jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 15, 2018 14:49:03 GMT
Attention AP's (and anyone else that feels like throwing some advice my way)...I've very recently broken up with my ex boyfriend (you can read here if you like jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1252/chance ) I suspect he may be FA, however that's only based on my reading. Although I was initially looking for answers as to why we had broken up so suddenly, in visiting this forum and many other websites, it's reminded me of psychology and attachment theories, having studied them over 8 years ago at college and I want to take this opportunity to learn, and 'improve' myself. I knew back in college I had AP tendencies, and they were far worse back then. I have noticed in myself a marked improvement over the last 5-6 years, possibly due to growing up and 'life experience' and possibly due to having a 3 year relationship with a very secure person in that time frame. Once I started reading about attachment theory again recently, I again identified as most probably being AP. I've since completed a test ( www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl ) scoring as low avoidance 1.72 and medium anxiety 4.0, combined placing me as anxious-preoccupied. I would say, placed on the graph, I am not far off 'secure' So, I'm looking for advice from anyone really as to how they have gone about their journey in amending their attachment style? I'm already seeking some counselling sessions which is something I've never done (aside from one joint session with my ex) as I can almost certainly identify the causes of my AP nature from my childhood and I'm ready to understand how to tackle them from a professional point of view. But I'd also like to know what else others have done, or would suggest doing. Are there great books you have read? Exercises that you practice to control your AP being triggered? I know this is likely to be a long old slog, and I'm not expecting changes over night but what is the starting point?
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 15, 2018 18:49:01 GMT
Thanks very much Anne, very much appreciated!
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Post by alexandra on Aug 16, 2018 0:33:45 GMT
I'm working on this, Jess. It's turned out to be harder than I thought to keep it a reasonable length and not meander all over the experience
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 16, 2018 7:20:59 GMT
I'm working on this, Jess. It's turned out to be harder than I thought to keep it a reasonable length and not meander all over the experience Thanks alexandra, really sweet of you to update me too. I wouldn't worry about the length (unless there is a word limit for posts) - your insight and advice will be invaluable I'm sure
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Post by alexandra on Aug 17, 2018 7:20:42 GMT
Full disclosure, I did not have a therapist, but that doesn’t mean I think not having one is the right way to go. It happened that I tried a couple who were not a good fit and it was a waste of time. I believe if I had a good one, the whole process would have been a lot faster and more efficient!
I was pretty severely textbook AP when I was younger. It took me six years after stumbling onto a description of AP to move into secure, and that was still after many, many years of overanalyzing why my dating life was so tumultuous and draining, and trying to check and adjust the whole way. Learning about AP was really exciting -- it was like I'd found my user manual! -- but then I had no idea what to do with that information. It just never occurred to me that the logical action was, learn to be more secure (which meant healing). So I never had that goal.
I’d say the most important pieces were these three: 1. increase self-confidence (this was deliberate, and building block key to the rest) 2. figure out where my AP had come from so I could heal from it (accident!) 3. recognize exactly what my AP behaviors and triggers are and figure out better ways to manage them (half deliberate, but wasn't aware of it in those attachment terms).
What's helped secondarily, because I’m a big nerd, is learning more about the other quadrants and really understanding the interactions between different types of partners (whether that's two people with different attachment styles or something else), and researching different perspectives on what makes a good partnership and a healthy self. So, so much reading and watching videos, on everything relationship-related.
For self-confidence: after a break up that devastated me, I went no contact (which, I never do as an AP, so focusing on myself for once was difficult but empowering) and decided I needed to cope with it by challenging myself. Really challenging myself, all the time. I tried a couple sports-related activities at this time that I'd always wanted to try and never did. I said yes to invitations to do things I normally wouldn't because they were far out of my comfort zone. I took charge of my career in ways I never had before, which was a major life change, and I planned a very extensive trip I'd been thinking about taking for years and had zero actual reason not to follow through on. I continued exercising a LOT and was in the best shape of my life 6 months after the breakup. I spent time in beautiful places and with good friends. It took about 4.5 months to regain my confidence once I was really focused on doing so, but I had gone above and beyond and actually built it anew and to be way, way higher than it ever had been.
I hadn’t thought about this in terms of the attachment quadrant (AP is low view of self, high view of others), it was knowing myself well enough to know that I needed to rebuild after the breakup, but in retrospect, that’s why that step was so helpful in the process.
