Insecurely Attached (Avoidant)

Your parents tended to be emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to your emotional needs much of the time.

They disregarded or ignored your needs, so much so that you disowned them too. In some cases, your parents may have rejected or only given you attention when you were hurt or sick.

Your parents may have rationalized their lack of response by saying they are trying not to spoil the child with “too much” affection or attention. Your parents may also have discouraged crying or any feelings they found disruptive—so you never processed your feelings. It encouraged premature independence.

In response, you learned early in life to suppress your natural desire to seek out a parent for comfort when frightened, distressed, or in pain. You might have hidden it because it seemed easier and less scary. During many frustrating and painful interactions, you learned displaying your distress lead to rejection or punishment. By not having cried or outwardly expressing your feelings, you may have been able to partially gratify one of your attachment needs: remaining physically close to a parent. It meant you developed a pseudo-independent nature to keep the image, you could take complete care of yourself. As a result, you have little desire or motivation to seek out other people for help or support. You may actually fear being engulfed or losing control of your image, so it keeps you on your own island.

As an adult, you may appear to have a perfect life. You prefer rescuing others, as long as there is not too much of a display of emotions because that makes you uncomfortable. All attention is turned outward to the world, needing to make sure you stay one step ahead and don’t get hurt or screwed over. All of this is to avoid your pain and insecurities. You may tend to be an overachiever in some capacity—always seeking validation from others and at the same time acting like it doesn’t matter. You may even show up as confident on the surface, but when someone digs a little deeper, or you start dating someone, you lose all perspective. You might be very reliable outside of relationships in other parts of your life. When it comes to how you are in these pseudo-relationships, you tend to place a lot of importance on your partner’s actions and words toward you, holding things against them, sometimes without them knowing.

A relationship based in insecure attachment is not grounded in a reality of partnership, instead it’s based on your expectation of how the other person should show up to make you feel ok.

This was me for so long, and I was always anxious and discontent in my relationships as a result. Then one day I woke up to the fact that the issue was with me and set about figuring out how to have healthy, happy relationships. I’m happy to report I figured it out – it’s not perfect (the number of human relationships that are is: zero!), but now I have the right tools and perspectives.

What to do? Join my free FB group where you will get tips, tools, and organized monthly challenges to help you start breaking through these patterns.