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Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Monday, October 6, 2025
Anxious and Avoidant Attachment
Every single person attaches to others in one of four mostly specific ways. Attachment itself refers to how you bond with others: be it friendships, familial bonds, or romantic/sexual relationships. The four types of these attachment styles are: secure, fearful, anxious, and avoidant attachment. They can also simply be categorized into secure attachment and insecure attachment styles. I am mostly going to talk about two styles: anxious and avoidant as they're relevant to my life currently. It's important to note that attachment styles can change throughout your life, but usually only due to large life events or intentional work on your specific type.
Your initial attachment style is formed early in life, between birth and about 7 years old. These formative years play a huge role in the attachment style that you will have for the rest of your life (or at least until you identify it and work to change it). There are many things that can impact your attachment style, however all of them are directly related to your homelife. If you have a secure, loving family environment, you will end up with a secure attachment style, barring any extraordinary event that may shape you otherwise. An example of that would be sexual assault, bullying at school, death of someone close to you, etc. Major negative life events.
Barring negative life events, the relationship that your parents have plays a HUGE role in the attachment style you develop during these years. A stable loving environment creates a stable, secure, attachment style. An unstable environment, due to unreliable love from your parents, a hostile home life, parents who fight or do not show love to each other (etc.) all contribute to creating an insecure attachment style in a child during their formative years. This style often doesn't present itself until much later in childhood, but can sometimes be seen even then. Children in these situations are subconsciously taught that love is conditional and if you don't meet those conditions, whatever they may be, you are not worthy of love.
Insecure attachment styles come in three versions as I previously mentioned: anxious, fearful, and avoidant. In the most basic terms, each of these styles is marked by the action the individual takes when encountering a close attachment with another person, be it friendship, relationship, or familial. The fearful person avoids all attachments for fear of rejection. They will not engage people socially and often come off as very skittish or socially awkward. Similar, but different, is the avoidant. Avoidant people DO seek and want attachments but when they get them, often contradictorily try to avoid them. And finally, anxious attachment people become very anxious as attachments become closer and tend to cling to them instead of pushing them away (the opposite of the avoidant style).
For the sake of this discussion, I will not be talking about the fearful attachment style, but only focusing on the anxious and avoidant styles as they pose an interesting set of opposites worth some look at. They are also the two that have most directly impacted my life in recent memory.
In both anxious and avoidant attachment type people, at some point in their formative years their subconscious learned that love is conditional. Some people learn that if they aren't "good" that love will be removed by their parents, some come to see punishment for not being "good" as proof that they aren't worthy for love later in life as well. Others have difficult homelives due to relationship issues between their parents. A parent or parents who is/are cold to their partner or checked out of that relationship or who struggle with an insecure attachment style themselves will pass that on to their child in their formative years. The impressionable child sees their method of love as being the way love is. So if love is distant, conditional, or otherwise unstable, the child will internalize that feeling and it will come up as part of their subconscious as an adult in their own relationships.
In my case, I grew up in a home with parents who fought nearly constantly and never constructively. Verbal, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse was common. Love was conditional in my home based on if I was a "good child" or not sometimes. And, growing up I had zero positive examples of a functioning romantic, loving relationship as my parents' definitely was not. Over time, this caused me to internalize love as being conditional or something that can be "taken away". As I grew older, this subconscious understanding of love turned into an insecure attachment style, specifically an anxious attachment style.
What does this mean? This means that subconsciously I believe that any attachment I made (friend, romantic partner, or familial) is based on an somewhat unknown set of conditions. I would know that as a child affection was given for good grades for example. And, mental, emotional, and sometimes physical abuse was given for bad grades. So grades became a condition of receiving love subconsciously. Bad grades triggered a negative reaction, therefore as a child I always sought to be perfect in everything I did, because all children want love and bad grades led to less love. That is a very basic example but it illustrates my point well. This perfectionism was triggered by negative reinforcement as a child.
Sounds harmless right? Everyone wants to "do well". Except that's not the case. Not doing well, in anything, can trigger the same reaction, even today. It triggers the feeling of worthlessness and can, if unchecked damage my mental health.
I used the word "trigger". There are other triggers that pop up from time to time as well. They are mostly "tangent triggers", in that the action isn't directly related to a negative experience, like bad grades, but that the subconscious classifies them as "bad" and therefore feels that love will be withdrawn when they occur. Additionally, these triggers become stronger when there is more "at risk". Friendship, familial, and romantic relationships will all be referred to as "relationships" going forward just to make things easier as they are all impacted equally by your attachment style. The closer a relationship becomes (regardless of type), the sharper a trigger can be "triggered".