During this time, I also happened to start looking up signs of emotional abuse (more reading!), since I was wondering if there were patterns I should think about in my exes. I'd once briefly dated a guy who love-bombed then gaslighted me, which is a truly viscerally horrible thing. He was malicious and I ran away quickly. Anyway, this led me to PD and abuse, which led to something pretty darn important: I had no idea where my AP came from. But then I read all about multi-generational and extended family impacts of trauma, and that was very enlightening, since I’d never thought about it outside of parents (and mine are nice). Suddenly, I had this understanding of responsibility and feelings I’d taken on that weren’t actually mine, and an understanding of why I knew what a “healthy” relationship looked like yet would also accept insecure romantic ones with meh boundaries as normal. As my confidence improved, I was able to process this in a really useful way.
Finally, I am an extremely reasonable person MOST of the time. But, very rarely, I’m not, which I always found inexplicably strange. Plus, I felt this kind of… let’s say attraction to “coolness with an edge.” After reflecting on a lot of my anxious-avoidant trap disaster relationships, I sorted out that both those things were related to AP triggering. I’d realized a few years ago that the great exhausting consuming “passion” I felt for some of my ex partners was my anxiety being triggered. That’s why it felt overwhelming yet also awful after a while. More recently, I realized that every time I’ve ever felt overbearing, responding disproportionately to something followed by overwhelming anxiety, it’s always been my fear of abandonment being triggered. There’s more to this, of course, but simply put, I can identify when and how my responses are attachment problems now, and am still working out the best ways to de-escalate or manage it if it does happen. Changes in perspective on self and others and healthy boundaries has also naturally improved this.
All of this over a long period of time eventually just completely clicked and I “got” attachment theory. It started to come in waves, partially because my ex and I were trying to work things out eventually and I was doing so much to understand what had gone wrong the first time, and throughout that process I would periodically have these great insights. Since our problems really were so heavily attachment-related, it all tied in. And eventually, it occurred to me to try taking the tests again –I’d moved into secure and I’ve stayed there. When I took the test is when I realized what this whole process had been for me – I hadn’t known it, but all that work was healing and learning what was secure. It’s very freeing. For example, I can state my needs for the first time without feeling ashamed, communicate everything that’s going on in a coherent way, and I have much better boundaries. I’m also not really attracted to “edgy” partners now… I just see it as instability that isn’t cute anymore.
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 18, 2018 16:24:19 GMT
alexandra Thank you so much for taking the time to consider your journey from AP to earned-secure, and for sharing it with me. I understand that it will take me a while to even begin to fully understand and change my attachment style, but it's really positive and gives me a lot of hope knowing that you (and I'm sure many others) have been able to, and although I'm sure times have been hard, it sounds like the time you spent rebuilding your self confidence gave you some great experiences and memories. Sometime's it feels quite overwhelming at the moment. Although I can recall reading about attachment styles several years ago, having done the test recently and reflected on a lot of my behaviour over recent weeks and indeed over my lifetime, it saddens me that I act and feel like I do when I'm triggered. I feel like my mind hasn't really switched off at all, I only hope that by consciously choosing to try and 'heal' and change my attachment style, it will allow me to follow a path similar to yours. I am in the process of looking at counselling/therapy and would like to explore this option, but like you, I think it will only be beneficial if they are particularly knowledgeable about attachment styles, and if we can work together well. So we shall see where that takes me. I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the guy that love-bombed and gas lighted you. I hadn't read about multi-generational trauma and it's effects either, until I read your post yesterday. That is so interesting! There seems to be so much that can have an affect on us during a life time, so although I believe I know in all likelihood what has caused my AP style, there could well be other contributing factors too. I'm sure I have a whole road of discovery and learning ahead. A question, relating to your 3rd point of recognising what your AP behaviours and triggers are? I apologise if it's a silly question given how much great information you've already given me - but how did you recognise these things? I know some of my behaviours for sure, but I'm just wondering whether there are things that I do that I don't even realise are AP, or triggers that again, I don't realise are triggering me. Perhaps this will relate to me fully working out exactly what has caused my AP style in the first place, but I thought I'd ask whether you had any specific advice on how you worked these things out for yourself? Thank you again, so much, for all of your posts so far. It really has been so helpful. And I'm truly glad to hear that you have been able to heal and earn secure.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2018 17:15:22 GMT
jess92, it's wonderful, what you are doing! your sincerity and dedication will bring you what you need, when you need it. 🌸
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Post by leavethelighton on Aug 18, 2018 19:43:12 GMT
I think it's helping to approach this from a more holistic angle-- not just romantic relationship, but also friendship, familial. That gives you more opportunities to work on patterns of thoughts/feelings/behavior, even if you have different attachment styles in different types of relationships. Sometimes it's easier to see with family too that you need to learn to ask for help, or to make fewer assumptions about other people's assumptions, etc. etc. I've also found books by Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt to be helpful.
