Things I struggle with the most as an AP:

• People abruptly changing level of intimacy or contact (for example, romantic or sexual partner talked or had sex with me one day, and then day after, or after a couple of days, isn't talking to me or is more withdrawn or has ghosted me)
• People not caring enough to communicate a change inside them which would lead to the above and waiting for me to find out myself through the silence or withdrawal
• Anger about the this above situation.
• Mistrust towards romantic partners because of the above.
• Mindreading, accusation, coming across angry or demanding once triggered.
• Cutting things off earlier if they don't work.

The things I am getting better at:

• Saying how I feel I about something.
• Removing people who are disrespectful and ending contact with them.
• Just letting people who want to go, go for whatever reason, and not talking to them again.

Long-winded explanation below:

I do try to stop myself from accusing. I usually ask questions first, but if they don't reply for 24hrs or a few days, then I kinda start letting it rip, like a whole paragraph of text. Just about what they factually did (ie "we saw each other a few days ago and now you are ghosting/ignoring me" and some kind of judgement about it, saying it's rude, unfriendly, not nice). And I get angry about it because it feels disrespectful to me.

I know being angry at a person doesn't achieve anything except for making them take steps back or pull away or leave entirely. I do know that being very angry is good for me for actually taking action to remove some contacts. I dont really feel like im taking action when I am just "pulling away" or "taking distance" from someone. I feel like I do need to actually make a concrete action, like unfriend them. Because it feels like it's a more concrete downgrade, and I notice it when people do it to me too. No matter if I do it in parallel or not, I do know it's a downgrade. It's almost asymmetrical if I don't do it in parallel. But doing anything is really pointless if they already did it to me. It's already done.

To respect myself, I suddenly have to not care about them and treat the whole previous time with them as meaningless? I struggle with that too. Or internally be thankful for the good times I had with them, and then move on this suddenly and abruptly, like they did? Is it able to be this sudden because the past is gone, but I live in a continuum, and for me, abrupt changes are upsetting, even though they can happen at any time? It's part and parcel of life and yet I have a hard time accepting it because I want stability. These people are showing me they are unstable, yet I can continue to like them? I can't actually. I start to hate them, and maybe hate is too strong. I don't have neutral feelings for them because I get angry about it. But sometimes, I also reach a deep empathy and forgiveness for them, like they might withdraw because they can't provide what I want. I can't stop someone from leaving my life, but I can stop someone from coming back in.

I also want apologies that I may or may not get. If they ghost, it's rare I get an apology unless its weeks, months, or years later. There's at least two versions of ghoster: One version still reads my messages to see if there's anything they want to reply to at some point. Or takes a break to think over the entire thing for weeks, months or years, and then replies. The other version has blocked me on at least some platforms and only reads my msgs on one platform, and selectively replies. <- I fking hate this type of guy even more than the people that I haven't talked to for months or years, to be honest. And the last version is me, I am not a ghoster with people i already know, I will unfollow, unfriend or block and I will never reverse this again pretty much. The only time I reversed this and already regret it. The guy is still shitty.

It's always in the context for sex for me, because if it was just someone I talked to and they ghosted, I wouldn't care that much. Because it feels like they don't value something I gave to them, especially the emotions and time. Like maybe they enjoyed it at the time, but that its not really meaningful to them very soon after it happened, and not like it has been months or years, like just a few days ago. And that really upsets me.

How these wounds relate to childhood: I'm sure my parents had good memories of me growing up, but in terms of wounds, like when a lover or sexual partner acts different the next day or a few days after sex, to me, I feel unappreciated and also unloved if we said we love each other. I can connect that back to how i expected my parents to love and care for me, and then if one day they are acting like they dont, then its so similar, it's just the inconsistency and being unappreciated. It's a tall order: If my parents couldn't do it, im sure "casual sex partner" wouldnt be able to, but I expect bfs to be consistent, and even they cant be. Probably noone can, they are just people. How much can I tolerate? It's like I really don't have relationships where I am chill unless I am very ambivalent about a person, ie i dont feel much about a person and am distant. Like no sexual involvement with them, only on the talking phase, and not even infatuated. Like not caring too much whether they contact me or not, so i react to them the same way whether they contact me 1 day apart or a week apart, because im not dating them. With dating, I don't know how to be close to someone and then pull away. I don't know how to do snakes and ladders with someone. It's either I dont know the person and dont really feel anything and can just not see them again, it's fine. Or i feel something or already have regular contact with them and then its distressing if that decreases or disappears entirely.

I guess there must be something about oxytocin and sex. I don't have much chill directly after if someone is not talking to me next day after sex or wants to leave after sex. I don't think even stable attachment people would like this. It's not that sex guarantees connection, surely it doesn't and I can find guys who can end something because they don't like me anymore (just like women also can), but I don't feel like I am being valued if I am being ignored or ghosted or "left" suddenly, even though this is always in the realm of possibility. Im happy for most romantic relationship, we were both bonded enough that we did talk about breaking up before it happened, the only times I was blocked or ghosted the relationship was less than a month of time together or it was a "friend" with benefits situation which were always total disasters for me, because they cant be a good friend if they eventually block or remove me from social media when they are finally done with me. This could be months or even a year or something. It's the lack of permanence... Is there even permanence in this world? Some of my friends do feel permanent, and some I thought were permanent really pulled back very far from me or disappeared, and its hurts, and I dont even think of them much anymore.

