Anxious Attachment Style - Deep Dive

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami, and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

And as I promised you last week, I'm going to talk a little bit more about the anxious attachment stuff. However, before I start, I just wanted to touch upon all the incidents that are taking place in the world right now.

Now, I have recorded a bonus episode about Efrenstan. And to be honest, I changed my mind last minute to not release it simply because I feared that it would be triggering for many people. However, I will still talk about the psychology of refugees, and I will do so very soon, possibly also inviting people to talk about what they've been through themselves and giving refugees themselves the stage to be able to share what they think about the

situation as it is right now. I want you to take care of you. It's very important. The world news have been unsettling for a very long time. Ever since the pandemic hit, I feel that everything is more amplified, everything is more scary.

And there are so many places out there, whether it is Afghanistan, it is Lebanon, it is Yemen, it is Gaza, there are so many places that need our help, that need our attention. But I also know that if you are not taking care of yourself, you will not be able to take care of others.

As I always say, you cannot pour from an empty cup. So make sure that you refill your cup so you can give back. And giving back is very important, especially in times like these. I don't want to lecture you too much because it is just, as I said, a very unsettling time.

My prayers go out to everyone who needs it. And I don't think there is a quick fix or a simple solution for everything that's been going on. I just want to ask you be kind to the people that you don't know, be kind to strangers.

You don't know what they have been through, you don't know what they've been carrying. And first and foremost, you want kindness to come back to you. And this only happens if you are kind to begin with.

So, as I told you, I gave you an overview last week about the attachment size styles, the different attachment styles. And as I told you today, I'm going to attempt to explain to you a little more what the anxious attachment style is all about.

You know, I was sort of hesitant about how in-depth I want these episodes to be, if this should stay a little bit more on the surface, but you let me know what you think. Um, for now, I have decided to give you a simple overview so you can get an idea what the attachment style is all about.

But if you would like to have more examples, you would like to have more cases that explain how attachment styles could look like, I could do that. However, these episodes would possibly be, again, bonus episodes, and they will be definitely a bit longer because they will explain in detail what different styles can look like in day-to-day life.

But for now, I felt like that the short and compact version of explaining what the attachment styles are like is the best approach, and then later on we can revisit what we want to do with other episodes. So, what is the anxious attachment?

So, as I told you, there are four major categories of attachment styles, and one of them is the secure one. But I'm not going to talk about the secure one too much. Maybe I will dedicate an episode about the secure attachment in the very end, but for now the focus will be on all the three insecure attachment styles.

Most often, anxious attachment is due to misattuned and inconsistent parenting. I told you this before that attachment styles are basically formed in childhood. And it is important to understand that your relationship with your parents will, or the primary caretaker, the people who are taking care of you as an infant and as a small child, will define whether you like it or not, the attachment style that you will basically grow into later on in life.

In children, anxious attachment style develops very early on. And with the anxious attachment style, low self-esteem, strong fear of rejection and abandonment, and also clinginess in relationships are very common signs of the attachment style. Although effort is required, individuals with such attachment issues can develop a secure attachment style over time.

So this is something that I want you to understand. If you find yourself or you identify certain aspects about this attachment style in yourself, it is not a death sentence. You can work on these issues and eventually work on being in a secure attachment style.

It's not irreversible. It is something that you can work on, and it is something that is worth looking at because it will define the worldview that you have, and it will define how you view the relationships that you have with other people.

So everything you need to know about the anxious attachment style: appreciation, attention, and support. All of us crave that to some extent. Some a little more, some a little less. We want to be loved, we want to feel secure, valued, and appreciated.

I'm sure you all agree, no one likes to be left out in the cold. No one wants to be, you know, an outsider. It is normal to seek approval. This is something that you have to understand. It is normal to seek approval, even when you are in a secure attachment.

It is normal to seek help. It is normal to, you know, be in an emotional relationship that is also responsive, whether it is from your family, your friends, or partners. And it is also very important to understand that to fear losing someone you love is something all of us have.