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 18, 2018 19:54:17 GMT
jess92 , it's wonderful, what you are doing! your sincerity and dedication will bring you what you need, when you need it. 🌸 juniper it's a good job I've taken my make-up off... that genuinely just made me well up. Can't express how glad I am to have found this forum, and every one here. Thank you
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Post by alexandra on Aug 19, 2018 22:00:12 GMT
A question, relating to your 3rd point of recognising what your AP behaviours and triggers are? I apologise if it's a silly question given how much great information you've already given me - but how did you recognise these things? I know some of my behaviours for sure, but I'm just wondering whether there are things that I do that I don't even realise are AP, or triggers that again, I don't realise are triggering me. Perhaps this will relate to me fully working out exactly what has caused my AP style in the first place, but I thought I'd ask whether you had any specific advice on how you worked these things out for yourself?
It's not a silly question. Hm. I think the best couple of ways to do that outside of therapy are to really objectively listen, to everything, and to familiarize yourself with lists of typical AP behaviors (there's one in the thread anne12 linked to, for starters). I think it also helps at this point in your awareness to familiarize yourself with lists of secure behaviors, so you can stop and consider if something you're doing is a healthy response.
Listen to things others (family, friends, romantic partners) say or have said over the years, listen to your own mind, and listen to your body. Look for patterns. Weigh whether or not the person saying it had positive, or at least neutral, intent towards you whenever you heard it (including the stuff you're saying to yourself!). Throw it out if it's coming from a negative place. For example, I had a codependent relationship with a boyfriend in college that lasted for a couple years but was all around not healthy, and I wouldn't say he had positive intent towards me once he "caught" me after a long courtship period (he'd projected all over me and then was dissatisfied when it wasn't all reality). However, I do distinctly remember him saying I complain too much. I think it was a neutral statement in intent, and it stuck with me, because I knew he was right -- but I had thought it was a thing everyone did and it was normal. We never talked about it again, but I paid more attention, decided it wasn't normal, and that I should address it. Now I look at these AP lists, and it's on there, so at least I had a heads up on that one.
I am aware of when I'm being unreasonable, and for a long time thought it was PMS more than anything else (because it's harder to emotionally regulate those cycles every few months where it affects my moods). But occasionally I'd feel that same thin-skinned way during maybe an argument or conversation, even if it was about something that seemed like it wouldn't normally bother me. And I started having basically mini-anxiety attacks for the 12-48 hour periods after breakups starting in grad school, so I was aware of that pattern. There were similarities in all these feelings when these things happened, and I just put together this year that they're all tied together and related to abandonment triggers. I'm also not a person who normally has any anxiety... if it happens at all, it's always situationally brought on. I don't know if that made it simpler for me to identify AP behaviors once I knew what I was looking for because I'm pretty self-aware, so if I'm really responding anywhere outside of my baseline it is easy for me to pick out (even if it's not until a little after the fact).
An IRL friend of mine has been interested in my attachment process the last few months and just assessed that she's FA, and we were discussing this very same thing. She said that over the years, if she feels any reason to question her responses to things, that she has started to ask people she trusts and who are more stable than she is whether or not she's looking at something reasonably / realistically. Then she gets honest responses, and she listens to them and takes them to heart, and has found that's been really helpful for her. So if you are not quite at a point where you trust your ability to recognize secure behavior, you can always ask people for their takes on situations without bringing up attachment theory. You know, as a step to eventually doing it on your own (got to keep working on the positive view of self as much as of others and not end up relying on them!).
And as for that awful gaslighting guy... there was no long-term damage, so it was okay, because I learned what gaslighting feels like. I've encountered it with one other person since then, recognized the feeling a few hours later once we were no longer in the same physical location, and mentally ran from him soooooooooooooooo fast and never talked to him again. But I just bring that up because, again, it was part of learning to recognize bad situations from how my body was responding, and picking out whether I was contributing to a bad situation versus something I hadn't done wrong but was getting alarm bells about. So, really listening and working out objective intent.
