Avoidant/ Anxious attachments are common. Attachment styles go back to childhood. If you have unresolved trauma you will unconsciously try to replay it. Avoidants find intimacy terrifying and avoid. While anxious attachments are constantly over-correcting looking for assurance.
When people have a secure attachment, they typically find other secure attachments and settle in. This one of the contributing reason as to why dating in your 30’s is awful… we are mostly a bunch of avoidant assholes . Attached by Tarcher Perigee is a great place to start if you want to learn more.
I’m learning that I can be both. When I lived with a partner who was triggered by my growth journey, I was anxious. I would make myself smaller. I didn’t have the skills to insist my needs be met and the confidence to walk away if they weren’t. I felt I had lost my voice. In some ways I repeated learned behavior from my biological mother. She never learned how to stand-up for herself in healthy ways. This behavior unfortunately can be traced back through many of my relationships. Boundaries are us insisting that our needs be met.
It’s very easy to hold onto anger (and trust me I am no saint here). The reality is consciously or not we chose to stay in unhealthy relationships. Despite all the anger, I have to take accountability. I didn’t set clear boundaries or enforces them.
It’s a double edged sword this idea of accountability. Especially in the above situation. I’m quick to shame myself for not ending things sooner or discount the many times I tried to acknowledge the hurtful behaviors happening within our home. In turbulent relationships, we have to have empathy for ourselves and for our former partners. We only know what we know. We often unconsciously we repeat the behaviors our parents taught us or lash out in what’s called “protesting behavior”. I great example of protesting behavior is, I’m going to text you 70,000 times until you respond (anxious) or I’m going to ignore you for days (avoidant).
If we feed the shame monster we hinder progress because the shame monster is actually negative somatic markers that create neuro-pathways in our brains thus resulting untrue story telling. Shame spirals are habits that stall growth. Shame is insidious in that way. The only way to break through negative feedback loops is time and practice. Neuro-plasticity is real and has science to back it up (@mastinkipp on IG is a great resource)! The belief , “this is your lot in life,” is not real. It’s a matter of retraining your brain to believe otherwise.
This where brainspotting and therapy has been very helpful for me. Now that I have identified the different modalities, I’m working on increasing my window of tolerance… more on that soon. I do believe progress can be made through meditation and that’s where the podcast Dharma Punx (see the boundaries link above) comes in handy. It is something you can do on your own. As I always say, I’m not a clinician but I do realize that therapy can be wildly expensive so the least I can do is share my experiences and direct people to the resources that have helped me.
Once again, fuck the algorithms…that’s a little aggressive, whatever. Below is a link to sign-up for my unborn newsletter and a good way for us to stay in touch despite the social oligarchs and their limitations.
xx
Lu