Pretty in Pink

I created an a free account at yourPersonality (dream-owl.com) and I took the attachment style test and it gave me some amazing results.

I am an anxious attached person. A quick definition is Anxious Attachment = A strong desire for intimacy combined with doubts and abandonment anxiety. Yes, there is more to it and I will cover a few things but that is a good quick description.

A few signs of anxious attachment are: Intense emotional discomfort or avoidance of being alone, difficulty setting boundaries, fear of abandonment, feeling unworthy of love, frequent need for validation, people pleasing tendencies, low self esteem/self sabotaging tendencies, sensitivity in how others feel/speak/behave and difficulty trusting. Again, these are just SOME of the signs.

Attachement styles are created when we are young. It is formed by our primary caregivers. Those with Anxious attachment have a history of traumatic events, inconsistency/unpredictability in childhood, had a chaotic/overwhelming/intrusive caregivers, a feeling of having to care for others and make them happy to be able to get love in return and inconsistent affection.

I don’t share this to scare you… Quite the opposite! You can work on changing your attachment style to Secure… BUT it will take A LOT OF WORK AND DEDICATION! I am working on it myself and I don’t always get it right but I keep trying everyday!

Things I am doing to try and change to a Secure style and have been using tips I find online, books and of course so much therapy and using the tools my therapist gives me. Below is what has been suggested to me.

1. Work on being vulnerable with my partner… Examples… telling my husband about my past and what caused my trauma instead of hiding it, trying to ask for what I want and saying no when I don’t want/like something, stepping out of my comfort zone with things and not internazlizing my feelings and letting it go to worst case.
2. Practice mindfulness and trying to stay present in the current moment.
3. Learn about my attachment theory and my husband’s so that it can be used to help each other understand needs, wants and why certain bahviors happen.
4. Identifying and understanding triggers that cause anxiety or abandonment feelings… a few of mine are… People making jokes about me even if harmless because of internal guilt and shame, rejection… and this one is hard with RSD because I tend to percieve rejection very easily, something that reminds me of my previous abandonments, a person or action that reminds me of my past trauma, someone not feeling emotionally or physically present with me, not hearing from my partner or basically anything that leaves me with a feeling of uncertanity.
5. Letting go of what I can’t control…
6. Trying to figure out how to manage my emotions and feel safety in my emotions instead of guilt.

My husband and I do struggle with communication. We work on it and at times it can be amazing and like we are sharing a brain and then other times it feels like we are saying the exact same thing to each other but still can’t understand what is being said! It gets infuriating for both of us!

My husband is more of an avoidant attached person. I don’t think he has taken a test for it before but that is just what I see from reading about all this for the last 2-3 years. So, we struggle because he isn’t comfortable having or sharing emotions and I feel everything extremely deeply! Avoidant attached people are not comfortable depending on others, opening up to others, trouble/inability to validate others feelings because they tend to dismiss things they don’t feel, withdraw easy and prefer to handle things alone.

From what I wrote about myself you can see how communication can be a struggle BUT we work at it and that is all that I can ask for!

Take the quiz, read the in depth results and look at the charts, compare with your partner and maybe talking about it all will help find a better understanding of each other!

Until next time,
Pretty in Pink