthroughs you have had in some areas of your life, you don’t really know what you want. It might take years to realize this, and when you do, you likely won’t know how you got here or what to do next. While you might be rich in other areas of your life, you are bankrupt in experience, intimacy, and desire. It doesn’t have to stay that way, but there is work to do if you want to change.

Opening Up About Emotional Avoidance

If you are emotionally avoidant, you are not avoiding relationships and intimacy as much as you are avoiding yourself. You are avoiding needing to open that door and deal with all the mess that lies behind it. You believe that if you allow someone into your life, they will take one look at the real you and head straight back out the door.

Emotionally avoidant people ultimately need to realize that it is possible to feel safe while also being honest. This doesn’t happen overnight and can take a lifetime of learning. It all starts with allowing someone into your life and giving them access to the door that you have kept locked since you were a child. That person might be a friend, a lover, or a counselor. Only another person can help you find what you truly need: intimacy.

If you would like to begin dealing with your avoidance issues, we can help. We host an online catalog of counselors, which you may consult. You may also speak with our reception team, who can help you find the right person to help you.