The Attachment Theory is maybe new to you but if you’re in this community, I’m sure you would’ve heard about it somewhere before. Me, I learnt about the attachment theory a few days ago after I came across something on reddit. It has helped me understand a few things about myself and maybe it will do same for you too(I hope so, but even if it doesn’t at least you know there’s something like that out there).

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Reddit is my go to place to interact with people. Maybe I wouldn’t say interact. I watch people interact from a distance but I still pick the information I need. So 2 days ago I found someone talking about being AA on an Attachment Theory subreddit. I don’t let things slide especially when the story is interesting. I needed to understand and get to the bottom of what the person was saying, but I couldn’t do that because they kept using AA, so I had to find out what AA meaning. I thought it was Alcohol Abuse as in like AA therapy at first, but it didn’t make sense when I substituted that into the story. I hit google and after going through several unrelated meanings, I arrived at Anxious Attachment( I’ll explain this later in this writing). Okay enough with the chit chat now. What is the whole attachment theory about?

From my understanding of the things I read, Attachment Theory is basically a concept that suggests that your behavior or social life and relationships is affected by how you were brought up. Trauma and other experiences you had growing up moulds you into the person or personality you have now. It suggests that your nervous system and attachment system are deeply wired together.

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Children are attached to their immediate and consistent caregivers for about at least 6months to 2 years of age. The responses of the caregiver develop into attachment patterns that guides the child in their relationships with other people in the later parts of their lives.

Based on whether or not your parent or caregiver were available for you emotionally, you can have one of four different attachment styles:

1. Secure Attachment
2. Anxious-ambivalent Attachment
3. Anxious Avoidant or Dissmisive Avoidant Attachement
4. Disorganized or Disoriented Attachment

Attachment goes beyond the childhood into adulthood. That’s what makes it something important to understand and deal with. It plays a significant role in our adult relationships both casual and romantic relationships.

Secure Attachment

This attachment style is seen when a child attaches securely to their parent or caregiver. Children’s attachment is heavily affected by their caregiver’s attention to their needs. A child attaches securely to their parent when they’re assured that their parent consistently attends to and meet their needs. These children grow into adults with good communication skills and are secure in their romantic relationships.

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Anxious-ambivalent Attachment

Children with inconsistent parents develop this attachment pattern. The child is stressed when their caregiver leaves and is comforted upon their return but exhibit protest behaviors in attempts to punish their parent for leaving. In their adult lives and relationships, people with this attachment style tend to exhibit hot and cold behavior in response to their partner leaving or not attending to their needs. This can be seen in texting for instance, an Anxious Ambivalent Attached person will most likely take time to text you back if you left them on read for a while. This is their protest behavior to punish you for leaving them on read.

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Anxious Avoidant

This is where I am. Adults like me that have an anxious avoidant attachment pattern have an immense fear of abandonment and rejection. They actively identify and search for “threats” to the relationship and constantly worry about the quality of the relationship. You could almost say they’re more obsessed with the other person’s happiness than they’re own, putting them first always and it destroys them. They over analyze and over react about every little event or text in fear that they might lose the relationship at any giving moment.

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Disorganized Avoidant Attachment

People who had this attachment pattern growing up did not have a particular coping mechanism for when their caretakers leave. Instead, they mostly will self isolate and resort to behaviors considered disruptive. They see people trying to build relationships with them as threats and will usually resort to social withdrawal and get aggressively defensive.

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My diagnosis of myself is self-diagnosis though which you really shouldn’t do. My symptoms and behavior more than matches the data of someone with an anxious avoidant attachment style. Every youtuber’s description of my symptoms also seem to be the same (this rarely happens because YouTubers seem to have so many different opinions, except for maybe therapists) so I’d say even if I was wrong, I’m pretty close to being right lol. You shouldn’t self-diagnose things like this. See a therapist.

To work on healing your attachment, the first step will be to understand what’s going on with you first. This helps you figure out what attachment pattern you have and then you can work on healing from there. This will be very difficult to do on your own. A therapist or psychologist will be most suited to help you through this.

I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Some of the attachment patterns are very closely similar and diagnosing yourself will end with a wrong approach to healing. Do your own in depth reading and see a therapist if you think this might be happening to you. And if you want to read more about the attachment patterns, you can go here for more info.

If you’re on reddit and are interested in joining the attachment
Theory subreddit, tap here.