I was going through some of my old "classics" (books!) the other day and found one on the topic of emotional unavailability. Although many of us use the term loosely to describe someone who we can't or don't feel "close" to...emotional unavailability is not that simple to describe. Today's post is the first in a series on this topic and will introduce you to some of the major "types" of emotionally unavailable men and women living among us all....
To start, emotionally unavailable people prefer control over love in their important personal relationships. Emotions are viewed as unsafe...while control gives the emotionally unavailable person the illusion of safety. This view of emotions flies in the face of achieving true emotional connection and emotional-based intimacy with another person. Instead of wanting to understand someone else deeply and wanting to be understood by that same someone else just as deeply....emotionally unavailable people would rather run for the hills while on fire. Although it is perfectly reasonable to expect emotional intimacy and connection with someone you love and care about, this does require that both partners be willing to authentically share (information) and exchange care (loving sacrifice) with one another on an ONGOING basis. This doesn't happen and can't happen with the emotionally unavailable person. Depending on the type of emotionally unavailable person you are in a relationship with, the outcomes are still the same: no authentic heart connection to be made or maintained...no growing and deepening of the relationship over time....no ability to fully understand or willingness to be understood by you or anyone else. Emotionally unavailable people may act like they want a relationship with you more than anything else (for a time!)...but in truth, they merely want to avoid being alone while being in emotional control of whomever they are involved with...
So how do emotionally unavailable people become emotionally unavailable people? As author Bryn C. Collins, M.A., L.P., states in her book "Emotional Unavailability", emotionally unavailable people are cut off from their own and others' emotional processes, isolated from the emotional content of life's experiences. Instead of being able to comfortably express or receive authentic emotional-based content, emotionally unavailable people have a weak or non-existent internal connection with their own emotions...and the emotional expressions of others. This is often because their mindset about "emotions" in general are more about feeling "sad", "scared", and/or "mad" than it is about being "glad" or grateful. Sad, scared, mad, and glad are the basic four emotional states or foundational feelings that human beings experience. Emotionally unavailable people can't seem to move past focusing on their own "sad", their own "scared", and/or their own "mad" life experiences. Like a blanket of fire that they use to cover all other emotions and all situations they face, emotionally unavailable people view everything they or others experience through these very clouded lenses of "negative" past experience(s). So if you can't exactly explain or clearly define the emotions of any given life experience without "sad", "scared", and/or "mad" being all mixed up with it...how can you tell what you are truly feeling much less talk about it with someone else openly and honestly? You just can't. The same is true in reverse; when someone else is trying to emotionally connect with you by sharing their own emotional experience(s)...emotionally unavailable people keep mixing up the "sad", the "scared", and the "mad" with what they are hearing. As a result, nobody is truly understanding or being understood by the other at a heart level. There is no emotional intimacy.
Big family secrets play a role in the development of the emotionally unavailable person. When a child grows up in a household where things are often not as they appear to be....or when one thing is said but another is done over and over again....basic trust will be shattered into lots of little pieces. Alcoholism, drug use, infidelity, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse...you name it, all of these and many more "secrets" can run and ruin not just the secret keeper's life, but those forced to live with it.
In her book, "Emotional Unavailability" author Bryn Collins offers a short quiz she refers to as a "Toxic Balloon Detector". Using the balloon metaphor, Collins states that when we stuff all of our emotional trash into a "toxic balloon" without working on it and appropriately processing it, it will do the same thing that a balloon does when it is blown up and we don't tie the neck: it flies around the room in unpredictable ways making an unattractive blatting noise until finally jetting to the floor in some unanticipated spot...flat and deflated. Yet if we blow up a balloon and hold the neck tight before slowly opening it bit by little bit, the balloon will still deflate but doesn't fly all over the place. When it's deflated, it's still under control and predictable. That's how therapy can work to help the emotionally unavailable person safely identify and express their own emotions (all of their own emotions) without everything spilling out willy-nilly and creating more drama, crisis, and chaos for themselves...and for others.
