It’s not the kind of safety that comes from genuine closeness and vulnerability. It’s the safety of distance. Of control. Of keeping people at arm’s length behind emotional walls so thick that not even they can fully access what’s inside.

When You Realise the Avoidant Was More Damaged Than You There’s a moment — not sudden, but gradual — when it finally dawns on you: the person who pushed you away, who made you feel like you were “too much,” too emotional, too needy, too intense — they were the one more damaged than you. I used to think I was the problem. I was the empath — deeply emotional, hungry for connection, desperate to love and be loved in return. And he was the mirror opposite: emotionally unavailab

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Ex-partners and mental health: Why dismissive avoidants end up miserable