Fear of Intimacy

It’s a common thing – being fearful of intimacy. There are many different reasons we give: I don’t want to be tied down; I can’t imagine being with one person for the rest of my life; I don’t want to get hurt. But, what is the real reason some of us, more than others, experience this fear of intimate relationships?

You can look up the definition of intimacy – it’s very simple and straightforward: close familiarity or friendship; closeness. Why would anyone fear this? Isn’t closeness, familiarity, friendship what we’re all looking for and striving to achieve? Yes, but only if you’re willing to make yourself vulnerable, to share your true self without secrets, and putting yourself (your SELF) in the hands of another human being. Wow! Scary stuff! Seriously – to put your WHOLE SELF in the hands of someone else, someone who was once a complete stranger. That’s some serious trust you need to build and some people are just not that keen on building a completely trusting relationship because of negative past hurts.

Let’s take a moment to define “past hurts.” This doesn’t have to mean with a boyfriend or girlfriend you had in high school or college. It doesn’t have to mean a past hurt from a parent who left when you were young. It can mean those things, but it doesn’t have to. A past hurt could mean anything – the way a caregiver treated you when you were young, or maybe how a parent spoke to you while you were growing up. Maybe your close friends from childhood stabbed you in the back once you got into high school. You define your own past hurts and they define what kind of defense you build around your SELF. A fear of intimacy goes way beyond a fear of rejection.

It doesn’t help when mental health issues come into play. If you suffer from anxiety, your anxiety goes through the roof just thinking about letting someone in. If you suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, you might have this constant underlying fear of abandonment. If you suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, it may seem that nothing and no one will ever meet your standards. And, heaven forbid this potential significant other finds out about your mental health struggles!

The question becomes, how do you put your past hurts aside in order to move forward with some intimate relationships? How do you get past those hurts and allow someone new to care for ALL of you? Your whole SELF instead of a fragmented portion of it? It is safe to say that the person suffering from a fear of intimacy is in a catch-22: wanting so desperately to feel that closeness, have that love and affection; but on the other hand, not wanting to experience hurt, abandonment, rejection. Until this catch-22 gets resolved within, no relationship will be intimate. Self-sabotage may peek its ugly head out to “protect” you from getting hurt.

The truth is, until you are able to learn to provide yourself with internal validation (versus seeking validation from an external source), you will always have that fear of intimacy. Knowing yourself and putting your SELF in YOUR OWN HANDS FIRST will allow you the freedom to experience intimate relationships of any kind, and, that’s the hardest work there is. It’s easy to trust people; it’s hard to trust yourself. But, trust in yourself and allowing yourself the ability to be vulnerable within will eventually lead to your ability to be vulnerable with others without the intense fear that accompanies it.