"Throughout my life I've often been described as confident and outgoing. I can be the "life and soul" of a party and am able to strike up conversations with a wide variety of people. But what nobody would have guessed is that I secretly struggled to navigate close friendships. I used to overthink every unanswered text, I felt I needed to please to keep friends close, and I even pushed friends away because I thought they didn't care."
"Attachment styles describe how we think and behave in our closest adult relationships and are shaped by our childhood experiences. On the other hand, a person with insecure attachments will not feel lovable enough deep down, will feel they need to change themselves to be loved, and will always be on guard for rejection. This is normally caused by caregivers who were emotionally unavailable, critical, or unpredictable."
Attachment styles are patterns formed by childhood caregiving that shape how people think and behave in close adult relationships. Secure attachment produces a sense of being good enough and trust that others will meet needs based on consistent caregiving. Insecure attachment fosters deep feelings of unlovability, a compulsion to change oneself for approval, hypervigilance to rejection, people-pleasing, overthinking, and pushing others away. Such strategies often begin as survival responses to emotionally unavailable, critical, or unpredictable caregivers. Shame and isolation commonly follow, even when the person craves connection. Learning attachment theory can reframe these responses as adaptive rather than character flaws.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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