Anxious attachment refers to the emotional state of not feeling love and trust for the partner in the relationship, but rather an emotional state of "emotional hunger" in the hope that the other party can save themselves or make themselves more "complete".
People with anxious attachments go overboard and control ways to gain a sense of security, but the results are often the opposite of what was expected, and their partner often leaves because they can't stand it.
If the following thoughts and behaviors exist in life, then it is possible that people with anxious attachment are involved
1. Extremely eager for intimacy and companionship, requiring to keep in touch with your lover at any time and report your whereabouts frequently.
2． They will get attention by not responding to text messages, phone calls, deliberately making the other person jealous, or threatening to break up.
3． When the other person fails to meet their expectations, or feels that the other person is not paying enough attention to themselves, they will feel sad, sad, angry, and anxious.
4． In order to maintain contact with each other, they will give up their own needs and please their partners.
5． Fear of being abandoned, feeling uncomfortable when alone, being snubbed a little, feeling abandoned.
6． Like the compulsive repetition of trauma, anxious individuals are easily attracted to avoidant individuals.
7． In the process of interacting with avoidant people, the feeling of anxiety and uneasiness that the other person has produced is very similar to the feeling of anxiety and uneasiness that they experienced from their parents as children, and this familiarity makes them irresistibly attracted to them and makes them feel more painful.
Behind the anxious attachment comes from the lack of security. You actually want to get a stable sense of security in an intimate relationship, but maybe you don't know it at all, using anger and anxiety to disguise the fear of abandonment.
Not only that, but you are also accustomed to using negative emotions such as alienation and indifference to express your inner appeal for security and attention. These are all your secondary emotions, and the most essential emotions are the fear of loss and the desire for security.
However, your partner will be disturbed by your confusing superficial emotions and it will be difficult to discover your true desires. He will think that you are very angry, cloudy and fluctuating.
When he can't understand your original emotions—fear of abandonment—he won't be able to give you the right response or soothe your emotions.
Exploring anxious attachment goes back to the initial attachment of babies to their mothers.
In infancy and infancy, individuals do not have any ability to survive independently, and all sense of security comes from the feeder, that is, the mother.
If the mother can respond to the baby's needs in a timely manner, the baby will feel at ease and feel safe. When you grow up, you can also handle intimate relationships calmly. Because he thinks from the bottom of his heart that he is worthy of love and that he has a certain value.
Even if he encounters emotional problems or relationship breakdowns, he can deal with his and the other party's negative emotions and solve problems with the other party.
Conversely, if the mother is always unable to respond in a timely and stable manner, the baby cannot confirm that she is safe and does not know if she is loved. Babies are confused and uneasy, and they can't predict when their mother will respond and what kind of response they will give.
Therefore, while some children are sad and angry, they will find ways to stick to adults in order to gain attention. This is the prototype of anxious attachment, and this effect continues into adulthood.
There are two types of anxious attachment: anxiety-conflict type and anxiety-avoidance type. Fear of abandonment is a common primary emotion, and anger and avoidance are secondary emotions used to disguise.
Anxiety- paradoxical
After falling in love, while you feel happy, fear also occupies your brain. You're worried that the other person will leave you one day, you're flustered and anxious, and you want to take it all. So you often rummaged through your phone and checked every call and chat history.
When the other person is out, you send a message to the past, if there is no second back, you will fantasize about whether the other party is ambiguous with the other sex. You suffer from gains and losses, limiting each other's social activities.
If the other person is vague, you will break down and feel cheated. Make a big fuss and ask the other party to give you an explanation, and you must answer the question. Gradually, the other party can't stand your behavior and wants to be separated from you.
You cried very sadly and begged him not to leave you. You say you just love him too much and are afraid of losing him.
But he doesn't understand, thinks you're purely unreasonable, completely neurotic.
The above behaviors are typical anxiety-contradiction types.
Anxiety – avoidance type
This type of person, who also craves security, shows more alienation and avoidance. They still fear abandonment, but unlike anxiety-contradictions, they hide their anxiety by avoiding, ignoring, and cold war.
