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Post by 8675309 on Oct 16, 2019 11:08:39 GMT
Its there really more than 5%? My FA is the first one in 30 years of dating. It may seem like more because you're here where FA's are and people talking about FA's.
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Post by Nefertiti on Oct 16, 2019 14:06:20 GMT
Its there really more than 5%? My FA is the first one in 30 years of dating. It may seem like more because you're here where FA's are and people talking about FA's. I had such a hard time settling on FA as a description of my boyfriend. This is because I know for a fact that he needs love and attachment. I hardly found deep material about Disorganised Attachment. It was only when I read that there is a spectrum that I settled on FA. On the issue of the number of FA's around, I think that they are rare where I am from. I somehow managed to stumble on the one unique one. Never met one before in my dating life. Also 30 years if you count puppy love. Never heard a friend complain about a date who is avoidant. I have heard of guys with strange attachment styles but they usually have other psychological issues too. Their insecure attachment is more like a product of other diagnoses and they are unable to hide it quite as well as those with just attachment issues. |
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Post by anne12 on Oct 16, 2019 15:28:08 GMT
Its there really more than 5%? My FA is the first one in 30 years of dating. It may seem like more because you're here where FA's are and people talking about FA's. It depends on the different experts. Some think that desorganised attatment style is close to borderline and other psychiatric diagnosis. Others work with a wider range/wider definition of desorganised attatchment style. You can also have situational disorganised attatcmentstyle combined with some of the other attatchmentstyles (ap/secure/da attatchment style.) The desorganised part /the trauma part of your attatchment style can be only 3-15 % but this part is often what can make love life difficult. You can develop desorganised style from things later in life. From abusive relationships with NPD, a partner with aspd, a partner with borderline ect. Bikecraches and other accidents, rape and other kind of psycial violence, bullying ect. Experts /therapists can - beside their clients own history - among other things look at their clients body. The energy goes upwards from the stomac and up. And they can stiffen in their upper body, they notise how they talk ect., if they are late and confused, if they are having trouble with boundaries ect., their lovehistory and how their relationships have ended, power struggles/over-under dog dynamics/one in power and the other being powerless, addictions, temperament, worklife ect. jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1073/healing-disorganized-trauma-dramaqueen-kingWhen they are in survival mode -. To survive becomes more important than anything else. (fight, flight, freeze) |
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Post by alexandra on Oct 16, 2019 17:50:15 GMT
IRL, I've encountered 7 for sure (due to deep knowledge of them or them even taking the test and coming out FA). More men than women. And another suspected handful who have more severe comorbid issues so it's hard to tell. However, I also know thousands of people (and don't know all of their attachment styles, of course). It's actually a very small percentage, looking at it that way.
I'd suggest the two things that make it really difficult to tell how rare it is are: 1. insecures attract and bond with other insecures. I know I do, and I was textbook AP, so I could unconsciously find any avoidant in range!! I've rarely dated secures! That makes it seem like there must be a lot out there, rather than I just found all of them due to my selection biases (avoidants of both types supposedly make up about a third of the total population). 2. the bonds with insecures can be intense or otherwise why would we put up with it. I'd argue that if you've gotten really involved with an FA, no matter your attachment type, it will take up a lot of your attention because it's difficult to understand and it's intense. So you'll notice it in a magnified way, especially if you get conditioned to feel like it's familiar in a partner and then date more than one of them. But it's still a bias of what you're noticing.
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Post by faithopelove on Oct 16, 2019 20:35:12 GMT
I’ve had 4 serious relationships in my life. My ex husband was FA and I was with him 25 years...met him at 14. The other three were FA, AP and DA. My DA was by far the one I was most willing to love and stay with...I left the other 3.