Whether it is insecure or secure, we all have that. But when the needs and the fear become too strong, if you want too much attention, if you need too much help, if you become too clingy, then you need to ask yourself can the need for safety and the fear of abandonment be so powerful that they control your relationships?

And you know, I understand it might not always be easy to recognize. An insecure attachment style in adults is not easy to locate because for that, you actually need to enter a relationship with someone to understand how the other person is thinking.

You will not meet people right away and say, Oh, this one is going to be an anxious attachment style, or this one is going to have an avoidant attachment style. This is not how it works. You need to get to know someone and be in a relationship with them to understand them, but also you.

So this is not something that you can just locate right away. It takes a little bit of effort in thinking and deep reflection. Patterns in social relationships might be inconsistent or barely noticeable. So, as I said, in order to re-understand a person and yourself, you need to actually enter the relationship.

But there are a few signs for each attachment style that you can look out for. So let's go back. What causes anxious attachment style in childhood? The development of anxious or pre-occupied attachment style is often associated with inconsistent parenting.

I have scratched upon that last week, but I will explain it a bit more. Sometimes the parents will be supportive and responsive to the child's needs, but other times they will be misattuned and just ignoring the child. This inconsistency might make it difficult for the child to understand what the parent's behavior means and what kind of response to expect in the future.

So if one time the parent or the parents are reacting to certain situations very in a very supportive manner, and the next time they're sort of ignoring it or no longer responding like they did the first time, it's sending contradicting signals to the child, especially growing up.

It is something hard to place because children like security, children like consistency, and they like things to be repeated a certain way so they can understand, aha, okay, mom and dad, my parents are always going to react the same way to certain situations.

So the child might end up confused about their relationship with the caregivers, and these mixed signals will be sort of, you know, the red line throughout the relationship they have with this person. Another factor that is linked to the development of anxious attachment style in children is the so-called emotional hunger.

In that case, caregivers would actually seek emotional and physical closeness to the children in order to satisfy their own needs and not the needs of the child. Many, many times in therapy, I have heard that children had to take care of their parents, especially emotionally.

And when this is something that you can circle out, you know, highlight within therapy or even in self-reflection, it is very likely that you would qualify and identify yourself as an anxious person to be in a relationship with.

So, you know, parents who create or help creating an anxious attachment style might appear very intrusive, but they are also very overprotective. So there is very little privacy. Children are raised in a way that they have very little privacy because parents might use their child to satisfy their own hunger for love or to present their own selves in a certain light.

So they would always compare themselves to the children or always say, Oh, but you left me alone today, so you have to spend time with me tomorrow. So if you are an anxious, if you find yourself in the anxious attachment style category, it's very likely likely that your parents or one of your caregivers is definitely or has definitely the same traits.

So who are the children who have a high risk of developing anxious attachment style? Children who find themselves, you know, not getting consistent responsiveness from their parents. Parents are not meeting their emotional needs, they are emotionally distant, they are occupied with other things, but at the same time, whenever they need emotional closeness, they will come and take it from the child.

So, in addition to there are a few common factors, such as physical and psychological abuse, that can also lead to anxious attachment style, but also early separation from the caregiver. It is essential to note that having an insecure attachment style is not a mental disease or disorder.

It is common among adults, and it in many, many cases is really nothing to worry about. Still, having an unstable, insecure attachment style can cause distress or harm relationships. What are the symptoms of anxious attachment style when you are an adult?

I get this question all the time. How do I recognize a person with an anxious attachment style? Am I a person with an anxious attachment style? In many, many cases, people with an anxious attachment style are very sensitive.

They are very attuned to their parents' needs, even when they are adults, but are often insecure and anxious about their own worth in the relationship. So if the parent is not satisfied, then they would punish themselves harshly, even if it, you know, they would just judge themselves in a very manner.

