Are Attachment Styles Sabotaging Your Love Life? [Video]

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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if we diagnose ourselves as
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an anxious attachment style
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the danger
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of a diagnosis
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is that it becomes an excuse
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for whatever we do
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there are four different attachment
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styles anxious secure avoidant and
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anxious avoidant audrey maybe you can
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speak to
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the anxious attachment style and maybe
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the anxious avoidant i’m not sure about
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you guys but i first heard about
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attachment styles when i read the book
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attached
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which talked about attachment theory so
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i suppose people who have uh anxious
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attachment are always looking
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for ways the relationship’s going to
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fall apart
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um a lot of it is tied into feeling sort
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of fears of abandonment and fears of
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rejection
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um you can get very very reactive
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in arguments uh because you get very
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flared up within those kinds of
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in those kinds of ways but also i think
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even when the relationship is going well
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you’re still looking for ways that it
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could fall apart even in the best
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moments what for you
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is the worst part about being
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having that anxious attached style that
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anxious style
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well
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i actually i’ve got much better over
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time with it i definitely related to it
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more
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a few years ago
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but i think
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i think the hardest part is
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not being able to enjoy it
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not being able to just feel
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safe
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not being able to enjoy the thing you
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have correct yeah not being able to just
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enjoy the relationship
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and it can be the most
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you know
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beautiful or
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non-confrontational non-argumentative
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relationship
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yet you still somehow have this
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underlying feeling of everything’s gonna
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go wrong and everything’s gonna
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go to [ __ ] so i think that’s probably
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the hardest thing and i think accepting
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that
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you are safe is something i’ve
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personally had to do a lot of work on
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as you know
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and i think that once you can do that
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you you do just sort of
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find a new piece in your relationship
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and that’s really really lovely
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but that i think until you can sort of
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you can accept the fact that no one
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really
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ever is safe
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truly right we can all at any given
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moment we can all get hurt something can
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go wrong
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people can leave people can die
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and i think if you
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if you spend your whole time living
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there it just destroys the experience
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stephen as someone who perhaps relates
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to the opposite end of the spectrum or
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not you tell me
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is it fair to say
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you are
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on the avoidant
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side of attachment styles slightly yeah
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i i probably lean i don’t relate so much
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to the anxious attachment one the
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avoidant one more so there is one that’s
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kind of a bit of both it’s called
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disorganized and
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there could be bits of that because in
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some ways i do crave intimacy or i
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i don’t have crave intimacies the word
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but i can really feel a sense of like
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i don’t know
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maybe anyone does if you’re alone for a
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long time you can feel a sense of like
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oh i don’t want to be abandoned like i
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want to you know
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being a bit feared of being abandoned
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because i’m a natural
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i enjoy my own company a lot i do have a
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natural sort of loner tendency um
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i have historically gotten scared of
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being trapped in relationships and
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feeling like
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relationships are a large demand on my
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time and energy
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and so that’s the avoidant part of you
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yeah and and perhaps feeling resentful
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at times when i have to
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i feel i have to do things for too many
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things for the relationship or i’m very
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scared of someone becoming emotionally
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dependent on me for their needs and i
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think that’s the crux of it that’s the
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grand fear is
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this person will now depend on me for
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their happiness and that’s a
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that’s a scary thought
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i suppose for someone with that tendency
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what i want to know
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is which one you guys relate to matthew
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and jameson i bet jameson is secure
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i can just see it
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securely attached
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is that the one you most relate to
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yeah actually i do relate to being
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securely attached but i have to say i
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mean i’m sure we’ll probably get into
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this because going off of the book
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attached remember when i read it
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i thought it was
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a very solid theory and it felt very
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like this is pretty insightful about
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people’s different experiences of
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relationships
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but
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that book seemed to think that it was
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pretty
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you were pretty much
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just cut from that cloth
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like you were you’re in one of these
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categories
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and i think it’s easy for me to relate
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to being secure now because i’ve been in
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a long-term relationship that’s just
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based off loyalty and trust and i’m just
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very secure there
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but i can just imagine that if things