Next time, I will present some of the profiles associated with the basic personality types of emotionally unavailable people among us...
To start, emotionally unavailable people prefer control over love in their important personal relationships. Emotions are viewed as unsafe...while control gives the emotionally unavailable person the illusion of safety. This view of emotions flies in the face of achieving true emotional connection and emotional-based intimacy with another person. Instead of wanting to understand someone else deeply and wanting to be understood by that same someone else just as deeply....emotionally unavailable people would rather run for the hills while on fire. Although it is perfectly reasonable to expect emotional intimacy and connection with someone you love and care about, this does require that both partners be willing to authentically share (information) and exchange care (loving sacrifice) with one another on an ONGOING basis. This doesn't happen and can't happen with the emotionally unavailable person. Depending on the type of emotionally unavailable person you are in a relationship with, the outcomes are still the same: no authentic heart connection to be made or maintained...no growing and deepening of the relationship over time....no ability to fully understand or willingness to be understood by you or anyone else. Emotionally unavailable people may act like they want a relationship with you more than anything else (for a time!)...but in truth, they merely want to avoid being alone while being in emotional control of whomever they are involved with...
So how do emotionally unavailable people become emotionally unavailable people? As author Bryn C. Collins, M.A., L.P., states in her book "Emotional Unavailability", emotionally unavailable people are cut off from their own and others' emotional processes, isolated from the emotional content of life's experiences. Instead of being able to comfortably express or receive authentic emotional-based content, emotionally unavailable people have a weak or non-existent internal connection with their own emotions...and the emotional expressions of others. This is often because their mindset about "emotions" in general are more about feeling "sad", "scared", and/or "mad" than it is about being "glad" or grateful. Sad, scared, mad, and glad are the basic four emotional states or foundational feelings that human beings experience. Emotionally unavailable people can't seem to move past focusing on their own "sad", their own "scared", and/or their own "mad" life experiences. Like a blanket of fire that they use to cover all other emotions and all situations they face, emotionally unavailable people view everything they or others experience through these very clouded lenses of "negative" past experience(s). So if you can't exactly explain or clearly define the emotions of any given life experience without "sad", "scared", and/or "mad" being all mixed up with it...how can you tell what you are truly feeling much less talk about it with someone else openly and honestly? You just can't. The same is true in reverse; when someone else is trying to emotionally connect with you by sharing their own emotional experience(s)...emotionally unavailable people keep mixing up the "sad", the "scared", and the "mad" with what they are hearing. As a result, nobody is truly understanding or being understood by the other at a heart level. There is no emotional intimacy.
Big family secrets play a role in the development of the emotionally unavailable person. When a child grows up in a household where things are often not as they appear to be....or when one thing is said but another is done over and over again....basic trust will be shattered into lots of little pieces. Alcoholism, drug use, infidelity, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse...you name it, all of these and many more "secrets" can run and ruin not just the secret keeper's life, but those forced to live with it.
In her book, "Emotional Unavailability" author Bryn Collins offers a short quiz she refers to as a "Toxic Balloon Detector". Using the balloon metaphor, Collins states that when we stuff all of our emotional trash into a "toxic balloon" without working on it and appropriately processing it, it will do the same thing that a balloon does when it is blown up and we don't tie the neck: it flies around the room in unpredictable ways making an unattractive blatting noise until finally jetting to the floor in some unanticipated spot...flat and deflated. Yet if we blow up a balloon and hold the neck tight before slowly opening it bit by little bit, the balloon will still deflate but doesn't fly all over the place. When it's deflated, it's still under control and predictable. That's how therapy can work to help the emotionally unavailable person safely identify and express their own emotions (all of their own emotions) without everything spilling out willy-nilly and creating more drama, crisis, and chaos for themselves...and for others.
Next time, I will present some of the profiles associated with the basic personality types of emotionally unavailable people among us...