Commitment Phobia

I hate to admit this, but its only now that i realized that i have a psychological barrier...and i didnt know about it till i had enough of my worries and started googling my scenario on the web and found that what i am experiencing is very close to what they called "Commitment Phobia".

For as long as i did, i thought that it was normal. I thought that everyone went thru the same issue as me, but in fact, i was so wrong. I refused to acknowledge it as a problem with each time running away from a committed relationship in fear...

Well this may sound funny, but if u knows me well, you know that i have been running away and disappearing in every single courtship, relationship that i had...
I just feel suffocated if someone come closer than a friend should...i will start having a lot of thinking and most of the time I sabotaged relationships that I knew could go somewhere and gravitated towards relationships that I knew would fail. Knowing I was stuck somewhere or with someone felt like death by suffocation to me and I found myself doing a lot of running away or getting the other person to do it for me.
In retrospect, i know that this might be due to my childhood days when i started day dreaming, dreaming of an unrealistic perfect relationship, an unrealistic ideal partner or it could be due to the future uncertainty, the insecured mentality of losing freedom, sharing your life with another person.

It is difficult to describe to someone who has never experienced commitment phobia how intense the fear reaction becomes at times, or how fantastic the fantasy of escape can feel. I would go on a date, but when the friendship/relationship progressed, the person literally began to look repulsively ugly to me. I will pick every single detail to find fault and give myself an excuse to exit.

On the other hand, I easily committed myself to relationships that were wrong for me and would inevitably end as they never triggered my fear of permanence.
Thereafter, i would take a long break and thinking how nice freedom is...i pretended that i love being Single...in fact, i feared the same emotional feeling from the phobia.

The sudden hype in a relationship and ending it real quick and clean seems to be a norm...i bet my family thought that i was rejected in each relationship but in fact, i withdrawn myself out of it each time when the feeling came. The decision is often so deeply embedded in the subconscious.
Found this para on a counseling site, which i think really explain what is going on with me, somehow i just can't relate back to what is the cause of these, but emotionally, its reacting in this manner.

" The truth is, the journey to overcome commitment phobia is not an easy one. Trauma tends to be encoded differently in our minds than different kinds of memories. Like a bubble, the mind/body/emotion memory tends to remain disconnected until it is triggered by something that reminds us of the trauma. The memory comes back vividly and powerfully, sometimes only with the body or emotions. We may not remember the trauma explicitly (being able to recall the memory) but we often remember the trauma implicitly (with our bodies and emotions). Luckily, there are therapeutic techniques that can effectively help to resolve these pockets of traumatic memories."

This is probably the first time i write something so personal down in my blog..and probably the first and last time i would like to share here. At least i know i need to face it which starts by admitting i have this issue...

I guess the readers here are mostly my trusted friends and family and so, there isnt anything to be ashamed of. In fact, im a little more apologetic to the friendships that i have jeopardized thru these experience...

I hope i can overcome it...and frankly speaking..there isnt anything wrong with being single and free :) However i hope my choice of staying single isnt because of this phobia.