I also think about what if I blocked or removed people more from my life. How would I feel about that? After stuff they did that doesn't make me happy, just to remove, block or delete them? I don't really like throwing people out per se and rarely do. But maybe I just can't connect to them on any level at all. What difference does it make removing them? Maybe I just dont see their name or face and it pisses me off less, that's the only upside. There's no real upside to permanently removing someone unless I am totally done with them. Done being used by them. One time i did block a friend who blocked me, because I never want her back. I mean there's a decreasing value to bringing back people who blocked, deleted, unfriended, unfollowed me anyway, for whatever reason... I am spending too much time thinking about people who don't seem to give two shits about me on a relationship level. They might as well be total strangers at this point. It doesn't matter if I leave them there or not, I rarely have a reason to contact them. If I don't have any reason to ever contact them again, I could just delete them. What am I going to do with this person after multiple unhappy experiences with them? Would be fine if they cared enough to say sorry and do better, it's not fine if they are not, so why don't I just delete them. I did the unfriending and it does feel better actually. Cos just having them there also makes no sense, unless I need to contact them, which I don't in this case. And all of them were liars or did some quite major lying, as compared to how honest I am... And I can't stand that either, I hate that. It's hard to like them if I only like like one part of them. And I don't feel anything about them either. Just the sheer level of thoughts it generates for me requires me to standardise my treatment for them. Like what does it mean if they see my messages vs not seeing them at all? How come they have not blocked me if they dont even see my messages anymore? How come they have blocked me in one place but not another? How come they didn't even view my message after months? Like every one of those questions, because i dont have the answer, I can make an answer, its just that they hardly give two f*cks if they don't reply or are too guilty to reply now.

I mean if someone explains to me they don't connect anymore and want to part ways, i mean it feels more respectful to me. So ghosting/ignoring really upsets me to extreme levels, it's super-triggering, super-angering, after sex, and also for close friends. I ghost or ignore pretty much only strangers, like people i have no romantic connection to and they are texting me from an app or tried to get my number and I quite badly, didn't shut it down right there.

It used to upset me they are parting ways after saying how much they love being with me and blah blah. But nowadays, I can see how flippant people are and it makes me feel cynical about people like they are just full of sh*t or their feelings change like the wind. They make it sound like they are so excited and then become super cold very easily. So I still get angry about it, because I feel like they wasted my time being so fake (regardless of whether it was intentional or not), but I don't want to hate them because it takes energy. But hate is really the only way I get a person out of my life permanently. I have to have so much anger and disrespect for them that i just remove them from sight. Because anger is inspiration energy, it's supposed to get someone out of inertia. Usually when things are peaceful, people do not want change, or to cut people out. But if I feel enough disrespect, I do. Maybe they are exactly the same as me, they felt disrespect and cut me out of their life. Disrespect means something different to different people. To some, it's being left on read. To others, it's not being left alone enough. And for me, it has to be intentional, not like that someone was busy and took long to reply, but like the fact someone I had sex with very recently, or am in relationship with, or have been talking to daily, if they suddenly ghost and don't apologize if I bring it up, it's just massive disrespect for me, and I know I can find a better person. I can understand the concept of focusing energy elsewhere. Maybe it means "deletion". Before social media, it was not so concrete whether someone was temporarily pulling away or permanently. They didn't post a message into your mailbox like "now I have unfollowed you or deleted you or blocked you". And now I have to interpret these actions as an act of war or a dismissal. sometimes blockers even unblock. It's crazy to me how flippant they are. I want to make pretty final choices on blocking or unblocking people.

Everyone else in my life, if i have downgraded them to being a casual contact, I just don't feel anything anymore for them because I also stop DMing them in general, maybe very seldomly. I stop having feelings of emotion closeness to them. I only feel emotional closeness to my own daughter (in heaven), and to men in my relationships during a relationship. Not after, I mean i will give up very easily on them if they are being a d*ck. Sometimes my friends get busy and leave messages on seen and i stop sending them DMs and it feels really healthy to do that. So now I only reply if they initiate contact. But with sexual partners, it never feels like I can go from the highest level of intimacy (for me, sex is), and then to low contact, or "space", or temporary ghosting. For me, it's all or nothing. With friends I can "downgrade" them to the kind of "basic membership", with lovers, i can't because it just feels insulting to become lower priority to them suddenly. With friends it obviously sucks at first to become lower priority to them suddenly if they were close, but i guess if they were not close, I just don't care that much, i am just quite distant and extremely casual about it (I get equal FA/AP/Secure for friendship attachment style). With relationships, I am high on AP, so its AP43%/FA29%/Secure29%, so im more clingy and expect more reaching out. With relationships, no matter how casual, I'm just gonna let go of anyone who can't deliver what I consider basic decency in a relationship or friendship of any kind: Replying to messages with a consistent frequency or apologising about it (for friends it can be days, weeks, even months is ok, for romantic partners I think max a few days or its ghosting)

​

​

​