The Complicated World of Attachment Theory

Now that we've gotten an intro out of the way, let's dive in, shall we? Buckle up. 

(Another disclosure: Anything that I mention, recommend, link to, etc. is solely because it's something that has worked well for me, something I strongly believe in, or something that I really believe might help others. I have no affiliations with literally anything or anyone, so it's all just my preferences and resources that I've found over the past few months.)

As I mentioned, I started therapy at the beginning of May. In full transparency, the main reason I got the push to finally do it was the harsh reality of the possibility of my relationship not working out. I was desperate to do whatever I could to figure out what happened, especially because I was blindsided by the things he was telling me he was feeling. I wanted answers and tangible things that I could use to "prove" that there was still hope. I went into therapy thinking "I'll explain what happened and she'll be able to give me the answers and the tools needed to make everything okay again." At this point, I was ignoring the fact that there are always things going on under the surface and figured I might be able to get some kind of quick fix. 

If any of you have ever been through a tough breakup or any kind of hard situation, I'm sure you can relate to not thinking with a clear head and then looking back at yourself and making a face or just saying "Yikes." That's where I'm at. I'm sure I sounded like a crazy person and sounded incredibly desperate those first few weeks. My head was in overdrive and my anxiety was constant (shout out to all the wonderful people who let me spiral and never made me feel like a burden). But in those first few weeks, my therapist recommended a book that became the first big step in understanding what was actually happening in my life and what was always happening in my relationships. 

I finished the book in just a few days. I was eating it up, but I was also pretty shocked because I was reading about myself. I was reading about the issues that were happening in my relationship. It was unreal and borderline creepy how accurate it all was. Statements were jumping off the page at me and slapping me in the face. What do you do when you learn new, life-changing information? You obsess over it and you want to tell everyone about it. So here goes. I will try to explain it in as few words as possible, which you should know by now is a tough thing for me to do. 

Attachment Theory is a theory about the bond and connection that people have in relationships that is very much determined by patterns and behaviors that occurred in infancy and childhood. Basically, the things that happened to you and around you as a kid are the things that make you act the way you do towards a partner, a friend, or anyone you have any kind of relationship with. As I've been learning in therapy, most of this is subconscious and chances are you would never know about this unless you've learned about it from a therapist, a book...or a blog. ;-) With me so far?

There are three main types of attachment styles: secure attachment, anxious attachment, and avoidant attachment. Securely attached people have had positive, supportive backgrounds and tend to have good self-awareness, good communication, and a optimistic outlook about the various relationships in their life. Anxiously attached people may have experienced emotional unavailability and inconsistent behaviors around them, leading to neediness (or being clingy), codependency, fear of abandonment, and a lack of self-worth...to name a few. Avoidant attached people almost definitely experienced emotional unavailability, suppression, and rejection, leading to an inability to connect with people, aversion to closeness, severe suppression of emotions, and extreme independence. There are two types of an avoidant style, but for the sake of not getting to complicated, we'll leave that alone for now. Still with me?

Let me be clear about something. Just because there are basic experiences and qualities associated with each style doesn't mean that it always looks the same person to person. This isn't something that's necessarily black or white and there are variations in each individual. Any one of us can also exhibit one style strongly, but "lean" towards another one slightly, as well. In fact, it would be highly unlikely to be completely one style and none of any others, so there is some crossover at play. Also, your attachment style doesn't mean that you're a bad or unlovable person. On the contrary, it means there are specific ways that you love and want to be loved. Curious yet? There are plenty of quizzes you can take to determine what your attachment style is. The one that I've liked the most doesn't take long to do and it breaks down the approximate percentages for each style you may be exhibiting. It's also on a website that has also been one of the biggest factors in me learning about myself, but I'll get more into that later. 

Attachment Style Quiz

Anyone wanna guess what my style is? I bet you'd never figure it out...

"Wow, Elyse. You're anxiously attached? No way! I would have never guessed that!" I know, right? Hard to believe. Honestly, I (rightly) assumed that was my main attachment style before I ever read anything about it. In relationships, I've been called needy, I have relied on my partners for reassurance and validation, I have felt like I could never spend enough time with a partner, among many other things. In friendships, I worry that I'm not actually liked (just tolerated), I haven't known how to communicate what I want, I feel like I'm not good enough when I'm not included, and so on. My brain is a very active, anxiety-filled place and it honestly is exhausting. It's always trying to figure everything out, questioning every little thing that happens, creating stories about what I'm perceiving, and convincing me that I'm just not good enough.

So what did this mean in the immediate weeks that followed after learning this about myself? Well, I was able to identify that I was in the most difficult relationship paring; an anxiously attached person with an avoidant attached person. It creates what is commonly called the push/pull dynamic. Basically, the avoidant partner tends to need more space and alone time, generally speaking. This can feel like rejection or being unloved to the anxious partner, so you can become clingy as a way to prove your love and show your partner that you care about them. That reaction is really coming from a place of fear. You fear that you might lose your partner, that they need alone time because they're realizing they don't want you anymore. But if someone already wants some space and time for themselves and their partner becomes clingy because of it, they're going to feel suffocated and they're going to back away even more. And then the anxious partner will cling even harder, and the avoidant will want more distance, and so on and so on. Do you see the problem?