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Post by happyidiot on Oct 16, 2019 21:36:20 GMT
Its there really more than 5%? My FA is the first one in 30 years of dating. It may seem like more because you're here where FA's are and people talking about FA's. There are more, I'm not sure where people even got that 5% statistic. I made a whole thread about it: jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1360/common-fearful-avoidant-styleYou probably don't attract FAs easily, due to being mostly secure, or you may have encountered FAs you never realized were FA. I know (friends or family) and have dated a disproportionate number of FAs. Also some DAs that have a decent chunk of FA-ness. But yes I do think there are a lot of us on this board, and it may be the attachment style most likely to bring AP and secure people to an internet forum. |
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Post by happyidiot on Oct 16, 2019 22:31:34 GMT
alexandra iz42 8675309 serenity faithopelove I was with the kindest, most loving and trusting secure partner for years, and that did certainly help me greatly, in many areas of my life, and I was able to have a secure relationship with him for a long time, but it definitely didn't magically change my attachment style to permanently secure. I still eventually deactivated from him. It's a mistake for anyone to think if only they act secure enough that an unaware avoidant will be healed and stay with them forever. Or for an insecure person to think that their only goal should be to find an elusive completely secure partner. When I deactivated, I don't think what triggered it was really to do with him, I think the big trigger for me was going through a lengthy, incredibly stressful illness. He saw me at my absolute worst. I was suffering so badly for a long time that I wanted to kill myself, but I was too sick to physically do anything to kill myself. I tried tried to stay in the relationship after that, I really did, I stayed with him for quite some time still, talking and talking about things, hoping that my feelings and physical attraction would return, and they just didn't. And I felt awful and ashamed being a bad partner to this kind secure man. And I had some legitimate non-attachment style issues with the relationship as well, and I just couldn't save it. I didn't know a thing about attachment theory in those days. I don't think him being secure and patient "enabled" me, I really doubt him acting insecure or being impatient with me would have sent me on some quest to figure out what was wrong with me sooner. Now I know a lot about attachment theory, and I'd done some work on my attachment issues prior to even knowing what it was called, and I think I can continue to work on it (maybe even faster/better?) within the context of a relationship. And I don't think that I need a completely secure partner. I don't think my current partner is completely secure, although he is definitely much closer to secure than the people I dated before him, which is probably helpful. When I think about it, even the last couple of people I dated before him, who were clearly really insecure (one avoidant, one anxious) still allowed me to work on healing my attachment issues, because I was so aware of what was going on, although I didn't date either of them for very long at all. Does someone need to know about attachment theory and the label for their specific type in order to be "aware" and working on it? I don't necessarily think so, but they have to have some level of self-insight and should probably be doing something like general self-help/personal growth work or reading relationship books or going to therapy or practicing spirituality, something of that nature rather than just being completely ignorant and blaming everything on something external. Maybe only someone striving to understand themselves can heal attachment wounds.
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Post by alexandra on Oct 17, 2019 6:59:09 GMT
Does someone need to know about attachment theory and the label for their specific type in order to be "aware" and working on it? I don't necessarily think so, but they have to have some level of self-insight and should probably be doing something like general self-help/personal growth work or reading relationship books or going to therapy or practicing spirituality, something of that nature rather than just being completely ignorant and blaming everything on something external. Maybe only someone striving to understand themselves can heal attachment wounds. I wasn't aware that what I was doing was taking steps to earn secure for the 2 years I was working on it, until after it happened. I knew I was AP but didn't know how it was actionable. I just was trying to work out a lot of things in earnest, change my life, and later on be a better partner when my FA ex and I were figuring out if we could get back together. When everything clicked after the second breakup, I became fully aware in retrospect of the work I'd done and how the attachment theory framework helps, and I revisited an old attachment assessment and tested secure for the first time. So, I don't think aware means aware of attachment theory persay (though it would make it easier!), but aware that you have issues and you want to figure out how to fix them and take on full responsibility for your role in doing that. Open-minded and receptive to feedback and to communicating