Protest Behaviour: When "I'm Fine" Means the Opposite

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They ask if something's wrong, and you say, "I'm fine," and you know it isn't quite true.
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There's a tightness in it, a door pulled almost closed.
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You're not lying exactly.
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You're saying fine and hoping they'll hear everything the word is holding, and come and find you anyway.
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That small fine, and the fight that isn't really about the dishes, and the going quiet to see if they'll notice, these are some of the most misread reactions in a relationship.
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Today, we're going to look at what they are and the question they're almost always asking.
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If any of that sounds familiar, you're not broken.
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You're not too much.
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Your nervous system may be doing exactly what it learnt to do long before this relationship began.
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I'm Dr Narelle Duncan, a Clinical Psychologist drawing on 30 years of helping people understand themselves.
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This is Steady and Connected.
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Each episode, I'll bring you the science, the tools, and the clarity to understand what may be happening when anxiety shows up in love, and what you might do with that understanding.
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Let's get Steady and Connected.
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In episode six, we looked at reaching for reassurance directly, the asking, the checking.
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In this episode, we look at what a system does when, for whatever reason, it can't ask directly, when the reach goes out sideways instead of straight.
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That sideways reach has a name: protest behavior.
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And once you can see it for what it is, some of the moments you may feel most ashamed of can start to make a quiet kind of sense.
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Let's name it plainly.
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Protest behavior is what a nervous system does when it feels a connection wobble and instead of saying, "I'm scared we're not okay. Please come closer," it sends the message a different way, sideways through a reaction rather than a considered response.
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The word protest is exact and worth sitting with.
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It's the same thing a small child does when a parent they depend on turns away.
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A cry, a clinging, sometimes a push, not manipulation, a signal, a way of saying, "The distance is not okay with me," when there aren't yet words or when the words feel too risky to use.
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Grown-up nervous systems do a more sophisticated version of the same thing.
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The reach still goes out.
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It just goes out disguised as a sharp comment, as withdrawal, as a small conflict about something that doesn't really matter, as the fine that means the opposite.
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Here's the key.
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Protest behavior is not a failure of communication.
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It is communication, just in a code the other person often misreads.
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Underneath every protest reaction is the same quiet question the whole
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Am I safe?
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Am I accepted?
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Understanding that doesn't make the reactions comfortable.
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It makes them make sense So how might protest behavior show up?
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I'll offer some of the common forms, notice what lands, and notice what doesn't.
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And a gentle note before we start, some of these may bring a flicker of recognition that stings a little.
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Stay kind to yourself.
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Recognition is the whole point, and it can't happen while you're busy being ashamed.
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The fine that isn't.
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Saying you're okay when you're not in a tone that hopes they'll notice the gap and come towards you.
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Going quiet to be followed, pulling back, going cool, waiting to see whether they'll notice the distance and close it.
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A test you might not even know you're running.
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The small fight, a sharp exchange about the dishes, the plans, the tone of a text where the real subject isn't the dishes at all.
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It's the distance underneath, looking for a way to be bridged.
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Keeping score out loud or inside, noticing what they didn't do, what they forgot, how long they took.
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A tally that's really a way of asking whether you're still being held in mind.
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The pre-goodbye storm, a conflict that seems to arrive almost on schedule right before time apart, a trip, a busy week, a night out.
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The system sensing separation coming protests the distance in advance If several of those feel familiar, that's information, not a verdict.
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If they don't, that's information too.
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Protest is one way a system reaches.
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It isn't the only one.
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Why would a system send its most important message in code?
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Why not just say, "I'm scared.
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Come closer"?
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A few reasons.
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All of them make sense.
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The first is that the straight version can feel far too exposing.
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To say, "I need you. I'm frightened you're pulling away," is to hand someone the softest part of you and hope they're gentle with it.
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For a system that learned closeness can be uncertain, that's an enormous risk.
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Sideways feels safer.
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The second is history.
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If early on direct bids for closeness were met with irritation or distance or a sense of being too much, the system learned that the front door isn't safe, so it started using the side one.
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The protest reaction is often an old, intelligent adaptation still running long after the original conditions have changed.
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The third is speed.
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Protest behavior tends to fire fast, ahead of thought, because that's how alarms work.
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By the time you notice you've gone cold or picked the fight, the reaction is already halfway out.
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It isn't a plan.
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It's a reflex with a history None of this makes the reactions land well on the other person.
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A coded reach is easy to misread and often is.
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Reactions aren't proof of anything wrong with you.
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You're proof of a system trying to protect a bond using the only door it trusted.