Why are triggers sharper the closer you get to someone? This is really important. Someone with an insecure attachment style (anxious, fearful, or avoidant), has a deep set internal fear that love is conditional as I've mentioned. When you love someone more or deeper, you subconsciously realize that you have more to lose. That deep set internal fear bubbles up to the surface and often times you "self sabotage" the relationship. I'll get to that later. The point is, when you are insecure in your attachment, you become increasingly fearful of losing it. Your subconscious mind is there to protect you, and it tries to warn you of threats based on your previous experiences. That is a good thing, unless your subconscious mind has the wrong information, which in this case it does. It perceives love as a risk, a very frightening risk whereby you can be seriously damaged.
As a result of a misfiring subconscious mind, the anxious person clings to relationships when they perceive even the SLIGHTEST negative change in the relationship dynamic. When a trigger is "triggered" our anxiety skyrockets and causes us to do self or relationship destructive things. Typically overreacting at the other person is the biggest example of this, otherwise starting fights, excessive clinginess or a few other activities can happen. Essentially anything that seems to show that the other person is pulling away (simulating love being conditional) causes a negative reaction in an anxious attachment style person.
The very same thing is happening in the mind of an avoidant style person. However, there are a few big exceptions. First, the avoidant often doesn't realize what's happening, even during counseling. Many, but not all avoidant people simply avoid thinking about the topic all together as it causes them to trigger. Anxious people also trigger in these cases as mentioned, but we tend to also be over-analyzers as well. We can come to terms with what is happening in our heads much easier. Avoidants subconsciously try to avoid that thought process and fearful attachment people completely avoid it out of fear. This is not to say any one is superior or worse than the other, just that anxious attachers tend to also be overthinkers, which sort of helps them in this area to an extent (and harms them in other areas).
Additionally, avoidant people, while the insecurity does bubble up in their minds just as it does for the anxious, they have an opposite reaction to it. When a friend or partner gets close they push them away to avoid the possibility of getting hurt if things don't work out, while the anxious does the opposite and pulls closer for the exact same reason. That's the difference between the two. 95% of the process is the same, but they come to different solutions to escape the fear of getting "too close" to someone even when they consciously might want to be close to them, even intensely.
Both anxious and avoidant attachers CAN maintain friendships/relationships to an extent. Both can find success pairing with secure attachment type people. The secure person will reassure the anxious and let the avoidant have space as needed without negatively impacting the connection. A problem does arise however if avoidants and anxious attachers make an initial connection. This is the final thing I want to touch on here and the one that most directly impacts me in my life.
As I mentioned, I have an anxious attachment style. In the recent past I connected VERY well with someone with an avoidant attachment style. The friendship was fun, energizing, uplifting and something I looked forward to literally every single day, even if we weren't hanging out that day. The thing is, over time we did get very close. We spent basically every day together at one point, for maybe 5-8 hours each night. It seemed at first, amazing and ideal. But both of our attachment styles would kick in as we got closer.
In general, avoidants need to have space to themselves sometimes to recharge and decompress. That can happen while spending time with other groups of people, but often needs to be alone. Certain actions can trigger a faster response as well. This is normal for them. In those instances, an avoidant may disappear or "ghost" their friend. But in reality it isn't that simple. Typically it starts with the avoidant pulling back and socializing less with their friend/partner. When they might have initiated activities in the past, they only follow along to activities now. Where they might have texted or called first, now they only respond. These actions are taken to lessen the subconscious fear that they have of letting people get too close to them for fear of being hurt. Essentially, consciously or subconsciously they need to recharge and decompress. If they don't get that recharge, it can manifest in avoiding the other person, not answering messages at all, or even ghosting them entirely if it gets bad enough. The avoidant person has subconscious fear of losing love in the back of their mind that increases as someone gets closer to them, to the point that it outweighs their desire to be close to them and they push them out to protect themselves. This need to protect themselves is rarely rooted in fact, often just learned behaviors from their formative years. The child had an unreliable source of love growing up. The adult mirrors that onto all future friendships/relationships.
In general, anxious attachers are exactly the same, except that instead of pushing away their friend/partner, they pull them closer and cling to them. Instead of ignoring them, they text bomb them. They get frustrated by a perceived lack of closeness that may not actually exist and overreact. This often leads to arguments and emotional outbursts. They may get so anxious that they self-sabotage the attachment, breaking it and leaving. They can't handle the anxiety and/or don't understand it, and do anything they can to stop it.
