I would appreciate your perspective on a long-term pattern that I am trying to understand from a psychological and attachment-based point of view.

My difficulties began about five years ago. I was in an anxiously attached relationship and was extremely emotionally invested. My ex partner suddenly broke up with me because of his insecurities. We later resolved the conflict and got back together, but at that point something in me shifted. I felt as if he had become a stranger overnight. I lost all romantic feelings and instead experienced numbness and even a sense of aversion. I started treating him really harshly and dumping all my fears about this situation on him all the time. Spending time with him would make me uncomfortable.

Despite this sudden change in my emotional state, he was very kind toward me afterward and essentially the same person I had loved before. I tried for two to three years to regain my feelings, hoping that consistency, reassurance, or time would reverse the shift. However, my internal experience remained completely unchanged. Eventually I gave up trying to make the relationship work because nothing I did produced any emotional movement.

Starting from the time i lost feelings, my overall emotional capacity also changed significantly. I lost interest in socializing and was unable to feel connection or affection for anyone. My general enjoyment of life disappeared. I became depressed and emotionally flat. Interestingly, my social anxiety also vanished because I no longer cared about how I appeared to others. For the first year I experienced intense somatic symptoms including anxiety, heart palpitations, cried all the time, and constant rumination about how to recover my feelings. I also developed resentment and some fear toward him because there were times when he had been controlling.

My feelings never came back for this person and i would start avoiding him more and more.

After about five years of this, things shifted when I formed a new friend group. I felt an unexpected level of joy, connection, and emotional aliveness. I never felt so happy in my life and i remember thinking at some point “wow, i don’t feel depressed anymore!”. I grew especially close with one person and gradually developed romantic feelings. This was the first time in years that I felt something strong. I was so surprised because i was starting to think maybe im aromantic or asexual or something. However, when he told me he reciprocated, a large part of my emotional intensity disappeared immediately. I suspect this may reflect an avoidant attachment response that developed after the earlier experience. Some feelings returned slowly, but not to the original level. The thouhgts of “not feeling strongly enough” bothered me so much, because i expected to have a similar amount of love like i had for the previous person (or people really) when things were good (e.g thinking about the person all the time, wanting to be around 7/24 and just having those strong butterflies constantly, complete obsession etc.). Eventually I told him it wouldn’t work, and only after I said that did I feel some of the feelings return, maybe because the pressure and vulnerability of being in a relationship dropped. Later on he also mentioned that he might need to create distance from me in that case, so that he doesn’t get too hurt by developing a really strong bond, which made me feel terrible.

Recently, several stressors occurred at once. My ex reacted very negatively when I told him about my feelings for the new person because he still likes me after all this time. He made threatening jokes toward my friends, which frightened them. They told me they might need to distance themselves from me to protect themselves from his behavior. This was deeply upsetting. At the same time, the person I cared about unintentionally disappointed me during a moment of high emotional distress, which triggered a panic attack. I remember thinking “WHY HIM! WHY do i like someone who doesn’t know handle a situation like this?” while having a breakdown. He apologized and has not repeated it.

A few days later I experienced a familiar shutdown. I lost all feelings for the person I liked overnight. I detached mentally from the entire friend group, especially from the people who said they might need distance (so a girl and the person i liked). Just being around those 2 make me feel uneasy and stressed out, almost nauseous.
My enjoyment of activities disappeared. The emotional flatness from five years ago returned along with physical anxiety, depression and heaviness.

It feels exactly like what happened five years ago. It’s like I suddenly “fall out of love,” disconnect, and lose the ability to feel connection or enjoyment. I’m not sure what to do about this, i feel like this will keep repeating with any relationship i get into, even friendships. I feel distressed because it seems as though everything I worked toward has collapsed, and my life has shifted back into instability after having my first genuinely positive year following a long period of depression. I lost all these connections I made… I am afraid that when this kind of emotional shutdown occurs, the relationships become irreparable in my mind, leaving “moving on” as the only perceived option, due to my previous experience. I’d like to hear what you think!