I’m A DA , tending toward more secure as i grow
Dec 31, 2017 23:24:12 GMT
via mobile
tnr9, lucky, and 1 more like this
Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2017 23:24:12 GMT
So, i just became aware of attachment styles over this last year. I have a very painful relationship history that involves lots of violence and trauma against me, starting with a narcissistic mother/alcoholic father.
Over the years I have sought and benefitted from a lot of therapy, self help, and spiritual practice. I have undergone psychological evaluation as part of custody proceedings and have been encouraged by professionals that I made it through a very unusual and traumatic history with my mental and emotional health well intact, but it took a long time to get here !
I took the assessment, and fall in the generally secure range but DA in intimate relationships. I wouldn’t say I am textbook. Or, I am on the “light” end of the spectrum, I have come a long way to intimacy and can share that comfortably as long as I have time and space for solitude and a lot of autonomy. My ideal relationship involves long term monogamy with plenty of time together but separate homes. Some find this odd but I can’t imagine a better situation. It’s my dream and I hope one day to realize it!
I recently ended a relationship with another avoidant. There for a while, i would have said i was AP! His distrance triggered the heck out of me, it was beyond my comfort level. odd right? Once i recognized how I was giving myself over to anxiety and i saw the pattern of triggers I began finding ways to understand that and self soothe. I have a meditation practice already established so that helped. But recognizing the dynamic in him, myself, and the relationship as a whole was extremely helpful. Knowledge is power if you take it seriously and take responsibility for what you know!
my true tendency is to retreat after a time of closeness and keep a perimeter around myself. I feel a lot of love, but tend to chose partners that can’t reciprocate. I am working on that, now that I see it.
I really would like to have a healthy intimate relationship, i am comfortable with expressions of intimacy both physical and emotional... but there is a block somewhere deep inside that causes me to bolt and run when i feel threatened or disrespected. Once it’s activated it’s tough to stop but I am working on it. I even began working on it with my last partner. He and I might have made it work if he were a little farther into his process, he doesn’t know about attachment types yet. I tried to tell him but we were fighting so it didn’t go over well. ha.
I know that DA behaviors are difficult to understand, and often completely misunderstood. I can tell you that when triggered my outsides definitely don’t match my insides, and i will be behaving in a way that belies how i truly feel, just to protect myself, sometimes protect myself FROM myself. I tend to be stoic and people think I am hard, but when i am retreating I am actually feeling the need to self soothe and get my bearings and make myself safe and figure out what is good for me. Sometimes I am completely blank and it takes me some space and quiet to begin to have meaningful insight into what is going on with me.
I want to say, that it’s easy to make an avoidant the bad guy in a relationship. I should know, i’ve done it to my ex partner. Ironically. I can tell you this, neither avoidant or anxious spells health and stability. I can spot an unhealthy AP a mile off, (there are levels of health i am referring to within attachment style) and even if they are crazy about me I can never really relax into them. Underneath a facade of “availability” is a person willing to throw themselves under a bus for me and I don’t respect that because i know it’s dysfunctional. I have learned how to love myself and what that looks like, and if i can see someone doesn’t love themselves enough to take good care of their emotions and wellbeing, they will let me down also. So I am taking all this valuable information with me into my next dating endeavor, after a while to rest and heal and enjoy my life in it’s simplicity right now.
It’s all about boundaries isn’t it? I actually feel uncomfortable if someone doesn’t have good boundaries with me. My boundaries have gotten so much better, internal and external. I was a people pleasing DA, believe it or not.
I don’t like being a pleaser, and believe me, I don’t like when someone is being a people-pleaser to me. It reeks of an agenda and control. I didn’t realize that’s how it comes off until I experienced it, myself.
I see lots of AP’s throwing themselves at unwilling partners, and in a way i did that a bit with my last partner. It was a matter of not taking him for who he said he was and thinking I could change that somehow. I could earn his “change”. But i see now how sick that was. When i look back at that i cringe. Not least because I did not posses what I was trying to offer, which was unconditional “love” and “security” and “commitment” . I was throwing my issues at him to fix and he couldn’t. That was my job to do and I had to take the focus off of him to do it.
The long list of changes i thought he had to make , I had to make myself, in relation to how I live with me. I thought he didn’t listen to me? Well, i ignored myself and my inner convictions just to be with him. Who can i control? me. I had to begin to listen to me, my feelings. my reality. and i found out that i was letting myself down in so many ways that i accused him of. I was my enemy, he wasnt. He was just a guy trying to find his own way too.
As a DA growing more secure, I like my independence, and I am growing into healthy autonomy. I need a partner that is that way also. I love knowing that am ok, no matter what happens, I can make it alone and find love in humans around me. I know that I am complete and I have a lot to offer someone who can love me as I am and be willing to grow with me.
I am relaxing into myself and my secure friendships and really feeling the love, I feel good. I will keep growing my awareness, and i feel confident that my experiences will improve as I grow. I feel more hopeful and content to let myself unfold than I ever have.
It’s been a long and painful road. I like this forum, it’s been helpful to read as i outgrew my last relationship.