Everyone will feel anxious in their daily lives, which is a normal manifestation. However, people with anxious attachment will feel anxious frequently and easily affect intimate relationships.
If you are anxious and have emotional distress and don't know how to fix it. Don't worry too much, attachment types, while affecting intimacy, are not something that can't be changed.
As a person's attachment type grows, there is a lot of room for operation, and it can also become a safe type, which is very helpful for future intimate relationship management.
People who can manage their feelings well are not always making mistakes, but they are good at repairing relationships and know how to make up for the gaps that arise after conflicts.
The best way to change is definitely to seek professional help. Professionals can feel the anxiety and anger with you, use more professional methods to help you change your attachment style, and can also help you improve soft value and marital ability.
If you can't seek professional help for the time being and want to adjust on your own, you must have a prerequisite, that is, patience and persistence. Because changing the habits you've formed since childhood is not something you can change in a few days, it's going to be a long-term process.
So how should people with anxious attachments treat themselves?
The reason why anxious attachment is so painful is that the anxious attachment person is too idealistic about the intimacy, and he wants his partner to always carry out his wishes and commands in the way he expects. People with anxious attachment tend to ignore their partner's real needs, ignore their partner's personality traits, and demand their partner exactly according to their emotions and emotional needs.
They always want a partner who matches them perfectly, and they want their partner to always follow their love rhythm. Once you find out that your partner is not such a perfect state as you think, you will have great doubts about the relationship and even your partner, thinking that you are about to be abandoned, thinking that you are not worthy of being loved, thinking that you have no value, thinking that your partner does not love yourself, and thinking that everything is an illusion.
In fact, all this is due to the lack of clarity in self-awareness, resulting in a lack of security. It is precisely because of the lack of security that anxiety often arises in the relationship.
So how should that change?
One; establish a correct understanding of intimacy.
First of all, you must clearly understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and your own needs in intimate relationships. Be clear about yourself, and don't base all your knowledge on a relationship or on a person. Put attention on yourself. Invest in a relationship or invest in a person, don't go over 7. Keep part of your sanity.
Two: Build a sense of self-security
There is an old saying that good, security, can only give themselves, others can never give themselves a sense of security, when you put the establishment of a sense of security, put on a person who will change or put on a thing that will change, you will find that the sense of security is actually difficult to find, the things that can establish a sense of security must be stable, reliable, and have long-term development, so, find a value system that is more reliable than people, than relationships, than emotions, in order to establish your own sense of security. More reliable.
Three: Avoid being emotional
One of the most common mistakes an anxious attachment personality makes in a relationship is that it is very, very easy to have an emotional state because of a little thing, from tantrums to hysteria. Therefore, more often, we must have a set of self-soothing and self-regulation methods before we are emotional, and when contradictions and quarrels occur, we should try our best to calm ourselves down, rather than thinking about the worst result of the problem and letting ourselves continue to suffer in anxiety.
Fourth: Reduce requirements and expectations and return to objective reality.
Anxious attachment personalities, usually in the process of communication will make a mistake is for the individual or for an emotional state will be particularly strict, they always want everything to follow their own ideas. While over-taking and over-fearing, one of the states that ends up is to make your partner nervous. Therefore, the anxious attachment personality should reduce one of its requirements for the partner in the intimate relationship. We must understand a truth, everything is discussed regardless of the mind, and there is no perfect person in the world. Give your partner more tolerance, rather than being harsh.
Attachment types are not static.
Although they are relatively stable, if the external environment changes greatly, or the people they interact with are different, a person's attachment type may change.
Even though your childhood attachment type may be non-secure attachment type, if you can actively adjust your cognition, practice reducing the level of need and anxiety, and in this stage of intimate relationship, the other party can continue to provide you with a safe and trusting experience, your brain will re-enter these new experiences in life, giving you the ability to trust the other person wholeheartedly and become a secure person.
On the contrary, a mother-fetal safety type person may also suffer from gains and losses in subsequent feelings because of a heart-rending betrayal.
All in all, each type may be transformed into another type.
In the case of the same external environment, learning to manage the intimate relationship with the partner is the best way to change the type of attachment, and a good intimate relationship is the best opportunity to heal the wounds of the heart.