metascribe quoted Bullying Scars by Ellen Walser deLara
An explosion of research on bullying has raised our collective awareness of the serious impacts …
[ . . . ] angry words echo in my brain and it is difficult to resolve—I want people to apologize—but the echo still reverberates for me. I seek out relationships with people who are pacifists. If I do get into a conflict with a friend, I walk away from the friendship forever. I have abandoned many relationships over the years. [ . . . ] Ok, I'm not friends with this person anymore—no second chances, no remorse. [ . . . ] This propensity hasn't prevented me from having lasting friendships and they are completely non-confrontational. We have never gotten into a fight.
— Bullying Scars by Ellen Walser deLara (Page 88)
Conflict avoidance, and seeking relationships with others who are likewise, is a way of managing and protecting against potential rejection or feelings of rejection, or rejection outright, and a way of ensuring safety, given anticipation that the conflict will escalate or be irresolvable. That is, conflict is experienced as an uncontrollable/unpredictable event in which one cannot rely on oneself for safety and protection, or peaceful negotiation. That is, it is seen as an experience one cannot survive through or shape. This perceived lack of agency within the context of conflict, psychologically enforced by past bullying experienced, thus favors avoidance strategies and conflict aversion as well as stricter boundaries that effectively act as walls against complexity in relationships. In other cases, conflict management can involve strategies of aggression.