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Cultivating relationships that make life worth living takes work. Everyone has their roadblocks to overcome, including feeling scared of intimacy. The complex issue affects more than one aspect of relationships, so you’re not alone if it’s been difficult to grapple with. Reading more about the topic will uncover solutions you can use to start healing.
A fear of intimacy is the inability to exchange thoughts and feelings of significance with another person due to anxiety. The self-protective instinct may rise when you’re encouraged to share a vulnerable part of your past, share physical intimacy with someone or trust a person’s love for you. People experience this fear in romantic and platonic relationships, especially after living with an emotionally neglectful caregiver or partner.
Intimacy is a broad term that includes many aspects of a healthy relationship. People share intimacy in friendships and romantic relationships whenever they’re vulnerable or express a sensitive feeling. You might experience it when you do things like:
Similar moments might trigger your fear of intimacy because they all involve a level of trust in the relationship and personal openness. If you’ve learned that vulnerability ends in hurt by people in your past, it’s understandable that those experiences would make you feel unsafe.
Struggling to bond with someone prevents your relationship from growing and affects your overall well-being. Learn more about how intimacy issues change your mental and physical health to understand the complete picture of your fear.
Feeling scared of intimacy puts your body in a heightened stress state. You can listen to calming audio or breathe through the feeling, but a logical response doesn’t negate your body’s expectation of a threat. Your nervous system recognizes something that poses a danger based on your past experiences or the present situation. While that might help in times of crisis, it’s not good for your body to remain that activated long-term.
A continually activated stress response system can lead to heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and other health concerns. If you’re already at a higher risk of those things due to your genetic history, it’s an important reason to consider working on your fear of intimacy.
Intimacy triggers can prevent people from forming meaningful connections with others. You might struggle to trust your boss when they congratulate you on a skill or feel uncomfortable when someone says they’re grateful to have you in their life. Pulling away in those moments feels safer, but prevents your relationships from becoming fulfilling. You might live with heightened loneliness that feels like an unavoidable consequence of being you.
Watching others maintain numerous healthy relationships when you struggle to feel comfortable in one can deteriorate your self-esteem. You might wonder why you can’t do the same thing or why you haven’t worked through your intimacy issues yet. A healthy sense of self impacts everything from your career to instinctive thought patterns, so it’s debilitating if your self-esteem remains low at best.
If you’re not sure if you have a fear of intimacy, look for some common red flags that relationships don’t feel safe. Consider if you have any of these unhealthy habits:
You don’t have to stay scared of intimacy forever. While it might feel like an unchangeable part of your life, you can enjoy fulfilling relationships with consistent work on yourself.
Grow into yourself with a few strategies to overcome your intimacy issues. If you give yourself time, you’ll become the social butterfly you want to be.
Accepting your intimacy fears without judgment is more complicated than it seems, but it’s worth the effort. When you can look at the complex issue straightforwardly, you can work on skills like accepting your past and yourself as you are.
Licensed therapists train to help people with intimacy fears, attachment issues and relationship anxiety. Find a local therapist with that kind of experience. You’ll get to the root of your concern with techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), talk therapy or the primary treatment form your therapist uses.
Feeling safe in a relationship starts with a mutual respect for boundaries. You might have had unhealthy connections in the past because you struggled to set those boundaries or were around people who didn’t care about your needs.
Start with something small, like saying you won’t be texting anyone back after your bedtime. Practice upholding that. Experience what it’s like to have loved ones respect it, sit with that feeling and practice feeling safe through those moments. Setting other boundaries will come more naturally once you understand what it’s like to do that in a healthy relationship.
Attachment issue support groups meet online and in person. Find one that works with your schedule to meet people who are also scared of intimacy. You’ll feel less alone and potentially more comfortable being vulnerable. You won’t face judgment in a room full of people walking similar life paths.
If you’re meeting a new friend or potential romantic partner, use your boundary and self-compassion skills to set a relationship pace you’re comfortable with. Whether that means sharing vulnerable parts of your past slowly or sharing physical affection gradually, you’ll trigger fewer intimacy fears if you’re actively saying what makes you comfortable at varying stages of the relationship.
Acknowledge your intimacy anxieties with your friend or romantic partner. They can’t fix how you feel, but making them aware of the fear could help them be an accountability partner. If you start relying on old habits without realizing it — like distancing yourself by not texting back after a great date — they can gently remind you that you’re safe with them so you can practice your new self-care habits.
Once you know the signs of intimacy issues, you can try the numerous tools that help people overcome that fear. If you give yourself time to proceed with your healing journey slowly, you’ll gradually overcome your trauma responses and form a beautiful community of healthy relationships with people.
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