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went a different way
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definitely wired for all kinds of
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there’s just definitely a spectrum that
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point jameson about it potentially being
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fluid is interesting because i think the
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risk of a book like this is you can
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people can get in sort of diagnose
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uh
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i don’t know uh
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constant diagnosis mode where
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you explain everyone’s behavior as a
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function of attachment styles and you
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know the the truth is some people
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maybe they’re avoidant but there’s also
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people who are just selfish [ __ ] and
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don’t want to compromise on anything
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and they don’t need to be diagnosed as
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oh if they’re avoidant and i just figure
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out and understand that or there’s
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people who are
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you know
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who are really anxious to an extent
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where it’s toxic and they’re toxically
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needy and it’s like
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you can’t just get off the hook by it
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being well i’m an anxious type but
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you’re like some forms of anxiousness
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are genuinely like toxic like they are
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someone who
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immediately smothers someone and
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completely sort of
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almost uses them as a you know
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as a you know just just kind of to get
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all their emotional needs met and to
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feel like i now subsuming my life into
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yours and these are not these are not
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just healthy tendencies right so there’s
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there can be a way people maybe use it
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as a way to kind of explain
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those parts of themselves a bit too much
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or over diagnose
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look the
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the catharsis
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of a diagnosis of any kind
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is that you have a diagnosis
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i mean anyone who’s ever had any kind of
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illness or pain
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knows that that having something
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diagnosed
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emotional or physical can be
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can be
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very cathartic
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i now know why i am the way i am i have
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some kind of closure on myself
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the danger
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of a diagnosis
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is that it becomes an excuse for
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whatever we do
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and
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if we diagnose ourselves as
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an anxious attachment style
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and then anything we do that is anxious
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in our behavior any way we treat someone
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any way we
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uh unnecessarily accuse someone or act
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out
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we
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say well i can’t help it i’m i have this
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anxious attachment style
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that
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that becomes a very dangerous
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thing
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i think that we have to separate
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what our tendency may be
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from
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what behavior we are going to choose
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to model
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because that’s always a
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choice what we decide to do
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is a choice
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i could be
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anxious but say
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i’m gonna i’m gonna do better
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than this feeling i have right now
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i feel it
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but i also know what my nature is i know
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that my nature is to
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be
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overly afraid
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of losing someone to believe that i’m
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not going to be okay if i lose someone
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and then to overcompensate for
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any time i think i’ve made a mistake
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to get overly guilty anytime i do
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something that i’m not proud of
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to
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create stories anytime someone doesn’t
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text me
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enough
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or
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leaves me alone for five minutes
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to imagine kind of things in the
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rustling in the bush is a lion when it’s
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it’s nothing it’s the wind you know i
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know that’s my nature so i’m going to do
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better than that nature in the way that
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i behave
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that is a choice you know you stephen
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could know that it’s
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kind of there’s a there’s a part of you
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that
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that trends towards
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feeling suffocated or feeling like
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you’re afraid of becoming responsible
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for someone’s needs
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and emotional well-being
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and
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and catch yourself and go i know that’s
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where
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my mind goes
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naturally
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it doesn’t need any help
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to go there that is where my mind goes
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but
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i also know that about myself
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and
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and so i and and given that i know that
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about myself
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i know that i have a tendency to
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you know
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overly keep the people at arm’s length
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instead of just setting healthy
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boundaries and or even just
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communicating
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about the fact that i really like
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having
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some alone time in my week or my day or
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i really like being able to go to a
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quiet corner and just kind of
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read and
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and do my thing
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i i really think that what can be useful
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about these kinds of heuristics
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is that the ability to know
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which way the wind naturally blows for
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us
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doesn’t become an excuse
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for all of our behavior
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instead it becomes a recipe for
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self-awareness
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so that we can
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mitigate
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our own behavior
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you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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