your feelings/process best you can if someone wants to discuss it, as opposed to the tried and true strategies of getting defensive and either shutting down or saying what you think the other person wants to hear so they don't leave. I think the rest of your post seems in line with mine in this thread. Security in your partner helps once you've decided to do your own work, but it's not the magic bullet. But it is harder to earn secure if you're frequently getting triggered by an insecure partner. It doesn't allow you to recondition your nervous system if it's constantly activated (or shut down), since at least I found I needed to work out of those states each time in order to get back into a productive mindset. I couldn't make any progress in an anxiously triggered state because I couldn't be rational about my emotions and what they actually meant until it passed. |
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Post by Dualcitizen on Oct 18, 2019 1:07:48 GMT
I have been wondering, has anyone here read an account of an FA who changed their attachment style from FA to secure over time because their partner remained kind, reliable and trusting? I keep reading the same type of stories over and over... partner of FA tries to be as secure as possible, sometimes for years, but FA remains the same or steadily becomes less reliable over time until there is effectively no relationship. This makes sense insofar as why would someone change if they have an enabler in their life, and can easily switch to new enablers? I'm thinking that changing attachment style has to come from the FA, and has little to do with the partner (though a good partner might help if the FA is committed to accomplishing secure attachments) I would suspect the partner of the F-A has to still display highly consistent centredness of character and extra mindfulness/compassion/kindness (this is a fine line, as it could lead to codependency), regardless of what an F-A throws at them, and therein lies the problem. Boundaries. They are not understood well at the subconscious level by an F-A (or any insecure attachment really). And I can categorically say, from experience, it's a nightmare to navigate the negative self talk constantly, and the "walking on eggshells" when you are trying to remotely express/explain anything, if you remotely express feelings it may lead to a pullaway, being jovial/cheeky and clearly being silly/slightly sarcastic as a joke (which is laughed at by secure people, and reciprocated), with an F-A with hypervigilance, leads to them being upset/overthinking commentary, when they should be laughing at themselves (which when you think about it, is almost impossible when you have C-PTSD and trauma causing the F-A in the first place). In my thread here jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/2209/when-fa-apologises-push-away, Shiningstar makes good points about where F-A's may be self development/awareness wise. Which would play a huge role in outcomes. It has to do with both. The partner/friend of the F-A has to be reliable (this will vary I would imagine with the amount of trauma/type of trauma the F-A has experienced + overall life experiences after childhood) and the F-A has to be self aware and working on themselves. Another quagmire would be, as the F-A does become more secure in attachment, they may actually feel a lot differently about who they are attracted too! Could throw another spanner in the works of a long term relationship. Securely attached people, like myself change, i've changed tremendously through life experience and my requirements from 20 to 40. |
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Post by happyidiot on Oct 18, 2019 3:21:16 GMT
I would suspect the partner of the F-A has to still display highly consistent centredness of character and extra mindfulness/compassion/kindness (this is a fine line, as it could lead to codependency), regardless of what an F-A throws at them, and therein lies the problem. Boundaries. They are not understood well at the subconscious level by an F-A (or any insecure attachment really). And I can categorically say, from experience, it's a nightmare to navigate the negative self talk constantly, and the "walking on eggshells" when you are trying to remotely express/explain anything, if you remotely express feelings it may lead to a pullaway, being jovial/cheeky and clearly being silly/slightly sarcastic as a joke (which is laughed at by secure people, and reciprocated), with an F-A with hypervigilance, leads to them being upset/overthinking commentary, when they should be laughing at themselves (which when you think about it, is almost impossible when you have C-PTSD and trauma causing the F-A in the first place). In my thread here jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/2209/when-fa-apologises-push-away, Shiningstar makes good points about where F-A's may be self development/awareness wise. Which would play a huge role in outcomes. It has to do with both. The partner/friend of the F-A has to be reliable (this will vary I would imagine with the amount of trauma/type of trauma the F-A has experienced + overall life experiences after childhood) and the F-A has to be self aware and working on themselves. Another quagmire would be, as the F-A does become more secure in attachment, they may actually feel a lot differently about who they are attracted too! Could throw another spanner in the works of a long term