Are you the one who longs for real connection, but somehow, you still push people away when they get too close?
Or do you find that people often gravitate away from you shortly after meeting you, or outrightly tell you that you are emotionally distant and cold? If this sounds like you, you may be dealing with something many people struggle with: emotional unavailability.
Being emotionally unavailable means that people find it difficult to get emotional access to you. It also means that you may be uncomfortable relating with people on deep emotional levels and prefer to keep things on the surface.
In this post, we’ll explore the most telling signs that you are emotionally unavailable and how you can heal emotional unavailability without violating your values or boundaries.
To start this healing process, remember to take this Emotional Availability Quiz to understand how emotionally available or unavailable you are. Then read through these signs to see how you’re likely expressing emotional unavailability.
Emotional Unavailability Vs Emotional Regulation
Since we live in a world that finds it effortless to misunderstand people who have their emotions together, it’s pretty easy to confuse emotional unavailability with emotional regulation.
So, before we look at some signs that you are emotionally unavailable, let’s differentiate emotional unavailability from boundaries or emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is the ability to properly feel your emotions without letting them take the reins. It means acknowledging what’s going on inside of you, without letting it dictate how you make decisions or relate with others.
When you are emotionally regulated, you feel deeply. Still, you can also process those feelings in healthy, sometimes personal ways.
Now, processing these emotions may mean you do not readily share them with other people. Instead, you handle them privately. This is often where the confusion originates.
Instead of crying on a friend’s shoulder about how someone treated you, you process what you feel and deal with them independently, without the drama.
Emotional unavailability, on the other hand, is a form of detachment. It’s when you’ve trained yourself to avoid or silence your emotions, or distance yourself from the emotions of others.
You may downplay your needs, ignore red flags, shut down during conflict, or struggle to form emotional bonds, even when you deeply crave connection.
While emotional regulation creates inner safety, emotional unavailability often comes from an inner fear of being hurt, rejected, abandoned, or insufficient.
In other words, the “keeping it together” in emotional unavailability is usually a result of fear and avoidance. While “Keeping it together” in emotional regulation results from maturity and self-respect.
6 Honest Signs You May Be Emotionally Unavailable
You feel overwhelmed or suffocated by emotional intimacy
Do you cringe or find it very embarrassing whenever someone tries to be emotionally close to you?
When someone tries to check in with you on a deeper level, or tries to make you the first person they call or vent to whenever something significant happens to them, do you find it awkward and discomforting?
Then it’s probably one of the signs that you are emotionally unavailable.
You connect with others, but pull away suddenly
Or maybe you try to go with the flow and truly let someone in, but then you suddenly pull away or cut communications with them without explanation.
Yeah, you’re emotionally unavailable, and the sudden change is usually because you get tired of putting up a charade.
You keep people at arm’s length with perfectionism or standards
Do you have such perfect standards that no one, or very few people, are able to keep to them? You might just be showing signs of emotional unavailability.
When you demand insane perfection from people and keep them at arm’s length when they don’t meet up, it may be pointing to the fact that there is something you don’t want them to see about you.
You likely don’t want them too close so they don’t see your messy, imperfect side. You don’t want people to see you hurt, disappointed, or clueless.
Also, being genuinely emotionally intimate with someone means you will both be exposed to your messy, vulnerable sides without shame. But putting up perfect standards ensures none of those are found in your relationship with people.
That’s emotional unavailability.
You struggle to identify your feelings
Emotional unavailability doesn’t end with the way you behave towards people alone. It also shows up in the way you relate with yourself.
So, if you struggle to identify your feelings or you often try to avoid your emotions by staying busy or distracted, you may be emotionally unavailable.
Because if you cannot stay in healthy touch with your emotions, you certainly will not be comfortable sharing them with others or partaking in other people’s emotions.
And yeah, emotional unavailability can be unconsciously learned. The more you avoid your feelings, the more you train your brain to stay away from anything that has to do with emotions.
You avoid difficult conversations, even with close friends
Difficult conversations require us to be emotionally open to a reasonable extent. So if you find that you avoid difficult conversations at all costs, you’re simply shielding yourself from being seen by others.
That’s a sign of emotional unavailability.
You keep attracting emotionally unavailable people
If you find that nearly everyone around you is emotionally cold and distant, then it is one of those very subtle signs that you are emotionally unavailable.
You know why?
Emotionally available people don’t last around people who are unavailable. It’s frustrating. So, when you find that those who comfortably stick around you are emotionally unavailable, then you’re most likely emotionally distant too.
The sad thing is that this sign is so subtle that you may never notice it until you start to journal, go for therapy, retreat with God, or talk to a coach.
You may stay too busy blaming the emotionally unavailable people you end up having around you that you won’t see that your emotional state is what is drawing them in.
How to Heal from Emotional Unavailability
Heal the roots
To heal from emotional unavailability, you need to start from the roots.
Did you close up because someone hurt you in the past? Did you put up that emotional wall because you noticed you were getting attached to people too quickly and got hurt in the process? Or did your childhood make you an emotionally unavailable person?
Dig into the root of this dysfunction and you’ll begin your journey to healing.
I know, you may have been emotionally unavailable for so long that you don’t even know how and when you got there.
In this case, you may need the help of a coach or therapist to help you get to the root of your emotional coldness.
Start acknowledging and naming your feelings
Since emotional unavailability involves avoiding emotions or emotional intimacy, start by acknowledging and naming your emotions, instead of dismissing them.
Ask yourself questions like, “why exactly do I feel this way?” “Is this emotion negative or positive?” “What should I do with this feeling?”
As a tip I’ve used myself, always question yourself whenever you are doomscrolling social media for long hours. You may be medicating and avoiding certain emotions.
Talk to God more often
When you pray to God sincerely, you literally bare your heart to Him… at least we all know He sees everything, so no need to hide anything.
The more you practice this vulnerability with God, the more comfortable you’ll get acknowledging what you feel. Consequently, you’ll be more relaxed when it’s time to share your feelings with others or share in their own feelings.
Start small with emotionally safe people
In healing from emotional unavailability, you don’t have to go in all at once. Don’t start being 100% vulnerable to just anyone right away. You’ll get too overwhelmed, and you may end up closing up even tighter.
What you need to do is to start with tiny bits of vulnerability with people you genuinely trust. When you’ve adjusted to that initial level of vulnerability, keep going deeper until you no longer find it awkward being emotionally vulnerable to people.
Journal regularly about what intimacy means to you
Another way to heal from emotional unavailability is to understand what emotional intimacy means to you, whether platonic or romantic.
Journal about emotional intimacy as often as possible. Write extensively about different possible scenarios in your life in which you are emotionally close to people or someone.
Feel free to envision yourself being emotionally available in some of your relationships, and then take positive actions towards that vision.
Take this emotional availability quiz every 3 months
After taking considerable steps to heal from emotional unavailability for a given period, confirm your progress by taking this Emotional Availability Quiz.
Strategize on your next line of action based on the result you get.
Conclusion
I need you to know that emotional availability is not a personality trait. It is learned. So, it can be very much unlearned.
Follow these healing steps and be patient with yourself until you find your heart yearning for and nurturing deep emotional connections with people.
