Anxious Attachment

[pinkpostitnotes]

So, I've just been reading one of the threads and it referred to different attachment theories. I've been looking at them and think I probably have an angry anxious attachment style. What a bag of rubbish this is! I feel so frustrated that despite all my hard work to turn my crappy childhood around, I still have a bleak outlook for the future.

I am distraught at the thought I have contributed to my own unhappiness, by both my behaviour and letting myself get attached to avoidant people who don't have genuine feelings for myself. I have had therapy before and had already worked on boundaries etc. but it is just so depressing, that yet again it is a mountain for me to achieve what is just a given for most people.

Anyone else out there with this wonderful attachment style with any ideas how to improve things?

ChippyPickledEggs - yes! That's how I feel. As much as I respect the healing power of a right good breathing sesh, sometimes it's just not going to cut it when my emotions are on the roof and my head is having one of it's spasms.

I have found reading up about schema therapy interesting re attachment styles, also DBT therapy

This is exactly how I behave too, usually triggered by an avoidant partner because I also seem to seek them out. Also agree that you can know yourself, but it doesn't seem to help in the moment when you feel triggered and start the vicious cycle of seeking reassurance, being dismissed, becoming more clingy etc etc.
The only thing that has helped me is to focus on me and view it as giving up a bad habit like smoking. So acknowledge that this is bad for me - it is too stressful and having these terrible emotional situations takes up too much of my life - and just like giving up smoking, to decide that I just don't want to do it any more. Then detach from the person or situation I find triggering - either by ending the relationship or conciously becoming less dependent on them by filling my life with work, friends, hobbies etc. I find reminding myself regularly that I was actually ok before I met this person and I will be ok if the relationship ends helps a lot. I am a survivor :-) Then being kind to myself when I relapse, it takes time to change a bad habit as engrained as this.

Well jumping on here (I only found out I was an "anxious attacher" by reading up on a link a poster put on here, only a couple of years ago. Suddenly my whole romantic life made sense at last. My mother left me as a baby so it was a classic case. But I've struggled with this my whole life, now being an older lady, battling with an avoidant "dp" who regularly tells me he thinks the world of me but doesn't want anything serious....but still I cling, desperately hoping one day he will change his mind...... It helps to know there are many others with the same issues. I would so love to find a "cure" and although it has helped me to understand why I'm like this, I still can't stop clinging. . Is there any hope for us?? Or like other posters have said, are we doomed to a single life?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Attachment styles? With who?

I’m more avoidant but have found both these books really helpful:

www.amazon.co.uk/Boundaries-Draw-Line-Your-Heart/dp/0008240825/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1PXGCM9740667&keywords=boundaries&sprefix=Boundari%2Caps%2C210&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1571566070&sr=8-3

www.amazon.co.uk/Am-Enough-Mark-Mirror-Change/dp/1916411002/ref=sr_1_2?crid=39O2LYOWFWCCR&keywords=i+am+enough&sprefix=I+am+en%2Caps%2C202&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1571566196&sr=8-2

Hi, just thought I would update you. I bought all of the books mentioned in the post, I have started reading two of them. The Marissa Peer, which is excellent and got some really useful exercises.

Attached has really helped me to consolidate that my ex was hugely avoidant and that has helped me realise it wasn't me that pushed him away and actually he treated me pretty unkindly which has helped me to feel more able to let go.

I have been working on my reactions and after this break-up, I haven't drunk, I have exercised every time I felt I was going to ruminate and I have rung my friends up to off-load a lot. I have batted off any communication and unfriended and blocked him. I have begun to treat myself (something I never used to do) and that is a positive of my ex, he always knew how to treat himself well, so I have taken a leaf out of his book and actually it is making me feel better.

I am hoping that working on these things and behaving in a healthier fashion is going to help me modify and change my reactions in the long run.

I really get this as I’m the same. In my case, I think it stems from cold and detached parents who showed me little physical or emotional affection when I was young.

I too have had therapy with limited effect. The only things that have really helped me are:

• accepting that this is hard-wired into who I am and it’s not something that’s easily changed;
• choosing men with secure attachment styles who are warm, affectionate and consistent (as in the case of my only long-term boyfriend); and
• running a mile at the first sign of avoidant, hot-and-cold or manipulative behaviour.

I’ve cut contact with many men for this last reason, and I’m still single, but I finally feel sane and in control.

Love me Don’t Leave Me is a good book. It and CBT has really helped me. I’m a lot less anxious although it takes practice.

OP, it's not an illness. We can work towards being more secure.

For me, the key was in realising that I didn't actually need to fix myself. You say you've just realised that your ex wasn't very nice to you, and that's it. I asked myself 'What's wrong with me?', and laughed when I realised that the only thing wrong with me was my choice of partner. Outside of the relationship, I don't really have doubts about myself in any major way.

The feeling that you need to fix yourself IS the problem. It creates all kinds of problem dynamics in a relationship. You don't need to fix yourself. You need to understand that you have faults like everybody else, and the right partner will accept those faults, and in the right relationship, you won't feel shit about those faults.

My suggestion? Be single and take some time to realise that you're awesome. That you're quite capable of being calm, in control, and boundaried. That your life is YOURS, and YOU choose who to let in, and if you feel bad with them around, you walk.

Too tired to type much now but emdr therapy is amazing for working on neural pathways. I’m dealing with attachments and anxiety stuff. Good luck