Why you should learn your attachment style
Ever wonder why you seem to be in the same kinds of relationships all the time? By which I mean, they all kind of have the same or similar problems. Or have you ever struggled to make connections with people for fear of seeming too needy? Maybe you struggle to make connections because people think you’re too closed off. Maybe you don’t trust easily.
But, okay, what’s something that doesn’t seem generic, but can really make you believe in attachment styles if you’re a little harder to convince?
Have you ever used this phrase and meant it? Nobody ever cares as much as I (you) do. Or, no one gives as much as they get.
In either one, that could be true, but before you condemn someone for a lack of caring, ask yourself this: have you ever actually let someone else take care of you? Have you ever let someone see your emotional pain and take care of you, or do you tend to brush it aside and prefer to just keep helping others?
Okay so if you still don’t believe me, I’d say keep reading anyway, because it could help with people you are in a relationship with, but it’s not like I’ll know so, you do you.
Anyway, an attachment style is basically something we learn as babies (from 0-2 years, I believe, but I’m not 100% sure without looking it up) depending on how our needs were met by our caregivers we could end up with one of four different attachment styles. The two main ones being a secure attachment style and an insecure attachment style.
A secure attachment style is fostered by parents/caregivers that are able to consistently meet the child’s needs, and so the child learns that they can trust their caregiver, and use them as a base for which they explore the world.
Don’t understand what that means? It’s cool, I didn’t either.
My mom actually works in a children’s shelter, and actually showed me some studies on this as she knew I developed an interest in it. In one study that they specifically did at her job, they had a group of moms and their children playing in a room. After a while, they asked the moms to leave for one minute, and then to come back, but to stay behind the line they put near the door. What they found were a few different responses by the babies. One was crying nonstop and could not be comforted and immediately went to their mother when they saw she came back. Another had mixed signals they were giving as if they weren’t sure whether to go back to their mother or to stay where they were, but they were also showing distress at their mother not being present when she was gone. The last baby response they got was one child who did not cry at all when their mother left, just kept playing, and when she came back, they only acknowledged that she was there by turning around to see them and then turning back around to continue playing.
This by no means meant that they each already had a specific attachment style. The experiment was only meant to demonstrate the different ways they can react, not to diagnose, and so the experiment was only conducted by a few people for a short period of time.
However each baby did demonstrate a possible attachment style, so from there well go into the three insecure attachment styles, and what it means for the baby to consider the caregiver as a base from which to explore the world.
Insecure attachment styles:
Anxious attachment: also know as the love addict. Can be considered clingy by most people. Craves attachment, and does not have the ability to self-sooth very often. Self-sacrificing. Has difficulty listening to boundaries. Uses activating strategies when they feel someone pulling away from them to maintain the connection. Is better in the honeymoon phase of relationships normally, but has difficulty settling in a relationship.
Fearful-avoidant: come here, go away is a common phrase used to describe them. (May or may not be called disorganized attachment style, but the people I’ve learned from had different thoughts about what it meant, so I’m using this one. Still, if anyone wants more than a condensed version send an ask and I’ll send the link to who I watch when I’m learning about it) A combination of the anxious and dismissive attachment styles. Wants connection, but doesn’t trust it. Tends to be the more caregiver kind of friend. Does not do well talking about feelings, but is better at talking about them than the dismissive avoidant. Has difficulty setting boundaries for themselves. Will display more of the opposite attachment style of the person they’re dating. If anxious and fearful avoidant, they will show more dismissive avoidant characteristics. Can self-sooth relatively easily. Self-sacrificing, people pleasers. Is better at the beginning of a relationship, during the honeymoon phase, and has difficulty in setting into a relationship past that. Can sometimes do ‘tests’ on people to determine whether or not to trust them. Uses strategies to avoid or activate connections with people, depending on what attachment style they’re with.
Dismissive-avoidant: does not actively want or pursue connections. Does not trust other people to meet their needs. Does not normally display self-sacrificing habits. Tends to avoid talking about feelings(for example, if you asked how are you feeling right now, instead of answering, they might go into how their day went, or talk about their thoughts.) is good at setting boundaries, though not always by actually verbalizing them. Settles into relationships easier than the other two insecure attachment styles, preferring the consistency of a relationship that’s well past its honeymoon phase, to the actual honeymoon phase itself.
The funny thing about the entire experiment was the idea that the baby who didn’t respond at all to the mother leaving was actually the most well behaved. Not to say they weren’t, a lot of babies are incredibly smart, and depending on the age, could have learned object permanence already. (which, for those of you like me that didn’t know, just means they learned that just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s stopped existing) but the fact that we don’t know for sure doesn’t mean anything. The idea that the well-behaved baby didn’t get stressed at the mother's absence because they were good, seems a little damaging to me. Babies should feel at least a little stressed (if they haven’t learned object permanence already) when their primary caregiver leaves. It means the baby trusts them, has bonded with them, and is afraid that the person who they know will meet their needs is gone. It shouldn’t be something we take so much pride in, unless we know it’s not caused by some kind of neglect on the caregivers part.
To be clear, an attachment style can also form in different circumstances as well, but typically the dismissive learns more self-soothing techniques at an early age from neglect on the caregiver's side. This could be as simple as letting the child cry themselves to sleep and not meeting their needs emotionally. Or it could be as severe as not meeting their physical needs. Regardless, even with the best intentions, when we are teaching the child self-soothing techniques by denying the emotional need they have, it creates an environment for a dismissive attachment style to form.
So what does using your caregiver as a base to explore the world mean? I’m glad you asked, cause, dear lord, I had no idea until it was explained better. Basically, a baby watches their caregivers, develops a sense of trust for them, and depending on the level of trust developed, will look to their caregiver as a guide for how they should go about exploring the unknown. In the early stages, this presents itself in needing to see how a caregiver interacts with another person before letting them close. If they see the parent trusts them, they will either feel comfortable letting the stranger close or possibly start crying the second they get near depending on if the parent is trusted to not cause pain. If they crawl away, you might see a baby glance back at their caregiver every once in a while, making sure it’s still okay. If the parent and baby share a certain level of trust, the baby will determine if it’s safe to explore on whether the caregiver looks worried or encouraging. If the trust is built in a way that they know the parent would never hurt them, they will base the decision on only their reaction, and even sometimes will stop exploring altogether just to go back and kind of touch base, before starting another exploration again.
In conclusion, learn about your damn attachment style, I swear your life, friends life, partners life, whoever the fuck you show, will be so much better afterward, I promise you. You can help yourself heal from past trauma and neglect, or help someone else, and remove negative thoughts you may have developed about yourself and other people. It’s wild how much your attachment style can affect your life.
