Anxious attachment. The relationship issue that’s been going around like wildfire lately. You see anxious attachment everywhere now, that it seems to be a normal thing - it seems to be okay. But it’s not okay. Living with an anxious attachment style is far from glamourous or easy and is exhausting to all ends.
As a person who hadn’t been in a relationship for 7 years I had bounced around from situationship to situationship many times but remained single until I found the guy for me. So much so, that when I finally found him I didn’t realise that if you bounce around from situationships and relationships one too many times, you often find yourself with way more damage than you could have anticipated.
After 25 years, I was lucky enough to find a securely attached partner who didn’t carry the same kind of baggage, anxieties or insecurities that I carried. And he was able to gently and lovingly not be judgemental of my attachment style (even though I felt and acted crazy sometimes) and make sure his communication was consistent. But in my past I kept finding myself with guys who would leave me on read, ghost me and use me…however meeting my partner Felix was like a breath of fresh air. Yet somehow I still found that even with consistency, as a busy hard-working individual he wasn’t able to completely fulfill my needs as any normal human being can’t.
I soon realized that as an anxiously attached person, the first thing you need to know is that no partner, no matter how wonderful, can ever completely fulfill your anxious attachment needs. So it’s important to know how to self-soothe but also communicate to your partner when they’re doing something to trigger you.
I remember this one time in the first few months of our relationship where my anxious attachment was at its peak because the relationship was new, and I hadn’t yet learned how to heal from my past. My boyfriend had asked me to wait on a staircase while he went to get something, but I had no idea where he went and he took longer than I thought he would, so over time my anxiety started going from level 0 to 100 very quickly. I began to think that he had maybe abandoned me here and that he was never coming back.
It was a very extreme case of anxious attachment and some may even find it bizarre, but when you have anxious attachment and abandonment issues together, you’d understand that sometimes your heart wants to tell you that everything’s going to be okay but your head wants you to believe that they’re never coming back. So it’s always a battle between the two.
I have seen a lot of content in the past of everyone telling you that anxious attachment is okay, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s okay, no matter how great the person you are with is. Sometimes it can be an exhausting, like a battle of the mind that you feel like you can’t win, especially when your mind and your heart are telling you different things. There’ve been many times where my anxiety has caused me to unnecessarily panic and get overemotional about a situation when all I needed was to be calm and secure. So although many will tell you about it, I’m here to tell you it’s no walk in the park, it’s not easy, it’s exhausting, and it’s something we all need to fight hard to overcome as much as we can. I don’t know for sure if anxious attachment can be overcome completely but we need to all have the right coping mechanisms to deal with it.
Although I’m not completely over my anxious attachment, after time has passed and my trust in my partner has increased, the insecurities have decreased, the anxiety has now softened where I know I won’t be abandoned. So anxious attachment does feel like hell, but you don’t need to believe everything your mind tells you. Take control of your thoughts and don’t let anxiety ruin your relationship the way it almost ruined mine.
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