I will be lurking around to stay tuned in to what is really going on, this is the first break up where I have been so open to my feelings and the process of grief. Yes, Avoidants grieve, even if they end the relationship.
Over the years I have sought and benefitted from a lot of therapy, self help, and spiritual practice. I have undergone psychological evaluation as part of custody proceedings and have been encouraged by professionals that I made it through a very unusual and traumatic history with my mental and emotional health well intact, but it took a long time to get here !
I took the assessment, and fall in the generally secure range but DA in intimate relationships. I wouldn’t say I am textbook. Or, I am on the “light” end of the spectrum, I have come a long way to intimacy and can share that comfortably as long as I have time and space for solitude and a lot of autonomy. My ideal relationship involves long term monogamy with plenty of time together but separate homes. Some find this odd but I can’t imagine a better situation. It’s my dream and I hope one day to realize it!
I recently ended a relationship with another avoidant. There for a while, i would have said i was AP! His distrance triggered the heck out of me, it was beyond my comfort level. odd right? Once i recognized how I was giving myself over to anxiety and i saw the pattern of triggers I began finding ways to understand that and self soothe. I have a meditation practice already established so that helped. But recognizing the dynamic in him, myself, and the relationship as a whole was extremely helpful. Knowledge is power if you take it seriously and take responsibility for what you know!
my true tendency is to retreat after a time of closeness and keep a perimeter around myself. I feel a lot of love, but tend to chose partners that can’t reciprocate. I am working on that, now that I see it.
I really would like to have a healthy intimate relationship, i am comfortable with expressions of intimacy both physical and emotional... but there is a block somewhere deep inside that causes me to bolt and run when i feel threatened or disrespected. Once it’s activated it’s tough to stop but I am working on it. I even began working on it with my last partner. He and I might have made it work if he were a little farther into his process, he doesn’t know about attachment types yet. I tried to tell him but we were fighting so it didn’t go over well. ha.
I know that DA behaviors are difficult to understand, and often completely misunderstood. I can tell you that when triggered my outsides definitely don’t match my insides, and i will be behaving in a way that belies how i truly feel, just to protect myself, sometimes protect myself FROM myself. I tend to be stoic and people think I am hard, but when i am retreating I am actually feeling the need to self soothe and get my bearings and make myself safe and figure out what is good for me. Sometimes I am completely blank and it takes me some space and quiet to begin to have meaningful insight into what is going on with me.
I want to say, that it’s easy to make an avoidant the bad guy in a relationship. I should know, i’ve done it to my ex partner. Ironically. I can tell you this, neither avoidant or anxious spells health and stability. I can spot an unhealthy AP a mile off, (there are levels of health i am referring to within attachment style) and even if they are crazy about me I can never really relax into them. Underneath a facade of “availability” is a person willing to throw themselves under a bus for me and I don’t respect that because i know it’s dysfunctional. I have learned how to love myself and what that looks like, and if i can see someone doesn’t love themselves enough to take good care of their emotions and wellbeing, they will let me down also. So I am taking all this valuable information with me into my next dating endeavor, after a while to rest and heal and enjoy my life in it’s simplicity right now.
It’s all about boundaries isn’t it? I actually feel uncomfortable if someone doesn’t have good boundaries with me. My boundaries have gotten so much better, internal and external. I was a people pleasing DA, believe it or not.
I don’t like being a pleaser, and believe me, I don’t like when someone is being a people-pleaser to me. It reeks of an agenda and control. I didn’t realize that’s how it comes off until I experienced it, myself.
I see lots of AP’s throwing themselves at unwilling partners, and in a way i did that a bit with my last partner. It was a matter of not taking him for who he said he was and thinking I could change that somehow. I could earn his “change”. But i see now how sick that was. When i look back at that i cringe. Not least because I did not posses what I was trying to offer, which was unconditional “love” and “security” and “commitment” . I was throwing my issues at him to fix and he couldn’t. That was my job to do and I had to take the focus off of him to do it.
The long list of changes i thought he had to make , I had to make myself, in relation to how I live with me. I thought he didn’t listen to me? Well, i ignored myself and my inner convictions just to be with him. Who can i control? me. I had to begin to listen to me, my feelings. my reality. and i found out that i was letting myself down in so many ways that i accused him of. I was my enemy, he wasnt. He was just a guy trying to find his own way too.
As a DA growing more secure, I like my independence, and I am growing into healthy autonomy. I need a partner that is that way also. I love knowing that am ok, no matter what happens, I can make it alone and find love in humans around me. I know that I am complete and I have a lot to offer someone who can love me as I am and be willing to grow with me.
I am relaxing into myself and my secure friendships and really feeling the love, I feel good. I will keep growing my awareness, and i feel confident that my experiences will improve as I grow. I feel more hopeful and content to let myself unfold than I ever have.
It’s been a long and painful road. I like this forum, it’s been helpful to read as i outgrew my last relationship.
I will be lurking around to stay tuned in to what is really going on, this is the first break up where I have been so open to my feelings and the process of grief. Yes, Avoidants grieve, even if they end the relationship.
