Red Flags is Novara Media’s advice column for anti-capitalists. Inspired by our columnist Sophie K Rosa’s book, Radical Intimacy, Red Flags explores how capitalism fucks up our intimate lives – not just our romantic relationships, but also our friendships, home lives, family ties, and experiences of death and dying – and what we can do about it. To submit a question to Sophie, email [email protected] or, if you’d like more anonymity, fill out this form.
It has become apparent as I have gotten older that I am quite avoidant. I have always found it difficult to communicate how I actually feel about things. I chronically avoid difficult conversations and conflict. I often feel like I’m wearing a mask or other persona in order to hide how I really feel from others. I don’t think I have ever had a healthy romantic relationship and much of my life is structured around delicately avoiding conflicts that I really ought to have. How can I get out of this mess?– Wearing a Mask
Dear Wearing a Mask
Your question suggests you are, in fact, prepared for confrontation – with yourself, at least. Before getting into the weeds, however, I’d like to encourage you to hold your self-criticism as lightly as possible. While self-reflection such as this can sow seeds of desirable change, judging ourselves too harshly rarely makes for fertile ground. The supposed flaws you describe seem to be, generally speaking, common traits deserving of compassion – though this fact need not make them any less difficult or warranting of attention.
When you write that you are “quite avoidant”, are you referring to attachment theory, developed by the psychoanalyst John Bowlby, which has become increasingly mainstream in recent years? Though often critiqued among psychoanalysts today, the idea of attachment styles among adults is now popularly embraced, suggesting it speaks to something in people’s experiences. But abstracted from its psychoanalytic genesis – often on social media – attachment styles, perhaps especially avoidant, are sometimes bandied about as insults, rather than as ideas that may or may not be useful in understanding ourselves and others. If you do indeed understand yourself as avoidant in this sense, and find it a helpful lens, I hope this entails curiosity about yourself, rather than condemnation.
Communicating how we feel is difficult for all of us. I wonder how this difficulty exists for you – for instance, do you have a sense of knowing how you feel while feeling unable to tell others; or, do you feel disconnected from your own feelings while struggling to put them into words? Pop-psychology takes often simplify the world of feelings, and thereby put us under undue pressure. For example, the assertion that we should know precisely how we feel about things and should express ourselves accordingly. If we sit with our feelings, we often find they are more complicated, unsure, contradictory, changing. And when it comes to communication, language is notoriously approximative. Go easy on yourself. All this feels difficult because it is.
I am interested in your feeling that you are “wearing a mask or another persona”. Your phrasing evokes a perennial and multivalent notion. Shakespeare wrote: “All the world’s a stage/ And all the men and women merely players.” Many critiques of capitalist patriarchy underline the ways in which our society syphons complex individuals off into discrete roles, entailing ‘character masks’, including gendered ones. Modern ideas about neurodivergence consider how ‘neurotypical’ hegemony often forces people who don’t fit a particular mould to ‘mask’. In psychoanalysis, the idea comes up in many guises – for example, Donald Winnicott’s concept of the ‘false self’, where, due to early experiences, “other people’s expectations can become of overriding importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the one connected to the very roots of one’s being.”
When do you feel most like yourself? Is there anyone in your life with whom you do feel able to ‘be yourself’, whatever this might mean? Noticing even glimpses of this experience – this sensation – could be helpful. What do you imagine would change in your life if you were able to be less – as you term it – ‘avoidant’? What enables your vulnerability, what shuts you down?
I read in your question a certain conviction that there is something ‘wrong’ with being how – perhaps who – you are. Even if you would like to change your inclinations, it’s essential to approach yourself with some understanding and compassion. How do you make sense of your ‘avoidance’, and what do you appreciate about yourself, just as you are?
You write that “much of my life is structured around delicately avoiding conflicts that I really ought to have.” Whilst this sounds significant (once we start to shape our life around a tendency, it tends to be), I also think it could be helpful to challenge the increasingly common sense idea that we ‘ought to have’ conflict with other people. Needless to say, conflict is inevitable and often generative in relationships. But I’ve noticed that online ‘therapy speak’ has become quite dogmatic, pushing an idea that we should all be a particular way in conflict – for example, outspoken and ‘direct’ about our feelings.
Certainly, attempting emotional honesty is usually better for ourselves and our relationships than emotional closedness (though I believe it will always be just that, an attempt) – but I think there is more to it. There are many reasons why we might avoid sharing how we feel with others, or indeed struggle to identify our feelings in the first place. For example, we could have had parents who dismissed or punished emotional expression; or we could be in a relationship with someone now who makes such openness especially uncomfortable. Our defences are there for a reason; it can help to acknowledge this, even if we want to challenge them.
Beyond this, I sometimes wonder if the compulsion towards conflict in some online discourse – as well as often in leftist spaces – doesn’t undervalue difference, our varied characters. Sure, surfacing conflict might be a good antidote to absolute conflict-avoidance, but nuance is important – and so is kindness. Unleashing unchecked anger on someone probably isn’t better than keeping our feelings to ourselves. At the other end of the spectrum, stonewalling is often considered abusive – quite different from mincing one’s words for the sake of equanimity. Context matters a lot – our own, the other’s, the relationship’s. Paying attention to our own emotional truths is incredibly important – but approaching conflict as if our emotional reality is, in fact, reality, is never going to get us anywhere.
I want to add here that, as I write this, I am thinking about interpersonal conflict around relational disagreements – for instance, ‘I am hurt that you didn’t invite me to dinner’ – rather than political conflicts. When it comes to the latter, whilst some of the same principles might apply, there is a much stronger case for practising outspoken conviction in conflict. Arguments about a friend’s persistent lateness have different stakes to those about genocide. Sometimes, there is a moral prerogative to speak up.
In every conflict, there are multiple stories. The story you share about yourself – that you are ‘avoidant’, that this is a problem in your life, that you would like this to change – is important. And it is just that, a story. What other stories can you tell about yourself? One other, I might suggest, is that you are someone who values self-reflection, authenticity, emotional openness and growth.
Perhaps you could share your inner conflict with someone; others’ perspectives can surprise and unsettle us. Or else, perhaps sharing that you would like to change this aspect of your relationships with those around you might do just that: change them. There is no one best way to approach conflict: some tend towards brutal honesty, others tip-toe around; some express active aggression, others attempt to be sensitive. What seems crucial is to know our anchors. What values and convictions are essential to your present sense of integrity?
You write most obviously about conflict; I wonder if you are also thinking about love. Because, indeed, love demands we open ourselves up in ways that can feel very frightening. It seems to me you are moving towards courage.
Sophie K Rosa is a freelance journalist and the author of Radical Intimacy.