A warm welcome and an invitation to introduce yourself!

Hi! All new here. I'm a man, soon 37 years old. I just found these forums after googling on "earned secure attachment".
I've known about attachement theory for quite a few years now, and been working on it every since. But I started therapy and work on myself a long time before that, because of general anxiety and depression since childhood. Learning about attachment theory was a revelation though. Everything suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Parallel to the work I am doing on myself and in therapy, I entered the dating scene after having been single for 3 years (been 4 years now).
Before that, I was in a relationship with a secure type for 7 years. But this didn't work out in the end. I tired her out and I could see it. We decided to end things in a friendly manner before things got any worse.
Finding secures is the goal, but it doesn't always work out, unfortunately. Back then I didn't know about attachment theory. If I had, I might have put in more constructive efforts.

Very recently, I dated a secure woman (but not very secure, she was quite anxious and slightly avoidant...I made her take the test after it ended!).
Things started very well but my anxiety took over after we had sex together. The fear of losing her became very strong. I hadn't been with someone so interesting on so many levels for a long time. Physical attraction was mutual and strong as well. Great and open effective communication on both ends. My attachment got also triggered by the fact that she had described to me a relationship with one of her exes, who certainly seemed to be an anxious type. This freaked me out, because she said that this had been too much for her. So yeah, self-fulfilling prophecy...
However, I got a lot of feedback from her after we decided that this wasn't going to work out. I asked for it. I got very useful information from her about how exactly she could feel my anxiety. This is a rare gift! She complimented me for being so open about my needs.
I'm still heartbroken, but I handle it a lot better than I would have 10 years ago. Some progress, but I'm very disappointed in myself, as I thought I had come further than this.
And ashamed that my "neediness" is so obvious and can be felt so strongly. And finally worried about the prospects for the future, when I see that even the (at least, some) secure types can be turned off very early on.

But I'm not giving up the fight!

hi.
i’m an avoidant working on and a long way toward becoming secure, it’s been a long road. i am here to gain support as i work through a painful breakup with my ex DA.
so far it’s helping me quite a bit i think so thanks for being here.

Thank you!
It's difficult not to be ashasmed of my neediness, but I am working on it. At least I am a lot more open now to make my needs for closeness known.
You're right, letting it rule my life does ruin potential relationships as I have just experienced...fighting it does backfire.

I like your analogy! What doesn't come naturally truly does not feel comfortable.
Thanks again for your words of encouragement!

Shame is mostly the reason why we feel so "damaged" inside ourselves. I agree, we shouldn't feel ashamed, we need to work on it to address it.
Indeed, it was developed at a very young age, when we were most vulnerable. Not by our own doing. It came to as a defense mechanism, to make sense of the world at that time ("if I don't receive love from my parents, it must mean that I am unlovable, because deeply flawed, my fault").

Two sides of the same coin, right! Same underlying problems, just a different early approach at dealing with them.

Thanks for the warm welcome, fellow suffering human

You're absolutely right, tnr9 . It's shame that drives us, and is often the cause for perfectionist tendencies, to make up for our perceived shortcomings.
I think that I do it with anyone, not only with people who mirror the inconsistent treatment from our past, but of course the result is a lot worse with those people.

Still struggling with accepting that I am enough and not too much, especially when I get concrete feedback from people sometimes that I am too needy/insecure or not confident enough.
These occasions trigger my negative core beliefs big time. How do you deal with this type of external confirmation?

Thanks for your support. Hugs back to you!

Well, what you wrote calls for even more questions!

Interesting challenge. I think I would give more weight to the 10 friends who tell me I am needy/insecure, just because of the higher number. Statistically, they are more likely to be right than the one friend who knows me and fully accepts me. But then, there is also a difference between friends and romantic partners. It is easier to be accepted by a friend than by a potential partner. A lack of self-confidence is usually not a deal-breaker in a friendship, but it often is in romantic relationships (at least in my experience). Another reason I would also give more weight to those who tell me I am insecure, is because it fits with my core belief of being unlovable/unworthy, by way of confirmation bias.
I feel equally influenced by all these psychological entities such as insecure attachment and psychology/science in general. If the theory behind insecure attachment says (thanks to multiple, reliable and valid observations) that insecure people tend to act this way or that way, then I will believe it. It carries more weight than what I know about myself.

I agree with your view that for secure people, people's opinion of them matter only to the degree that they let that person's opinion matter. And everything else you wrote about how insecure people let others define them instead of defining themselves. Self-abandonment, exactly. But what happens when you keep falling in a pattern? When you keep seing examples in life where you are rejected because of your insecurities? Isn't there some objective truth to it? Isn't this who you are? An insecure person. How do you not let these external assessments affect you?
I'm definitely stuck on a fixed mindset, even though I would like to change that (or I wouldn't be here).
It's very difficult to separate worth as something independent, separate from something we do or don't do, but of course this makes sense to think this way when you grew up on conditional love, when your worth was so tied on what you actually did or did not do.

What does accepting oneself fully actually mean? I don't have any concrete tangible flaw I can think of that is really bothering me and that I struggle to accept, besides the central flaw of being unsure of myself. Is it possible to even accept that? Considering this, I would tend to need someone who can accept this flaw. But this doesn't seem to be possible, as this is usually what is so off-putting in a romantic relationship.

It's the self fulfilling prophecy, alright. What is driving my insecurities is that sense of shame/not being good enough that I inherited from my childhood, like many people here (at least APs). But then these insecurities do indeed become reinforced by other people who tell me that I am insecure. And since I believe them, then I continue acting in an insecure way.

I see where you are going about letting insecurity define you. If you let it, then it will for sure. It's precisely that distinction that I struggle making: that insecurity is not me. But since insecurity overshadows everything, this is what makes it so challenging. It affects everything. It can even turn positive qualities into something we play down. In the end, it is no longer possible to tell the insecure you from the real you. I like that this distinction seems to address many problems at once, as it comes quite close to the root of these problems.

Good question regarding whether insecurity is a flaw, given that everyone experiences at one degree or another.
The only thing I know is that it is considered by many as unattractive, especially in romantic relationships. And since I let define insecurity define me, it affects the whole me. The whole me is therefore unattractive, instead of the insecurity only.