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 20, 2018 16:26:36 GMT
Thanks alexandra, as always I've been working my way through all of the useful links that anne12 sent, they're all great and it is especially interesting reading through the list of AP behaviours and resulting issues in a relationship. It may seem bizarre, but I almost have to laugh when I read through behaviour lists and recognise things that I know I do, partly because I understand now why I act like that occasionally. It's almost like reading a description of myself, verbatim. I hadn't thought about looking at secure behaviours but that will definitely be helpful. I actually had a conversation with one of my exes in the last couple of days - he's textbook secure and we remained amicable after we split up. I have discussed my AP style with him and he is absolutely sure that he suggested something along the same lines whilst we were together, and we then discussed some of the 'episodes' I'd had early on in our relationship. I can't recall him speaking to me about possible attachment issues, but I certainly recognise the scenarios that we have since discussed as being hugely AP so hopefully I'm on the right track to becoming more familiar with myself. I've also started writing down a list of things that I can recall throughout my life that I would, when being as objective as I possibly can, class as my AP acting up. That's funny that you should mention PMS as I've always felt the same, despite there being no specific correlation if I am having an overly emotional day or suffering 'mood swings', I generally assume it's PMS. Do you tend to recognise now if you're beginning to trigger, and you're able to stop it happening? My worry is that I feel like I can retrospectively look at my reactions and class them as AP behaviours but, as seems to be associated with AP, when I am right in the thick of it, it feels like there's no way out and I'm just spiraling. Great suggestion to speak with someone that is more secure. I suppose the 'up side' of being AP is that I'm not too scared or worried to discuss my thoughts with people, and I have got a handful of people that I am very close to and can openly discuss almost anything with so listening to their insight I'm sure will help me until I'm confident enough to trust my own security and judgement. Glad to hear there was no lasting damage!
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Post by alexandra on Aug 20, 2018 21:43:33 GMT
I hadn't thought about looking at secure behaviours but that will definitely be helpful. Do you tend to recognise now if you're beginning to trigger, and you're able to stop it happening? My worry is that I feel like I can retrospectively look at my reactions and class them as AP behaviours but, as seems to be associated with AP, when I am right in the thick of it, it feels like there's no way out and I'm just spiraling. Isn't it funny? As I said, I did the exact same thing, but how is it that the logical next step to learning about insecure attachment is not immediately, so what does secure look like? If my triggering is hormonal, yes, I often pick up on it, and put a calendar reminder in my phone to verify lol. And maybe not have important or potentially loaded conversations for a couple days. However, if it's situational, it's usually instant and surprised, in response to something. I'm still working out the best thing to do. Right now I'm leaning towards, if it's with someone I'm close enough to, tell them what's happening. If not, then withdraw from the situation but with intent to revisit when calmer (not avoid outright), and just be alone to force self soothing. It happens less and less with working out the issues underlying the triggers, so I haven't had it happen frequently enough since gaining awareness to have what to do down pat.
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jess92
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Post by jess92 on Aug 21, 2018 15:09:23 GMT
I hadn't thought about looking at secure behaviours but that will definitely be helpful. Do you tend to recognise now if you're beginning to trigger, and you're able to stop it happening? My worry is that I feel like I can retrospectively look at my reactions and class them as AP behaviours but, as seems to be associated with AP, when I am right in the thick of it, it feels like there's no way out and I'm just spiraling. Isn't it funny? As I said, I did the exact same thing, but how is it that the logical next step to learning about insecure attachment is not immediately, so what does secure look like? If my triggering is hormonal, yes, I often pick up on it, and put a calendar reminder in my phone to verify lol. And maybe not have important or potentially loaded conversations for a couple days. However, if it's situational, it's usually instant and surprised, in response to something. I'm still working out the best thing to do. Right now I'm leaning towards, if it's with someone I'm close enough to, tell them what's happening. If not, then withdraw from the situation but with intent to revisit when calmer (not avoid outright), and just be alone to force self soothing. It happens less and less with working out the issues underlying the triggers, so I haven't had it happen frequently enough since gaining awareness to have what to do down pat. You're absolutely right, it makes complete logical sense when you realise, and I'm already reading up on secure behaviours today, so thank you. Ha! It brings a whole new use to 'monthly' tracking apps and the like I suppose with the situational responses, it comes down to mindfulness and learning that ability to be able to pull away from something when it feels like you're being triggered. It'll be a work in progress for me, for some time I imagine, but I really can't thank you enough for sharing.
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