Post by blacksnow2 on Nov 23, 2019 18:02:13 GMT
This is how I made a mountain out of a molehill. Thanks FA attachment, love you <3.
I feel terrible. He sometimes looks really annoyed, other times like he's given up trying with me. And I'm like a fish out of water, trying to develop the right tools for the situation out of thin air right away so I can mend this bullshit and stop making a fool of myself. I thank the lord that most people aren't very informed on attachment theory because if he really knew what was going on, I think the shame would almost kill me.
I remember a coworker from an old job who did the same thing to me that I'm doing to this man, and I got so frustrated with him and thought he was incredibly immature. Everything makes so much sense now.
Last thing I wanted to add, because I've worked on my self-esteem quite a bit, there is overall less 'yearning' and more avoidance in me now. I have to say that the wall of impenetrability that avoidance offers is extremely useful in the workplace. I can do a better job, I can earn more, I can deal with office politics without being very affected. But it's so anti-emotion and not the real me. I understand it much better than I used to, that it's a shield from vulnerability and an uncaring world, and it does its job very well. My goal is not to stop being avoidant, but to knowingly and willingly use it as a tool in the right situation, as opposed to being an automatic coping mechanism in intimate relationships.
- Started new job.
- Married male coworker is really nice to me. And I'm nice to him back. Cool! Everything is normal. I actually lasted a whole week pretending I'm 'secure'. Proud of myself.
- Soon, I found myself attracted to him and even 'attached'. Dependency starts to rear its ugly head. I notice this feeling rise up in myself right away: it's rare in my shitty experiences that men are simply nice to me, usually they have agendas but I detect none here; he is an anomaly that doesn't fit my current framework and his niceness has been detected as "real caring", which on the one hand I'm glad to be able to detect, but on the other hand I hate that I'm so deprived of it that I'll start to want to cling onto any person who is genuine towards me.
- I start to freak out. I feel like my thoughts and emotions are pulling me in all kinds of directions from dependency/neediness to denial and tearing him apart in my mind. I even start projecting onto him "isn't he married? this is an emotional affair and not right at all".... when the guy's just being nice and it's only ME who interprets his actions the wrong way because I'm the one with attachment issues.
- Commence fucking mess.
- I don't know how to act around him. Continuing to be nice like before triggers me further into attraction -- the unhealthy kind that oozes neediness. Going cold on him is just an avoidance tactic. So I start being "bipolar", going back and forth between the two ("come here, go away"). There is little middle ground here, but at least it exists. I simply need to increase my window of tolerance because right now my intimacy threshold is low, just not abysmally so like it used to be.
- He notices and is very confused by me, as any normal person would be. Pretty sure he has an inkling as to what is happening, and he tries to indirectly show me that he's just nice with everyone and that nothing is going on.
- Doesn't matter how much he reassures me, the issue is not him, it's me.
I feel terrible. He sometimes looks really annoyed, other times like he's given up trying with me. And I'm like a fish out of water, trying to develop the right tools for the situation out of thin air right away so I can mend this bullshit and stop making a fool of myself. I thank the lord that most people aren't very informed on attachment theory because if he really knew what was going on, I think the shame would almost kill me.
I remember a coworker from an old job who did the same thing to me that I'm doing to this man, and I got so frustrated with him and thought he was incredibly immature. Everything makes so much sense now.
Last thing I wanted to add, because I've worked on my self-esteem quite a bit, there is overall less 'yearning' and more avoidance in me now. I have to say that the wall of impenetrability that avoidance offers is extremely useful in the workplace. I can do a better job, I can earn more, I can deal with office politics without being very affected. But it's so anti-emotion and not the real me. I understand it much better than I used to, that it's a shield from vulnerability and an uncaring world, and it does its job very well. My goal is not to stop being avoidant, but to knowingly and willingly use it as a tool in the right situation, as opposed to being an automatic coping mechanism in intimate relationships.
