I'm Trying

Each time I read one of these posts I get a sense of how lonely and how frustrating it must be to have this panic prevent you from getting the love and company you crave. There are reasons you react like this though, very likely it's to protect yourself from being hurt again, after being very hurt one or more times while growing up. When your unconscious mind detects the same kind of danger, it seems to often be the case that you revert back to the age you were the first time, and you react in the same way you did then, which was probably the best you could manage to do at the time.

In a way then, it could well be that your unconscious self is still trying to cope with what happened back then, and you're stuck at that stage of emotional development, until you revisit that first situation and help your former self through that experience, acknowledging the feelings that were too intense to cope with at the age you were at the time, so you can finally move on from it and resume your natural growth process.

I suggest you look at your family environment while growing up, what experiences of abandonment you had during childhood. These are not limited to people leaving you behind, it could also be a father who spent most of his time at work, or was alcoholic, or a mother who was depressed and although physically present did not give you the attention and affection you needed. It could also be that you were molested, or beaten (spanking is an instance of that), or verbally abused, etc. Children can't be expected to have the emotional capacity (nor the intellectual one) to survive these attacks unscathed (by realizing that they are innocent and it's the attacker who is doing something very wrong), they come to believe that it was their fault this was done to them. And they often feel terribly ashamed afterwards, as well as being terrified of getting attacked again, and they might not be aware of having these feelings.

It may take some work to recall these experiences, because they were too upsetting to keep thinking about at the time. You'll probably benefit from finding someone trustworthy whom you feel safe to talk about your childhood with, someone who will listen to what you say and hear what is important to you, without pushing you to talk and without telling you what you should do. A good therapist (difficult to find, in my experience), or someone who has recovered from the sort of wound you probably received.

Some resources that I hope can help:

Episodes of the Loveline radio show (on YouTube) from around 1999, where many callers mention having difficulty with intimacy, both emotional and physical. Again, the pattern with callers is that this disruption in their emotions is the result of some type of neglect or abuse during early childhood,

Coherence Therapy maybe, if you can find a therapist you like who practices it: http://www.coherencetherapy.org/discover/examples.htm and https://youtu.be/GAhygPR1uDo

I believe philophobia is also called Love Addiction, the Love Avoidant variant. Maybe this name can help you find more information on the topic.

I’m convinced it’s possible to heal from these childhood emotional wounds without medication, if you find an empathic and knowledgeable person to support you.