This might be an easier way to understand it: 

Let me reiterate: this process is happening subconsciously! In most cases, the anxious is not saying "I'm gonna cling to you so you know I love you" and the avoidant is not saying "I'm gonna back away from you because I'm suffocated." These actions and reactions are happening because of the things that have been imprinted on our brains from a young age and the different repressed thoughts and emotions that we have about ourselves. Did you catch that? Thoughts and emotions that we have about ourselves. This all happens because of the fears that we have of not being good enough, being abandoned, feeling unworthy, feeling inferior, etc. It rarely actually has to do with the love (or the lack thereof) that one partner has for the other. It has to do with our own fears dictating how we're acting and what we want or don't want because our fears have told us what we have to do to feel safe. For me to feel safe, I have to be reassured and validated because that's the only way I can know that you really do care about me, and even then sometimes I don't always believe it. For an avoidant to feel safe, they close off and step away to protect themselves from getting hurt because they tend not to rely on anyone else for their safety. But what do both people probably fear? Not being good enough. Both people probably have the same core wound activated, but try to protect themselves in very, very different ways outwardly. 

As you can guess, this is what I was unknowingly experiencing. Honestly and personally, I wasn't feeling any kind of push/pull happening until earlier this year. Up until that point, I would have told you that everything was perfect, that I never had a reason to worry, that I was so reassured and validated in the relationship. And I was. I never had any doubts at any point and that was something I've never experienced before. But then, I started to feel distance. I started to feel a disconnection. I panicked, but I actually sat back because I thought what was happening could be attributed to a job change and I didn't want to add any more stress on top of the stress and frustration that was already coming from that. I also didn't realize then that we just weren't communicating. We had never created any boundaries. We weren't opening up to each other with any kind of depth, which can be a hard thing to do anyway, but it's even harder for an avoidant. And me being anxious, I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. I held in my need for reassurance, I held in my need for connecting with him. I assumed things would naturally get better over time or at least once the job situation changed a little bit in May. 

But then, it happened. There was an outburst and everything came out. I sat there listening to words about lost feelings that I never expected to hear. I was shell-shocked and blindsided. I didn't even know what to say. All I knew at that point was I didn't want to lose the relationship. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this fear of abandonment that I have was being activated at an extreme level and I was trying to do anything to not be abandoned again. Even though I had convinced him to try a month-long break to give him some space, ultimately it didn't matter.

Talking about the avoidant attachment style, this is the point where they usually disconnect from a relationship. When serious talk of living together, getting married, or the future in general comes up, and it seems like it's actually very close to happening, they back away. It's not that they don't want love, connection, or a relationship, but their activated fears can be stronger than all of that and that can be paralyzing to them.They distance themselves and they subconsciously disconnect from the feelings and emotions involved in that relationship. It truly is the coping mechanism they learned as a child. Detach, disconnect, and isolate to protect yourself from the increasing emotional closeness, which they learned isn't safe. Of course, this is the exact opposite of what the anxiously attached does. Once again, do you see the problem?

So of course, once I learned all about this, it explained exactly what had happened. I almost felt a sense of relief knowing that there was actually something that made sense, psychologically, about what I had experienced. The only problem was I felt I learned this all too little, too late. But there is some good news. First of all, knowing this now will help me be better prepared for my next relationship. I know the signs to look for in the beginning to determine if someone is leaning avoidant and emotionally unavailable, even if they come across as securely attached from the get go. Second of all, once you understand why you have the attachment style you do, you can work on moving towards being more securely attached (it's possible!). Third, it has helped me start to accept that, unless both parties are willing to work on things that contribute to all of this, it would never be a healthy relationship. I would be stuck in the push/pull dynamic forever and if I found myself in an anxious/avoidant pairing again, I'd find myself in this same situation all over again; heartbroken and devastated. I refuse to go through that again.

Naturally, there's a lot going on subconsciously that contributes to all of this. I'm only scratching the surface in therapy about all of my issues that have come up in different ways throughout my life. Understanding my attachment style is what opened the door to me figuring out my core wounds and what has caused them. I'm also trying to be gracious to myself about all of this because you don't know what you don't know. I was so unaware, as are most people, that there were things imprinted on my brain literally causing me to act the way I've acted. The awareness is huge because you can't fix what you're ignorant to.

Now if you're sitting there saying "This doesn't apply to everyone" or "Not everything can be explained by this" or even "Sometimes people just don't like each other" ask yourself why to any of those statements. When we get honest with ourselves, I think we would all say that we have had some fears, insecurities, or doubts in our life. Well, where does that all come from? Usually childhood experiences that have become stored in our brain. I don't claim to know much about science or even enjoy it, but I do know that there's something to how our brains function to protect us when we feel afraid, shameful, or rejected. Holding on to what we learned protected us translates directly to how we act in any of our adult relationships. It really does. When you choose to not acknowledge or address that, it will continue to be a pattern that shows up in your life and that will prevent you from becoming more securely attached. If you've ever been frustrated by the way you act or confused why things always end up a certain way for you, it might be worth exploring what has been causing the "why" behind it all.

(Side note: There are more extreme things in a small number of people that go beyond attachment styles. Narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, etc. are much more serious and not as easy to "explain" or work through. It would also require different treatment.)

There's a lot more to understand and learn about attachment theory and the different styles than I've shared. A simple Google search will bring up copious amounts of information. There are YouTube videos that will tell you about it all. My absolute favorite resource that has also been a saving grace is this YouTube channel. It is led by personal development coach Thais Gibson and she has a ton of videos explaining the styles and how they act and react in so many different situations. If you're not sure where to start, message me for a few recommendations. 

If you have any questions or want to talk about any of this stuff with me, please let me know! It has become my personal mission to introduce people to the complicated world of attachment theory because it can only lead to better understanding yourself and relationship dynamics. Also, let me reiterate and please understand that an attachment style doesn't make someone a bad or unlovable person. We all have faults and issues throughout life. If we're able to learn from this and love ourselves a little bit more, we will all be better off.