I know that one of the things that she hated was how I would withdraw. But, sometimes, when things got intense, I knew I was in an unhealthy spiral and I couldn’t figure out how to be in the conversation and get out of the spiral. So, the only thing I could find to do was withdraw, hoping that space would help.
Of course, it didn’t ever help, really. I was just running away from pain, pain that I wouldn’t stand up to.
So, I mean, the withdrawal, for me at least, was about avoiding pain; but, it was also about not having a healthy response, or knowing how to stop broken communication from staying broken.