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If you'd like to see how strongly this pattern runs for you, the free quiz at steadyandconnected.com.au is a good place to start.
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It's for self-reflection, not a clinical assessment, and your results come to your inbox with a short series that goes deeper on what they mean for you.
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Here's where it can hurt most because protest behavior is so often misunderstood.
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From the outside, the fine reads as sulking.
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The quiet reads as coldness or punishment.
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The small fight reads as someone being difficult over nothing.
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The score keeping reads as unfairness.
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Every protest reaction read literally looks like the opposite of a reach for closeness.
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It looks like someone pushing away From the inside, it's the exact reverse.
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Every one of those reactions is a bid to come toward.
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The protest reaction is not meant to push away.
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It's pulling on an invisible rope, hoping the tug will be felt and you'll move closer together.
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And when the partner responds to the literal message, pulls back from the coldness, matches the sharpness, leaves the fine alone because they were told it was fine, the distance grows, the protest gets louder, and both people end up further from the closeness the whole system was reaching for.
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So a lot of this work is simply learning to read the code, your own first.
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Seeing a protest reaction for what it is, not a rejection of the person, a reach toward them, sent the only way it knew how.
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Let's go back to that fine.
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The tightness in it, the door almost closed.
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Walk it through gently.
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The wobble.
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The moment something felt off between you, closeness dropping a fraction.
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The risk.
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I'm scared we're not okay.
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Feeling far too exposed to say.
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The sideways reach.
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The fine.
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Holding everything the word won't say, hoping to be understood.
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The hope underneath.
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Notice me.
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Come and find me anyway.
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Now you can see it for what it might be, not being difficult and not punishing them, and not proof that you can't communicate.
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A system reaching through the side door because the front one never felt safe enough.
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That's not manipulation.
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That's a pattern with a history long before this relationship began, asking
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Am I safe?
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Am I accepted?
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Here's the honest part, and it's the reason this one matters so much.
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A coded reach has a cost the direct one doesn't.
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When you protest instead of direct asking, you hand the other person a puzzle, and you make your closeness depend on them solving it correctly in the moment, while they're likely a little alarmed themselves.
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That's a lot to ask of anyone.
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Even someone who loves you deeply will misread the code sometimes, and each misread can feel, from the inside, like more evidence that you don't matter, when it may only be evidence that the message was sent in a code that was misread.
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So the door this opens isn't stop having feelings.
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the more of the reach you can eventually bring to the front door, even a small, imperfect, shaky version of the true thing, the less your connection depends on someone decoding your message under pressure.
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That's a skill that builds slowly, and it starts, as always, with being able to see the reaction for what it is.
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So here's the one thing for this episode, just one.
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The next time you catch yourself in a protest reaction, the "fine," the going quiet, the small fight starting up over something that isn't really the thing, see if you can pause and ask yourself,"What's the question underneath this?
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What am I actually reaching for right now?" You don't have to say it out loud.
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You don't have to do it differently, or hand anyone the vulnerable version, or get it right.
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Just name the real question to yourself.
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"I want to know I matter. I'm accepted and safe. I want them to come closer." Naming the question underneath does two quiet things.
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It loosens the shame, because a reach is a far kinder thing to catch yourself doing than a tantrum, and it gives you a choice you didn't have a moment before, to keep the sideways reaction or, if it feels safe enough, to bring a little of the true thing to the front door.
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If you'd like a quiet companion for this, I've made you a one-page guide called The Signal Behind the "Fine", a gentle way to decode your own protest reactions into the question they're really asking.
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It's at go.steadyandconnected.com.au/signal, free and yours to keep.
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Next time, we turn toward the steadying itself, what it can look like to give your own nervous system a little safety from the inside in the moments it reaches hardest.
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All the recognizing we've been doing across these episodes, pointing gently toward what you can do with it.
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If you've taken the free quiz at steadyandconnected.com.au, your results already point toward which of these moments might be hardest for you.
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If you haven't, that's a good place to start.
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That's everything for this episode.
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If today resonated, follow Steady and Connected wherever you listen, so the next episode lands automatically.
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And if someone came to mind while you were listening, share it with them.
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If you'd like to know which attachment pattern is most active for you, take the free five-minute quiz at steadyandconnected.com.au.
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Your results come straight to your inbox, along with a short email series that goes deeper on what they mean for you.
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If today's conversation has brought up anything you need support with, please reach out.
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Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14.
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And if you're ready to explore this work more personally, I offer individual telehealth sessions at getlifedirection.com.
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I'm Dr Narelle Duncan.
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Take good care of yourself, and I'll see you in the next episode.