The Science Behind Your Relationships
Understanding Attachment Styles:
How We Love, Connect, and React
By Persis Mehta-Thigpen, LPCC
Thrive Counseling Services
“He’s just not that into me.” “Well maybe he is, but he is playing hard to get.” “He isn’t worth my time at all. I wonder if I should try to get him interested.” “He just needs someone who can understand him. I will totally change him into a better person.”
Have you ever said any of these phrases or know someone who has? Well if you have, you’re one of the millions of people on the planet who are trying to navigate relationships and have these thoughts on a daily basis. Trying to find people you mesh with and can connect to on a deeper level is so difficult to do. An indicator of how well you can connect with others, who you’re attracted to, and how compatible you are with another is explained by your attachment style. Attachment? You mean that connection you have as a baby to your caregiver? Yes I do! Please keep reading below to learn more...

What is Attachment?
Attachment is the bond that you form with your caregivers from birth until the age of 3. Attachment is often connected with your parents, but form with any significant connection that comes into your life (i.e. siblings, aunties, teachers, grandparents). These bonds that form also come with certain relationship patterns that tend to be recreated throughout a lifetime. Attachment styles tend to form from these patterns. There are 4 types of attachment styles: secure, anxious-ambivalent, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant (disorganized). Let's take a look at what these mean.
Secure Attachment Style:
Ever meet those people who are amazing at communication, can be emotionally vulnerable and present with you, and trust you to live your life and support that? Sounds too good to be true? It's not. This person is exhibiting what is known as a secure attachment style. This means that they had caregivers in their life that showed up consistently and reliably for them. This helped them to form emotional regulation skills, build support in community, learn to trust others to meet their needs, and ask for help when they can’t do it alone. People who have these characteristics tend to have loving, committed relationships later in life.
Anxious-Ambivalent Style:
Have you ever felt happy in a relationship one minute and then felt like it's a train wreck the next? Have you thought to yourself, “oh no, this person is going to leave me. I better end this before they do.” This teeter-totter of emotions produces anxiety and is a common struggle that occurs in relationships. Anxiously attached people have such a strong need for emotional connection and closeness, however they are often terrified that love or connection will not last and that they will be abandoned. This fear is so strong that they often end up ruining their relationship based on behaviors they do (being needy, jealous, wanting to know where you are and what you’re doing at all times, needing constant reassurance). So why did this happen? Why did this style of attachment form? To put it simply, your caregivers were inconsistent in the way they responded to your emotional needs and behaviors. They were either overly permissive as parents and didn’t want to “rock the boat” at times, or they gave very harsh punishments and responses to your emotional needs which made you feel not supported or connected with. Often this would be random, meaning
you didn’t know when your caregiver would respond or in what way they would show up. This inconsistency breeds anxiety. Anxiety breeds fears in the relationship and fear is linked to a plethora of issues that affect your life.

Dismissive-Avoidant Style:
“You can stay or you can go, either way it doesn’t really affect me.” This style of attachment is often met with an avoidance of connection. Often people who exhibit this style are seen as runners. They actively avoid any time of emotional connection or intimacy as a way of protecting themselves from getting hurt. This means they will do anything to be self-sufficient and independent of a fault. If you have this style of attachment, your caregiver neglected any emotional need you had. In fact, your emotions might have been made fun of or talked down to. You may have witnessed your caregiver walking away from you or completely ignoring you. This is detrimental to a child’s developing brain, which later leads to you not wanting to trust anyone else that wants to support you or even love you. People with this style are often craving love and connection, but because in their experience they never got that connection, they learned to shut the need down. At times the need is “acted out” in other ways (excessive dating, multiple sexual partners, constantly seeking something new, and leaving when emotions or “love” come into the picture).
Fearful-Avoidant (disorganized):
“I want to be with you so much. Being around you makes me so happy, but also I just feel like I need space. We are moving too quickly.” Sounds familiar, right? This is a classic example of someone who has a fearful-avoidant attachment style. People with this style are often craving an intimate close relationship, but at the same time
they’re so fearful of intimacy that they push you away. The confusing part of this is that it can happen all in the same breath. Hence, the disorganized name. This style comes with its own vices. People are often characterized by having an intense fear of rejection, being sensitive to feedback that is perceived as criticism, having difficulty expressing themselves, and communicating their emotions and needs. This happens because caregivers will see the emotional need of a child but it is met with pain, fear, abuse, punishment, or neglect. Due to these traumas, a child learns to fear any type of emotion because it is shut down by the caregiver. Did you ever hear this growing up? “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” “Nothing is wrong with you.” “If you cry, I'm going to hit you even harder.” These phrases demonstrate that the child’s need is punished and therefore you should not be having these needs. How this messes with your adult romantic relationship is that you feel this intense need to connect, but also leave at the same time (push-pull). If you struggle with emotional regulation in your relationship and don’t know how to be a supportive partner, you’ll often lack any coping skills related to stress in your relationship and will shut down because of it.
This is a ton of information, but it is my goal to educate others on how this impacts your relationships. So what is the takeaway from all of this? Are we just screwed if we don’t have a secure attachment? Absolutely not! Attachment changes throughout a lifetime. Attachment styles are also subjective to the type of relationship you have. For example, you could have a securely attached relationship with caregivers, but be anxiously attached in romantic relationships. The reason for this is because of experiences that you have along the way.
The big takeaway from this is that you can heal your life, or more importantly your attachment style. Talk with your therapist, do some research, find self-help books, and join groups to help improve your connection with others.

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