Counterdependency: How To Heal Avoidant Attachment

Written By Canh Tran

While codependency is widely written about and studied, counter dependency is not. 

Someone with counterdependency has learned to survive by avoiding or pushing relationships, emotions, and vulnerability away in order to protect themselves. While this has worked for some part of their life as a short term solution, long term this can cause relationship difficulties, substance use, addiction issues, healthy emotions, healthy communication, healthy boundaries, and issues with managing life transitions.

How Do People Become Avoidant?

  • Complex trauma (ongoing repeated trauma from birth to adolescence to adulthood)

  • Sexual violence

  • Natural disasters

  • Bullying

  • Developmental trauma

    • Trauma throughout a person’s development, especially from those who were supposed to care and protect them such as parents, caregivers, teachers, mentors

  • Divorce

    • Feeling torn between your parents/caregivers after a divorce due to conflicting messages of a “bad” parent/caregiver

    • Feeling worried if one parent/caregivers will leave you and not come back (e.g. abandonment, worry, anxiety, depression)

    • Being held to secrets and promises by one parent/caregiver and feeling stuck unsure what to do

    • Losing friends and support system when you had to move to a new city and home

  • Childhood abuse

    • Sexual abuse

    • Physical abuse

    • Psychological abuse

    • Incest

  • Childhood emotional neglect

    • Neglected your emotions

    • Invalidated your emotions

    • Not coming to soothe you when you cried/asked for help

    • Caregivers who were literally never there (always working, unavailable due to substance use or mental health issues, etc.)

  • Mental Health Issues

    • Growing up with someone with undiagnosed mental health issues

    • Feeling overly responsible for others’ needs/wants

    • Not openly communicating thoughts and feelings about the effects

    • Not seeking professional treatment and help

    • Internalizing feelings and thoughts

  • Domestic Violence

    • Witnessing abuse and violence

    • Witnessing the abuses of power (coercion, yelling, blaming, denying)

    • Feeling helpless to do anything

    • Feeling guilty

  • Emotionally Absent/Neglectful/Immature Parents

    • It wasn’t uncommon to hear things like, “Why are you crying? You shouldn’t be sad.” Or “Stop your anger. Now you’re making me angry.” These questions didn’t make sense to you. You came to your parents so they could soothe, comfort, and love you, but instead you were met with criticism, demand, and judgement. 

    • So you learned to soothe and comfort yourself. Maybe you distracted yourself by reading and studying. Perhaps you learned emotions are unhelpful and stuffed them down by pretending you didn’t have feelings. 

  • Parentification (Parent Becomes The Child, Child Becomes Parent)

    • As a child, you were often the parent and your parent was often the child due to the role reversal. Boundaries were blurred. Maybe there weren’t any boundaries.

    • You were burdened with your parents’ intimate emotions, fears, and worries. Perhaps you took on household duties and responsibilities

    • Many people hear this when they are parentified, “You are so mature for your age”. While this is meant as a compliment, it can be harmful for children because their self worth is tied into what they can do for others. 

  • Adult Children of Alcoholics (The Fixer, Problem Solver & Caretaker)

    • Chaos, conflict, worry, and unpredictability sums up your childhood environment.

    • To survive, you learned to take care of others, managed conflict, and attempted to maintain peace. Now, you feel overly responsible for other’s needs, wants, and emotions. Perhaps you offer advice and help to others, even when it’s not asked for.

  • Enmeshment

    • Poor or no boundaries

    • Feeling overly responsible for others’ wellbeing and emotions

    • Caretaking at a young age

Common Questions & Statements Avoidant Folks Ask & Say To Themselves

  • How can I ask for help from others when one of my issues is to ask and seek help?

  • Maybe I won’t ever meet the right person. What’s the point?

  • No one is good enough for me.

  • I’m not good enough for anyone.

  • It’s not worth it to date.

  • Trusting others isn’t worth it.

  • It’s so difficult to trust others.

  • I’m so scared of intimacy.

  • Does anyone feel this way? I feel so overwhelmed and confused.

Conflicts: Wanting Connection & Needing Space

  • Yearning for physical and emotional space as a way to protect one self

    • Defense; a way to control others and themselves from getting hurt

  • Yearning connection, love, and intimacy though fearful of being hurt, rejected, and “not enough”

    • Shame (I am bad) vs. guilt (I did something bad)

  • Common internal messages/thoughts counterdependents have:

    • No one will be able to truly understand me and what I need, so I’ll just rely on myself.