As I've mentioned, anxious and avoidant attachers are exactly the same except that their solution to the problem (fear of loss of love) is the exact opposite. This means that when a connection is between an anxious attacher and an avoidant attacher, shit can hit the fan really really fast and hard. In those situations, an anxious attacher notices a change in behavior from the avoidant which signals to them that they are withdrawing their love. This could be taking a longer time to answer texts, avoiding their calls, or just simply the tone they have randomly one night. The trigger is also usually completely false. It MAY be real, in that the other may be withdrawing a bit, but typically it isn't. In these friendships/relationships the avoidant may also be triggered by the perception that the anxious is getting too close, too close too quickly, or otherwise that they may fear losing them because they realize that they've come to value them greatly and are afraid to lose them. Ultimately this will result in the avoidant withdrawing from the friendship a bit or in total.
The withdrawal of an avoidant from an anxious attacher will cause the anxious attacher to grasp hard at the friendship/relationship because they are mortally afraid of losing it, which causes the avoidant to pull harder away. This causes the anxious to again pull harder. It's a feedback loop. In the end, both piss each off so badly that something breaks. The anxious may blow up at the avoidant. The avoidant may completely cut the anxious out of their life. Both happening simultaneously is most common. Both are reacting with fear over losing what they perceive as conditional love that they both overreact and destroy the friendship/relationship to try to find peace in their heads.
This pattern will happen again and again, regardless of who the attachment is to. There is hope though. Both the anxious and the avoidant (and the fearful) CAN rewrite their subconscious mind into learning a secure attachment style in which they will be confident in their friendship/relationship and in which nothing will trigger that fear reaction I spoke about. They have to want to though. An avoidant may rewire themselves and walk right into an anxious who didn't and the anxious may still wreck that friendship/relationship. An anxious may rewrite themselves, but an avoidant may still leave as a friendship/relationship gets closer. Equally, it is much more difficult to migrate to a secure attachment style when not currently dealing with an attachment. It's very easy to think you've mitigated fear when you have nothing that your subconscious mind used to fear in your life.
The fact is, to rewrite your subconscious idea of "conditional" love into one of "unconditional" love, you have to be challenging yourself in a close friendship/relationship. When that fear percolates, you have to recognize it, describe it to yourself, and mitigate it. But it has to percolate for you to rid yourself of it for good. You need to separate emotional thought from logical thought. This is easiest done when two people are are attached communicate openly and honestly about how they are feeling. This is profoundly easier for the anxious, who often overthinks and overshares emotions anyways. And it is much more difficult for the avoidant, who often will just want to avoid the topic all together. However, when two people, who are close, make a concerted effort at changing their subconscious fears, they CAN be changed. Both just have to want to.
If both do want to change to a secure attachment style, both have to first recognize for themselves what trauma in their past caused this subconscious thought to begin with. For me, that was child abuse which made love feel conditional. Both then also have to recognize what triggers them to feel fear and what the fear feels like when they are experiencing it. Avoidants often feel overwhelming mental pressure and/or panic from a trigger. I, as an anxious, feel extreme anxiety. When both can realize what triggers them, they can recognize the resulting feeling as it's happening. Taking a step back and focusing to neutralize these feelings at this starting point will stop their negative impact on the other person. Discussion after the fact, calmly with the other about the trigger is helpful. Having a watchful eye from a trusted friend/partner in these situations does help greatly in reducing the result of the trigger on their friendship/relationship. Recognizing that negative result in your friend/partner's actions also can help on your own end. If you recognize that the the anxious definitely doesn't mean to blow up at you or the avoidant definitely still cares about you even when they take a lot of distance, the friendship/relationship can and will continue to prosper.
Eventually, both the anxious and the avoidant need to come to terms with their fears. They need to address them and overcome them. Eachother can be a source of encouragement and support in those situations, but often both aren't able or willing to do so. So it can be a crapshoot. Rewiring your subconscious takes a lot of effort. It takes longer alone, but it is also still possible. At the end of the day though, that trauma from childhood impacts the insecure attacher greatly and impacts every one of their close relationships until it is addressed properly.
For my part I work daily now to fix my anxious attachment style. I use journaling as I enjoy writing. I reach out to others and talk about how I feel. But I'm also just open and honest with myself. I don't judge myself for being this way. It isn't my, or your, fault. But we can fix it. We can be happy. It just takes work and courage.
Talking it out here, is actually one way I've been working on it myself. Here are a few sources that might hit home for you. I don't endorse any product, just figure out what works for you.
An honest look at anxious attachment:
https://www.instagram.com/
An honest look at avoidant attachment:
https://www.instagram.com/
Resources:
https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/anxious-attachment/
https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/avoidant-attachment-style/
https://www.eyemindspirit.com/
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