Avoidant Attachment: Signs You’re ‘Intellectually Bypassing’ Your Emotions (And How To Stop)

[stoics]

"You dont process emotions by thinking about the past. You process emotions by recognizing the moments in which the past is present for you" Im writing that down!

[JerrTheHooman]

I'm an avoidant and just you mentioning, "what if I actually feel my emotions as they happen", instantly made my heart race and I started to be anxious. And my immediate response was no 😅

[GiGo]

I have always called this, “sterilizing the emotion”. Like when a biologist kills the bacteria so they can look at it under a microscope. Once it becomes an idea instead of a feeling, you can talk about it as though it’s happening to somebody else.

Love your channel, btw.

[Grey_Sage]

This made me realize that cbt can actually be harmful for people who lean avoidant because the therapist constantly tries to extract an explanation from you and that forced me to intellectualize everything for their benefit and my detriment. Then they go and say “oh we’ve made so much progress” even though I didn’t feel any better.

[kimberdutton]

I actually laughed out loud a couple of times at how accurate this is for me. Even my therapists are generallg impressed at my "self awareness"...at some level i think I've always known that my self awareness was a way to get out of actually feeling my feelings--and God forbid I ever cry or lose my cool in front of someone. Emotions have always felt like an embarassment to me. Starting to recognize that me not feeling my feelings has cut me off from living life.

[marcelvandermeulen]

“Even though you understand their trauma, it still hurts”. Such a great way to express a rational explanation to an emotional pain. Super for a super rational person like me

[darkcreatureinadarkroom]

It's worth noting that a lot of times there is societal pressure to do this "intellectual bypassing of emotions". People are encouraged to "be stoic" and not "disturb the peace" by displaying your emotions too much.
I'm currently no contact with my parents, have been doing a lot of work surrounding trauma (childhood emotional neglect) that I didn't even know that I had, and I had to do this mostly on my own or in online spaces such as this channel, because most people around me, therapists included, would always want to focus on forgiving my parents for "doing their best"... Even when their best wasn't good enough. And I never got to hear that it is valid for me to feel angry that the best they could do is nowhere near enough for me, I had to process that feeling on my own, and I still need to push back hard against people telling me that it's not right for me to feel angry with them for that and trying to force me to deactivate. People suck.

[u]

I like how I'm learning this information and immediately start intellectualizing it 😂 I'm like "ahh yes makes sense!" but still not letting it in on an emotional level haha

[bernadette]

This is phenomenal info! I thought stoicism was something to strive for. I can't seem to identify the emotion in times of high pressure situations and have learned to just say "I feel a disturbance in the field" and I get away from it. Later I feel horrible sadness or even rage. And I can feel it then.

[emmahedgecock]

I love how she explains to me like I’m 5. “This is why you will benefit from feeling your emotions.” It makes so much more sense when she says it than when people get all sensitive and say, “That’s the beauty of life.”

Thank you Heidi :)

[HerbertLandei]

Oh boy, that hit hard, you made me cry. I'm an old "forever alone" guy, and today I was ghosted on my dating app, and I felt empty and hopeless, but my way of dealing with the situation was browsing for self-help. I'm glad I found this video instead of one telling me what I wanted to hear. Needless to say, the video also made it very clear why I can't connect to people, and why paying for dating apps before working through my issues is wasted money. At least I'm at a point where I can admit that I have serious problems, that's already kind of progress. Thank you!

[aseaka]

I thought I was being more emotionally intelligent by handling issues with logic first, and emotion after. For emergencies, I still think it's a good mindset, but it's not as effective for long-term healing.
Thank you for covering this topic and for doing what you do!

[marid.]

The tough love is much-needed. Hyper-functional, stoic behaviour isn’t everything. It's very easy to see oneself as a badass, unbreakable survivor and lose one's humanity and vulnerability in the process. And when it happens, it's the loneliest feeling in the world. Thank you for putting this into words.

[elainetaylor]

Processing complex trauma is so difficult. Either you become overwhelmed or push emotions down. Taking small steps, choices and communicating boundaries is key for me. Thank you 🙏

[JD-ZagaDude]

I very much identified with “exonerating” my parents for some of the things they did. In fact, my sister and I will discuss our parents’ inadequacies and failings and mutually exonerate them by saying things like “they did the best they could”. So, this video hit home to me. Thanks.

[stereosaur]

Well this video was brutal. I'm 43, I've been in therapy for 18 years now. I've battled crippling anxiety for most of my adult life. I thought I had made some great progress over the past few years as I thought I've been at peace with what I discovered about myself and my past, but still seem to have a very hard time still breaking a lot of my old emotional patterns. I just learned very recently that I have a strong avoidant attachment style (I had never heard anything about this), but this whole cognitive bypassing is something completely new to me, but is like an arrow on a bullseye. Every single point and sign you mentioned was like, 'yes, I do that'. I've always wondered why it seems that there were points in my life where I feel like I should have very strong emotional memories, but I don't. I started getting brutally bullied in 5th grade, and I never really ever discussed it with my parents (who worked most all of the time). But in my adult life, I struggle with anxiety still (and like having it spike at seemingly illogical times), but being able to always keep cool during times when I probably should be quite upset. And I have so many problems maintaining relationships (i.e. my ex-wife, as well as my current, both have anxious attachment styles), to the point that as I get older, I am getting quite fearful of this fact. So, damn, this was a shot to the chest, and even kinda disheartening. I'm not sure what to do now, as now it's me working most all of the time. But thank you for the info.

[nfvy]

Thank you for this video. I always struggled with understanding why I wasn’t making progress with my mental health despite being so “emotionally in-tuned” and self-aware. I really was just over-rationalizing as a coping mechanism. “I don’t have to deal with it because I’ve labeled it” was so spot on.

[Delrin]

I've actually been watching your videos as a way to bypass my emotions. I hold you responsible.

[elblaino]

I think of myself as anxious but much of this applies to me. This video connected a lot to how I wanted to please teachers who praised me for being smart and being a "good boy" who put others first, turned the other cheek, was "mature, " and so on. I never had a chance to develop a healthy ego; I felt second-class and was praised for acting the part, because people assumed that I "knew" I was first-class or as first-class as anybody, but was being mature - rather than that I doubted I was even second-class and was yearning for some cosmic teacher judge parent to say, "He's been such a good boy, we love him, it's his turn now." Intellectually I could excuse parental figures, teachers who mailed it in, bad bosses, partners - but I was thereby preventing myself from feeling the pain truly, from caring enough about myself to stand up for myself and to be my own person who tried for what I wanted even if it meant risking failure. So progress has come from feeling feelings, - anger being the big one, I had not allowed myself to be mad. People thought I had been mad and then did away with it, whereas I had always skipped the mad part, because my understanding said, They have reasons. So being mad, or wanting something, or being sad about something - how to really sit with those things and not have them quickly transform into a "but what about that other person?" feeling, to keep the focus on me, and say, you are allowed to feel this, but it's up to you to feel it fully AND THEN decide what you are going to do about it, and that might mean erecting a barrier, withholding something, or even pushign back - that's been the growth.

[erincarter]

Heidi, I'm gonna ask you to stop knowing me more than I know myself LOL. Your videos articulate these complex concepts SO well and they are so accurate. I'm so glad I found your channel, its been helping me so much. You are an incredible, underrated gem!