    • People should be able to read my mind and know what I need and want. It’s so simple and straightforward.

    • I expect a lot from myself and others.

    • It’s hard to receive from others (e.g. gifts, love, affection).

    • I prefer being alone and relying on myself because it’s hard to trust others.

  • Common emotions counterdependents feel:

    • Shame

    • Guilt

    • Fear

    • Anxiety

    • Overwhelm

  • Common behaviors counterdependents engage in:

    • Walk away during a conflict

    • Ignore/avoid direct communication (e.g. emails, phone calls, texts, etc.)

    • Shutting down during tension

    • Disassociation

    • Distracting self through activities, sounds, and behaviors (finds it hard to sit in silence alone for long periods of time)

    • Blames themselves or others (binary/black/white thoughts)

This conflict becomes a cycle which the counter dependent engages in over and over to get their safety/protection needs met momentarily, only to begin again.

Thus, the cycle goes on and on. These folks tend to feel stuck, anxious, worried, and fearful.

The Flight From Intimacy: Healing Your Relationship of Counter dependence - The Other Side of Codependency

This book is written by Janae and Barry Weinhold, two psychologists. They explain how people with counter-dependent behaviors appear strong, secure, and successful on the outside, while on the inside they feel weak, fearful, insecure, and needy.

They also identified 7 Signs of Counterdependncy below:

  1. Difficulty being close to others

  2. A strong need to be right—all the time

  3. Self-centered and egotistical

  4. A resistance or refusal to ask for help

  5. Expects perfection in self and others

  6. Extreme discomfort appearing weak or vulnerable

  7. Has difficulty relaxing and is addicted to activities like work or exercise

Can I Be Both Avoidant and Anxious?

  • Yes, our attachment styles can shift depending on who we are with

  • If you usually push someone away when intimacy deepens and find someone who is similar to you, the roles will reverse as you find yourself more “anxious”.

    • Thus, you’ll need more consistent external validation such as daily texts, phone calls, or assurance that your partner does indeed like you.

How Can I Heal From Avoidant Attachment?

  • Recognize patterns and dynamics you engage in to protect yourself

    • At the expense of having safe, trusting, meaningful connections and relationships

  • Learn how to regulate your Anxiety and discomfort through skills, tools, and practices

  • Ask for help

    • Rather than doing things alone and feel disconnected and resentful toward others

  • Validate that these behaviors helped you survive in the past (and still to this day, though it may not serve you as much now)

  • Understand your stories and narratives

  • Re-write false beliefs

  • Work against Shame

  • Work against Perfectionism

  • Understand over functioning

  • Strive for balance and integration

  • Slow down and sit in silence (find a daily practice to feel and emote)

  • Learn to tune inwards (rather than outward)

  • Understand your needs, wants, and desires

  • Develop words for emotions and feelings (rather than simply focusing on thoughts)

  • Learn to trust and re-trust yourself and eventually others

Is Healing Possible?

Yes, healing is possible. Research shows earning a secure attachment is possible, though it is a lifelong journey for most people.

Change requires commitment, accountability, courage, vulnerability, patience, and honesty.

Can I Heal Counter Dependency Without Therapy?

Yes, you can.

Therapy is one way, but not the only way to heal. As counterdependency is a relational issue, this can be healed in relationships.

You can learn as much as you can about counterdependency, attachment, and trauma, however, there is a limit to how much logic/cognition will serve you.

The goal is to take relational risks in your relationships slowly, bit by bit in an attempt to:

  • Re-shape your core beliefs of abandonment, intimacy, and vulnerability

  • Feel more in your body (sensations, feelings) rather than living solely in your brain (logic, solving, fixing)

  • Grief and mourning work around your childhood and early life experiences

  • Have someone witness and validate your emotions, thoughts, and experiences

  • Learn to accept the complexity of life and human relationships (rather than trying to gain mastery and control over them)

References & Further Reading

Read My Other Blog Posts on Trauma

Trauma Resources

  • Looking for more trauma resources? Click here for a list of evidenced based trauma therapies, books, and workbooks.

Canh Tran
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