relationship. Securely attached people, like myself change, i've changed tremendously through life experience and my requirements from 20 to 40. Considering that you said in your next post that you have only known one FA in your life, you might want to make slightly fewer sweeping generalizations. I am FA and I don't pull away due to someone "remotely" expressing feelings, unless those feelings are anger. I laugh at myself and at life every single day and can certainly participate in normal sarcastic humor, in fact many FAs are known for being hilarious and engaging in witty back and forth banter. Being with me is not a "nightmare." You do make a good point about it being tricky to find the line between being extra mindful/compassionate/kind without being a doormat with no boundaries. An FA person doesn't want to date a doormat with no boundaries, and that's not good for that person either. |
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Post by persephone on Oct 18, 2019 4:10:33 GMT
You do make a good point about it being tricky to find the line between being extra mindful/compassionate/kind without being a doormat with no boundaries. An FA person doesn't want to date a doormat with no boundaries, and that's not good for that person either. Do you think this can vary from FA ago FA? My FA always made the decisions in our relationship; on the occasion I made any decisions, he’d make a fuss about it (eg if I chose a restaurant, he’d complain about how he didn’t like it when we got there). It made me too scared to ever decide on anything. I wanted to be a chill person, so I didn’t get upset about not having much say in anything. In hindsight, I felt like perhaps me making decisions = me controlling him in his subconscious mind, so that’s why there was always resistance. |
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Post by happyidiot on Oct 18, 2019 7:14:43 GMT
You do make a good point about it being tricky to find the line between being extra mindful/compassionate/kind without being a doormat with no boundaries. An FA person doesn't want to date a doormat with no boundaries, and that's not good for that person either. Do you think this can vary from FA ago FA? My FA always made the decisions in our relationship; on the occasion I made any decisions, he’d make a fuss about it (eg if I chose a restaurant, he’d complain about how he didn’t like it when we got there). It made me too scared to ever decide on anything. I wanted to be a chill person, so I didn’t get upset about not having much say in anything. In hindsight, I felt like perhaps me making decisions = me controlling him in his subconscious mind, so that’s why there was always resistance. I don't think it's that some FAs do want someone who has no boundaries and is a doormat, I think that you are just perceiving your ex acting controlling or wanting to be the decision-maker as meaning that, when they are not the same. A lot of us had very little control in childhood, and this can manifest in trying to control things in adulthood (and that can be expressed in various ways). Feeling out of control can make us feel more anxious. APs can do this kind of thing too, I have seen my AP friend literally sobbing in tears because she didn't get to choose the restaurant and didn't like the food. I'm trying to look back on my past self and times when I would, say, not be happy with a restaurant choice. I am not the kind of person who needs to make all the decisions or choose the restaurants, in fact I loathe being asked to pick all the time, but I can recall some times like that when I was with my secure ex, and I'm trying to think what I was feeling at the time. Maybe I was just in a bad mood and complaining about the food or restaurant was an easy target? Sometimes I also got irritated with him when he was trying to be helpful, because I felt like he wasn't listening to me, he wasn't helping in the way I wanted to be helped. Actually I don't know if this is really similar, but I recall myself being bothered by the food choices fairly recently at my current boyfriend's friend's dinner party. I am allergic to shellfish, which everyone knows, and there was basically nothing I could eat. And it sort of upset me, because I felt like my dietary needs weren't cared about and at the same time felt guilty and ashamed for having them. And I think I find spending time with my boyfriend's friends a bit triggering to my FA-ness. I don't know if this information is helpful. I just don't think even the most extreme FAs or someone with borderline personality disorder truly wants or needs someone without boundaries or finds that attractive. I think my secure ex was TOO accepting, maybe he is just the chillest most understanding and accommodating person on the planet, but I did feel like it would have been better if he had sometimes gently said some things were not ok with him or had some expectations of me. |
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Post by faithopelove on Oct 18, 2019 8:03:53 GMT
