Anxious Attachment Desert

Dear Soft Hearted Loves,

I’d like to discuss the phenomenon when anxiously attached folks find that love and it feels like chilled water in the deepest, driest desert.

The book, Attached: The New Science and how it can Help you Find- and Keep- Love, discussed the literature on attachment styles and how there are more avoidant attachment style folks in the dating pool because things sometimes don’t work out with them as often. You may know avoidant attachment styles to be scared, emotionally unavailable (EU), fuck boys, or those hot and cold folks that feel confusing. They leave or are left more often than their non-avoidant attachment style counterparts and are therefore often who people date, including anxiously attached people. When an anxious attachment style person matches with someone who can meet their needs they may feel completely enthralled or fall for them quickly. This quick to fall for thing is part of folks who are anxiously, or at least partly anxiously attached (such as people who have anxious-avoidant attachment style).

If we go imagine a baby who is anxiously attached crying and paired with an EU care giver it is kind of sad. Now, if we imagine the sweet little baby getting their cries met with tender, gentle attentiveness then we can see how the anxiously attached adult is not that different. When the adult finally connects with that person who sees them and can express reassurance (with boundaries of course) it can feel like that delicious cup of water in the dry, hot desert. Ahhh, finally! It is truly amazing when we can be our own partners and give ourselves just what we need. It is also helpful to know how to weed out some of the people who may trigger our childhood wounds rather than support us on our healing paths.

When anxiously attached folks have this water in the desert experience it is not unexpected. Folks may feel they are on fire when they’re falling for someone. This is sometimes when I get the pleasure of working with someone in therapy around the wounds that feel ignited by being interested in someone. They may have a partner who is able to be attentive and still feel triggered. Or they may be leaving a relationship that did not provide them with what they needed. If we go back to the sweet little baby crying example we can have compassion for whatever comes up for the anxiously or anxiously-avoidant attached person is experiencing. It is all okay.

Attached: The New Science and how it can Help you Find- and Keep- Love discusses ways in which folks can spot an avoidant attachment style person and what to do if you are one or need help with that. I believe it is empowering to know that while we may not be able to pair up all the sweet little babies with their appropriately matched attachment style caregiver, we can help them side step repeating this pattern over and over in sex and romance. We can work internally to give ourselves what we need and learn to stop this pattern through trauma healing and discernment of attachment styles.

Check out the book Attached here.

With kindness,

Dr. J