CHANGING YOUR ATTACHMENT STYLE
My Journey From Anxious To Secure
Even if you aren’t super clued into the mental health field, it’s likely you’ve heard about attachment styles. It’s one of those topics that has permeated popular culture and sparked conversations between couples and friends. Are you anxious? What about avoidant? Here, take this quiz to find out! While I love that people are learning more about how they operate in relationships, part of me worries that too many people think of their attachment style as something set in stone like their eye color or shoe size. But one of the most encouraging things I learned in my psychology program is how flexible our attachment style can be. It is possible to go from anxious to secure or even fluctuate from relationship to relationship based on different dynamics.
I also know this to be true based on my own experience and let me tell you, becoming securely attached is a wonderful thing. (Even if it means you don’t see your broken engagement coming because you are no longer on edge all the time.) For most of my dating life, I was anxiously attached, which didn’t necessarily make sense given my parents. You see our attachment styles are often influenced by our relationships with our primary caregivers and I grew up in a stable, loving home. But getting sick with OCD at four likely skewed things for me and I found it difficult to feel safe in my romantic relationships.
So as I grew up and rigorously scoured my surroundings for a partner, my anxious attachment simultaneously pushed people away and made me miserable. So many amazing things were happening to me in my 20s but my mind was often preoccupied with worry about whoever I was dating or trying to date or failing to win back. I will admit that my anxious attachment wasn’t prevalent in relationships where I loved my partner less than they loved me. Those always culminated with me feeling trapped and ending things. But, whenever I felt like I wasn’t settling, and I couldn’t believe my luck, all my insecurity would sabotage things. It was only in early 2019 when I started to date my ex-fiancé that I noticed I was experiencing my relationship differently than before.
But what the hell does that actually mean? When I think back on what contributed to my shift from anxious to secure, I can pinpoint three things that helped me change: