Very high fear of intimacy

What this means

Your answers sit near the top of the scale. That means closeness in almost any form, being known, needing someone, or letting a relationship become part of your life, is currently registering as a threat rather than as something you can move toward.

That is heavy to carry, and it is worth saying that a score here is not a verdict on your capacity for relationships. It describes the state of a defence, not a limit. Defences this strong are usually built rather than chosen, and they tend to be built in places where closeness genuinely was unsafe: a childhood where needs were punished or ignored, a relationship where openness was later used as leverage, or something worse than either. In those settings, distance was accurate.

At this level the pattern usually maintains itself without help. Contact feels expensive, so it happens less. Less contact means fewer experiences of closeness going well. The absence of those experiences becomes the evidence that closeness does not go well. From the inside this is extremely convincing, which is exactly why it is worth knowing that it is a documented loop rather than a measurement of your options.

It is also common at this score to feel two things at once: real longing for someone to know you, and real relief when a chance at it passes. Those are not contradictory. They are what this pattern feels like from the inside.

What to do next

The honest recommendation at this score is to involve another person rather than to work on it alone. A therapist is the right choice, particularly if closeness brings up panic, numbness, or memories of being hurt by someone close. Patterns of this depth respond to work, and they respond considerably better with someone else in the room.

If that is out of reach right now, keep the first steps very small and very low stakes. Not a relationship, and not a confession. One person who is safe, one piece of ordinary information about your week that you would normally have edited out. Presence before disclosure, disclosure before dependence. Skipping to the last step is what makes attempts fail and then feel like proof.

Do not treat the score as a description of your character. It is a description of how strongly a protective system is currently running, and those settings change more readily than the feeling suggests.

Lovon is there to talk to whenever you want it, including at the hours when this is loudest. It is support alongside the harder conversations rather than a substitute for a therapist or a doctor.