To detach from someone means becoming less attached to their behavior and feelings, reevaluating your perception of your connection to them, and adjusting the level of emotional investment you have with them to a place where it feels manageable.
Detaching emotionally from someone you love is a long process, and you need time to accept it. If you do not learn to address and understand your emotions, they may keep building up and make your heart feel very heavy. Don't become enraged when you feel your heart bubble up. You are in pain, and you are grieving.
Recognize that when a woman shuts down emotionally (or a man!) it is because she is trying to protect herself from getting hurt. Maybe she had a bad experience with a parent or former partner, and she is afraid to be yelled at or abused in some way. Shutting down emotionally is often a form of self-preservation.
Healthy detachment means stepping back from the situation. It means trying to solve the bigger problem—which would be a breakdown in the way your family communicates—instead of proving that you are right.
It is important to remember that emotional detachment is not a mental health condition, but it might be a symptom of some mental disorders. If you think you might be experiencing symptoms of emotional detachment, you should talk to a doctor or mental health professional.
Detachment is a common symptom of panic disorder and severe anxiety. People can detach emotionally from friends, family, and life, or they can struggle with detachment as a symptom itself – feeling as though they are outside of their body or living in an alternative reality.
For some people, shutting down emotionally is a response to feeling overstimulated. It doesn't have anything to do with you or how they feel about you. If your husband or partner shuts down when you cry, for example, it may be because they don't know the best way to handle that display of emotions.
Take time to slow down and be alone, get out into nature, make art, listen to music while you cook your favorite dinner, meditate to cleanse your mind and relax your body, take a bubble bath or a nap to restore.
If you get attached easily, you may have an anxious attachment style. People with anxious attachment cling to others because they're afraid of being abandoned. You can get attached quickly if you have low self-esteem—you might jump into relationships because you crave validation from others.