If the parent rejects them, even when they are adults, when the parents fail to meet their needs, they might blame themselves or label themselves as not being worthy of their love. Adults with anxious attachments need constant reassurance that they are loved, worthy and good enough.

This strong fear of abandonment might often cause very strong or very intense jealousy, or they are constantly suspicious of their partner. They would constantly say, okay, this person is with me. I don't think I deserve it. So they might be cheating or they will be cheating on me.

Obviously, this is not necessarily something they say to themselves on a conscious level, but it is something that they subconsciously might look for. And this is why you always of women going through the to the partner's phone or men following their um partners that's just to make sure that they're not meeting other people.

All of these things are signs of anxious attachment style. These fears might also lead to lead them to become desperate, clingy, preoccupied with their relationship. So nothing else matters anymore. The only thing that matters in their lives is the relationship, keeping the relationship.

Also, you will have problems with being alone if you find yourself, okay, I'm inclined to define myself as someone with an anxious attachment style. You will also have problems with being alone. Also, in terms of intimacy and closeness, all of these things are all dependent on other people.

The presence of someone you love and how they treat you will also determine how you feel about yourself. Having an insecure attachment style can be very tiring. It could feel like you are on an emotional roller coaster all the time.

It might cause anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and low life satisfaction. It might cause anxiety, stress, unhappiness, and low life satisfaction. When it comes to adults with anxious attachment styles, relationships might be both life-saving and life-threatening. So when you are in a relationship with someone, oh my God, it feels like you are finally safe.

You have your savior, your prince, your princess. But at the same time, losing them could be the end of the world. The fear of being alone or being rejected is like poison. So it's like this disturbing feeling which leads to constant doubt and worry.

On the other hand, the presence of love and a loved one, and more importantly, the demonstration of affection and their support is like the remedy for everything. An anxious individual might be insecure about what they stand for in a relationship and whether their partner loves them as much as they really do say, or if they really care for them as they really say.

It is all about getting the assurance every time they're seeking it. The slightest disappointment or change or sign of rejection from the partner could be so harmful. It's like a spiral of crying, worry, and anxiety. The big question is now can you change your attachment style?

And how? The answer to that is definitely yes. Luckily, attachment styles can change when you work on yourself. Sometimes the change can happen by itself. Sometimes the relationship is so stabilizing that you actually realize after a while, okay, I feel secure with that person, that it balances everything out by itself.

But if certain behavior patterns don't change, you need to work a little bit in depth and reflect a little bit more why you feel the way you feel when you are in a relationship and you feel constantly anxious about losing your partner.

So it is important to know that you really cannot change your past, nor can you change the relationship with your parents, especially the one that you had with them when you were a child. You can work on your relationship with your parents.

If you're lucky enough and your parents are around, you can actually attempt to work on the relationship with your parents. But there is also the problem that you cannot expect your parents to respond the way you want them to respond.

So each time you are in interaction with your parents, you need to be aware of the mechanisms that they have and they imposed on you and what they did to you. But at the same time, you can work on a coping mechanism that makes you feel less affected by how your parents treat you.

One key to healing an insecure attachment style is to make sense of what happened to you and to make sense of the interaction between you and your parents so that you don't repeat this pattern with your partner in the future.

Basically speaking, I just want you to understand that this is not the end of the world. An anxious attachment style is basically something that you can unlearn. It is something that will give you a deeper understanding of what happened to you and how you can give security to yourself and for yourself without needing someone to assure you of this security.

I will definitely go in detail and tell you more about how to heal from attachment style issues that are insecure, but I will not do that today. I will possibly dedicate a whole episode on how to heal from attachment styles that are insecure.

But for today, I hope that I made the anxious attachment style a little bit more um a little clearer to you so you understand what it entails to be someone with an anxious attachment style, but also that identifying these patterns can also mean that you can correct them.

So I really hope that you liked Olay's episode. And next week we will go into another insecure attachment style. And yeah, we will take it from there. I really hope you like this episode and talk to you next week.

Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. And hopefully, you will tune in again next week. It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.