Do you think this can vary from FA ago FA? My FA always made the decisions in our relationship; on the occasion I made any decisions, he’d make a fuss about it (eg if I chose a restaurant, he’d complain about how he didn’t like it when we got there). It made me too scared to ever decide on anything. I wanted to be a chill person, so I didn’t get upset about not having much say in anything. In hindsight, I felt like perhaps me making decisions = me controlling him in his subconscious mind, so that’s why there was always resistance. I don't think it's that some FAs do want someone who has no boundaries and is a doormat, I think that you are just perceiving your ex acting controlling or wanting to be the decision-maker as meaning that, when they are not the same. A lot of us had very little control in childhood, and this can manifest in trying to control things in adulthood (and that can be expressed in various ways). Feeling out of control can make us feel more anxious. APs can do this kind of thing too, I have seen my AP friend literally sobbing in tears because she didn't get to choose the restaurant and didn't like the food. I'm trying to look back on my past self and times when I would, say, not be happy with a restaurant choice. I am not the kind of person who needs to make all the decisions or choose the restaurants, in fact I loathe being asked to pick all the time, but I can recall some times like that when I was with my secure ex, and I'm trying to think what I was feeling at the time. Maybe I was just in a bad mood and complaining about the food or restaurant was an easy target? Sometimes I also got irritated with him when he was trying to be helpful, because I felt like he wasn't listening to me, he wasn't helping in the way I wanted to be helped. Actually I don't know if this is really similar, but I recall myself being bothered by the food choices fairly recently at my current boyfriend's friend's dinner party. I am allergic to shellfish, which everyone knows, and there was basically nothing I could eat. And it sort of upset me, because I felt like my dietary needs weren't cared about and at the same time felt guilty and ashamed for having them. And I think I find spending time with my boyfriend's friends a bit triggering to my FA-ness. I don't know if this information is helpful. I just don't think even the most extreme FAs or someone with borderline personality disorder truly wants or needs someone without boundaries or finds that attractive. I think my secure ex was TOO accepting, maybe he is just the chillest most understanding and accommodating person on the planet, but I did feel like it would have been better if he had sometimes gently said some things were not ok with him or had some expectations of me. - “Sobbing in tears over a restaurant and food she didn’t like?” That sounds completely over the top to me- I’m AP and I’ve never in my life even thought to react like that to a restaurant choice no matter who I’m with or the situation. Maybe instead of attachment style affecting that it’s more of a sign of a person’s maturity/emotional age. |
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Post by Nefertiti on Oct 18, 2019 13:48:39 GMT
You do make a good point about it being tricky to find the line between being extra mindful/compassionate/kind without being a doormat with no boundaries. An FA person doesn't want to date a doormat with no boundaries, and that's not good for that person either. Do you think this can vary from FA ago FA? My FA always made the decisions in our relationship; on the occasion I made any decisions, he’d make a fuss about it (eg if I chose a restaurant, he’d complain about how he didn’t like it when we got there). It made me too scared to ever decide on anything. I wanted to be a chill person, so I didn’t get upset about not having much say in anything. In hindsight, I felt like perhaps me making decisions = me controlling him in his subconscious mind, so that’s why there was always resistance. When I read your post it just seems so alien to me that an FA would complain so openly. My FA bf wouldn't. Not about bad food. Maybe about bad service. Even then, he would just make a factual comment about it and stop. Trying to discuss it further with him would be too much work for me. He clams up. Can state the fact. Eg. "The waiter ignored us for way too long. This place has bad customer service." That is it. If it was my friends saying that, I would go into a whole discussion about exactly how bad the service is. Things that would be said include "It makes me so mad when wait staff deliberately sabotage someone's business out of sheer laziness. We must report this waiter/waitress to management!" That is how conversations with my friends flow. No brakes on feelings at all. Not him..unless it happens internally. So it can vary, I guess. |
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Post by happyidiot on Oct 18, 2019 14:34:53 GMT
happyidiot - “Sobbing in tears over a restaurant and food she didn’t like?” That sounds completely over the top to me- I’m AP and I’ve never in my life even thought to react like that to a restaurant choice no matter who I’m with or the situation. Maybe instead of attachment style affecting that it’s more of a sign of a person’s maturity/emotional age. Those things are not mutually exclusive, severe AP-ness and emotional immaturity. They are related. I’m FA and I’ve never ghosted or blocked someone, but I wouldn’t say that someone doing that is not to do with their attachment style. (maybe not the greatest example as I'm not trying to say it's typical of most APs to be that out of control and sensitive–although it's not like my friend is like that all the time either–just that I do believe it had to do with her attachment issues and anxieties, she feels abandoned or not cared about very easily) |
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