8 signs of an avoidant attachment style (sessions #14)

today's video is about eight signs that you may have a more avoidant attachment pattern I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and this series I'm calling the sage sessions is really sort of like how to prime someone to understand themselves their childhood and adult lives through the lens of sort of the tenants of therapy you know things like attachment and Trauma and neurode Divergence and all of those things and so this particular one today is one of four attachment Styles anxious avoidant disorganized and secure and I chose to start with avoidant because it feels like this is the one that people seek to understand that they don't understand in many regards because they do cause a lot of the Dynamics and drama in in relationships and dating and there is some research and some people believe that the dating pool is actually full of people with more avoidant attachment pattern and I was just thinking when you think about Generations especially like the Gen X generation it would make a lot of sense for something like avoidance to be even maybe more dominant than something like anxious attachment but I don't have the research on that specifically but it is interesting to think about how parenting Styles and patterns of raising children can maybe Foster or encourage one style or another so in this style we're talking about something defined by what is often used in the really deep attachment literature repeated maternal rejection is the core uh core Dynamic and it doesn't necessarily mean you were rejected what it means is that the child's bids for connection the child's attempts to engage in collaborative responsive caregiving were often met by a parent who dismissed those bids for connection and in which the child interprets as rejection so the idea is that very early on these kids learn that you know what I'm not necessarily going to get my needs met by being needy and clingy and crying or angry in fact the opposite is true the more independent and autonomous I am because I've learned to be the more likely I am to receive positive whatever that is connection in whatever form with my caregiver and as I've said also in many videos don't forget this comes essentially from John bulb's work and Mary ainsworth's work especially on the strange situation as we talk about these Styles and how we look at adult relationships because don't forget the concept here is that attachment Theory describes the earliest infants experience the infants earliest experiences in the world with caregivers and how that interplay goes back and forth and how that becomes the internal template or map for how we believe love and relationships and reciprocity and safety and connection and communication and vulnerability what all of that looks like so when you're thinking about avoiding attachment and you're saying okay these kids learned early on for example in this strange situation these were the infants who at times when mommy and baby went into the research room with toys that was new to them and a researcher and a stranger came in they weren't that phase by The Stranger potentially uh actually and essentially when Mom left the room many of them just followed her with their eyes and watched her leave they didn't melt down they didn't get you know clingy and desperate because they had already learned that that doesn't work but when they measured their heart rates and cortisol and all the things that were happening internally many of these babies were just as stressed on the inside as the babies who were melting down on the outside so these are going to be adults who often do the same thing they're they might look cool as a cucumber on the outside to you and on the inside there can be a lot more going on but as a result of all of that they tend to engage in certain patterns around their themselves and relationships so the first sign is that if you have a more avoidant attachment pattern it's very likely that you experience experienced a more emotionally neglectful environment in which your parent didn't necessarily do out loud walk- on eggshells anger sadness they were more likely to be absent to be disengaged to be maybe give you the silent treatment to not ask about your feelings so it's very unlikely that you had if you have a solely more avoidant attachment pattern you didn't necessarily have eggshell caregivers you had the opposite it was like an environment often devoid especially of negative emotions number two your parent created rewarded you experienced or it was expected for you to be independent they were like Yay look how great you are on your own playing alone autonomous there was a reason and a reward for being independent and at the end of the day you had to be and so you often learn to care for yourself but that is seen as a very positive trait by your caregivers number three you learned very early to deactivate your attachment needs whenever you you felt emotional needy or vulnerable you shut it down because you already learned most likely that crying it out or having a fit or tantrum didn't work and so things like emotional intimacy and vulnerability you often shut down in yourself and receiving from others you might tune it out not know how to validate it or or invalidate your own emotions that way and or you only let your yourself experience these things alone number four you were not necessarily played with and I don't think historically parents played with their kids a lot at the end of the day though it wasn't like you engaged in a lot of collaboration even if it was like cooking together interacting together playing board games together the chances are pretty high that you were doing a lot of things alone and you sort of didn't get engaged with in a very reciprocal collaborative way and don't forget that you know play is a child's work and so even if it was you know watching you play something or engaging these parents were often not really participating in that the next one is you feel safest when you have boundaries when things are clear when you're controlling things when you're disconnected from too much in meshman or emotionality and so you often set up your life that way where it feels like you're inflexible you're rigid or you're sort of conditional about things because that is how you took care of yourself and stayed safe and so you often apply that to other people with no real tolerance for that kind of you know boundaryless open too touchy feely kind of woo woo stuff often that feels really unsafe for you and it can trigger things inside that you also don't want to feel so you might also shut that down number six you often have a deep longing you really often do want to be seen want to feel connected with somebody but it feels so foreign and unsafe so your longing is there but your your need to protect yourself is greater and so those two are often you're sort of wrestling with those but if you're very harshly in the avoiding camp and you're not working on it you will always choose your own safety over the the couple or the we the safety of the we in the relationship and the safety meaning emotional safety essentially number seven you often surprise yourself at the beginning of a relationship you can be sort of anxious and engaged and feel like I'm really secure like I'm able to express how I feel but as things get deeper and more emotion gets involved you often find yourself deactivating from attachment you often find yourself sabotaging connection and pulling back and getting rigid again and so you know many of you know this around this one especially this this style too much closeness is not safe and so even though in the beginning it's like oh I I I can do this when it starts to get real you tend to back away in some regard or in in a significant way and then lastly you're a big self Soother whether you binge watch binge eat numb dissociate use substances have addiction issues and or being alone is one of the ways you do you know manage all of these feelings to self soothe and I've talked a lot about people having this you know activated nervous system that being alone is the only time you feel safe and that is often true for avoidance as well that too much demand from others creates this longing for isolation to manage it and often remember you were alone maybe you were left to cried out in your crib or your room or you played a lot in your room going back to what I was saying about our generation so there is something about being alone that feels inherently soothing to the self and there's nothing wrong with that in any regard unless it is depression unless it prohibits true connection or friendship you know you want it to change things like that but even being alone you might numb out with things like on the one hand you feel safe alone but when you really feel your aloneness that also triggers your vulnerability so you find ways to often distract and self soothe from those so those are often the common signs of avoiding attachment of course there are more but essentially we have this piece where we learned very early on on to shut down our vulnerability and needs and then to engage in strategies to try to manage all the vulnerability that brings up in Us in the world and relationships Etc so that's it for today thank you so much for being here please stay safe and well um I'll talk a lot more about attachment this is one of my favorite absolute topics I'm going to talk tomorrow about eight signs of more anxious attachment and we'll keep going with disorganized ized and things like that but remember that doing this work can be helped through therapy through books through podcasts through really being motivated if you have the style to challenge yourself to tolerate closeness and connection and risk because it can feel so antithetical to who you are and how you are in the world but at the end of the day if you don't change this and you want to be in relationship you will end up pushing people away because it will just feel like too much for you and so those who I have seen be successful in therapy are often very honest with themselves very motivated to challenge when they want to run to lean in to look at their judgments rigidities remember this style often does a lot of things to deactivate attachment like over focusing on imperfections in relationships and pining for The One That Got Away and always thinking the next one is going to be better or prettier or smarter or more handsomer whatever they do a lot of things that are often unconscious until they become conscious so make sure you're aware of those all right thank you for being here have a good day and I'll see you tomorrow bye