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Post by anne12 on Jul 3, 2020 9:35:32 GMT
Hi
AP pattern:
If the other is / becomes available, you easily lose interest. So you typicaly turn around (and look for a new man / woman you can not get)
You confuse longing with love
They can start doubting the relationship.
They can try to find 5 things that are wrong with the other person.
For AP's its about the assesibility of the other person.
If the other moves away a little the AP will become interested again, when the other becomes available again, they can loose interest againg. This dynamic can carry on for years in relationships
(Yo-yo)
FA pattern:
You may have a confusion about when a contact with another is safe, and when it is necessary to escape or fight
You may experience being confused in the relationship and having trouble figuring out what's going on.
You are often locked in "Come Here - And Go Away!" patterns. You reach out for love -> you get frightened -> you pull away or attack -> then you will be calm again, when there is a distance -> you reach out, etc. Looks like the ambivalent pattern, but there are actually two different mechanisms. The disorganized form of connetcion is not about the accessibility of the other, as for the ambivalent / nervous attatched, but that you are overwhelmed at an instinctive level of contact. The close contact brings the old history into the system - and thus the old state of tension in the nervous system: Alarm! The ambivalent loses interest if the other is available. The disorganized runs scared back or attacks aggressively.
What does your therapist tell you ?
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Post by anne12 on Jul 3, 2020 10:00:06 GMT
When APs meet someone who is fully avaliable, giving them constant caring affection, their NO can come up. They can think / say:
Oh well yeah, you are here right, now but
what about tomorrow, then you proberly will be gone.
Taking in love and trust that the other person will stay, can be challenging, when they stop chasing unavailable partners. They wil get in touch with their original wound when they get nuriching, predictable contact. APs can't long the same way with a more secure partner.
Thats why it is recommended that APs takes two turns in therapy:
1) Help to stop chasing unavailable partners
2) Taking in love and trust from an avaliable partner, believing that the love
won't suddenly dissapear and get help to not sabotaging the love they get.
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Post by tnr9 on Jul 3, 2020 10:49:00 GMT
Got it, that makes sense... you’re here today, but will you be here tomorrow? I was going to say...it is “testing behavior”....so you say you love me...but what about if I do this? What if I say that? I don’t see it as purposely sabotaging...I think it is trying to see if the boundaries of this person are wider then our parents. |
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Post by annieb on Jul 3, 2020 20:26:56 GMT
Interesting. I don’t lose interest, that’s not it. I also don’t often find guys I really like, so when I do I’m not losing interest. Maybe it’s subconsciously like we’re getting closer, I’m more scared they’ll abandon me? So I’m more sensitive and my insecurities come up and jump out to try to sabotage. But maybe these things were just triggered based on something he did or that was going on at the time. And not a subconscious sabotage. I think you should also trust and listen to yourself. And very often insecurely attached will end up with other insecurely attached and it will wreck havoc on a relationship. It very well may be with an unaware insecurely attached that they are manufacturing a situation, and where you are compelled to defend yourself, and then you get gaslight to think it’s all you. Happens all the time. |
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Post by alexandra on Jul 3, 2020 21:58:27 GMT
caro AP can do this because they always feel like the other shoe is about to fall and can't feel confident in relaxing, that they are enough, fully being vulnerable and letting down their guard to embrace intimacy... so they can absolutely sabotage to "get it overwith" when overwhelmed with feeling unsettled (even if feeling unsettled is coming from everything being calm and fine). Like, it can't last, let me go into my self-fulfilling prophecy negative narrative so at least I feel like I'm in control and not getting blind-sided by it.
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Post by tnr9 on Jul 3, 2020 21:59:40 GMT
I was going to say...it is “testing behavior”....so you say you love me...but what about if I do this? What if I say that? I don’t see it as purposely sabotaging...I think it is trying to see if the boundaries of this person are wider then our parents. I think I’m talking about something different, not testing. Just looking for problems that don’t exist and making tiny things (my triggers) into bigger problems. But thinking more on this, I think at least consciously it’s just me acting on my triggers. Maybe there’s a subconscious self sabotage but who knows. The outward behaviors I’m referring to are just slight changes in behavior or wording or maybe a subtle questioning. But I’m not an AP that outwardly overtexts/calls, lashes out, etc. like so subtle that only a hyperviligant FA or AP or maybe secure could pick up on it and one that knows me well. Oh...hyper vigilance...yep.....it’s actually a protection against being “surprised” by trying to read into any subtle changes. It’s actually a way of feeling control. I would have these literal “danger, Will Robinson” moments where I just felt like something was off, wrong because that is what the signals from my nervous system were telling me. So I would do things like think B was interested in a friend of mine and I would literally see both of them on IM and be convinced they were talking to each other...it is only when I saw that they were actually on at different times that I would be able to talk myself out of it. The other issue is modulation....is the issue a 1 or a 10? Everything literally felt like a 10 all the time until I started on my medication.....now whenever I start to feel that concern come over me....I can employ a pause and assess the issue/situation before reacting to it. But I still have my moments where I get suspicious of people’s intentions and I have to remember that that is a very old protection from a little girl whose world felt very chaotic and unpredictable...so she started to employ worst case thinking in order to prepare and have some control...even if it really wasn’t anything she could control. |
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Post by tnr9 on Jul 4, 2020 4:08:55 GMT
Oh...hyper vigilance...yep.....it’s actually a protection against being “surprised” by trying to read into any subtle changes. It’s actually a way of feeling control. I would have these literal “danger, Will Robinson” moments where I just felt like something was off, wrong because that is what the signals from my nervous system were telling me. So I would do things like think B was interested in a friend of mine and I would literally see both of them on IM and be convinced they were talking to each other...it is only when I saw that they were actually on at different times that I would be able to talk myself out of it. The other issue is modulation....is the issue a 1 or a 10? Everything literally felt like a 10 all the time until I started on my medication.....now whenever I start to feel that concern come over me....I can employ a pause and assess the issue/situation before reacting to it. But I still have my moments where I get suspicious of people’s intentions and I have to remember that that is a very old protection from a little girl whose world felt very chaotic and unpredictable...so she started to employ worst case thinking in order to prepare and have some control...even if it really wasn’t anything she could control. Totally get that. Therapy is helping me to realize those are just my brain doing its bs and not reality. I was recently reflecting on my shut downs / triggered moments lately, so was working through that and wondering on the subconscious part because I realized this time I was the one to "start conflict" (aka I was just triggered) when things were going well. I don’t like referring to it as “bs”....it is an incorrect assessment of a situation left over from childhood. But it isn’t like your brain was like...I am going to mislead her for decades...on purpose. There were reasons your brain and nervous system developed that pattern. I try to gently remind myself (and my brain) that there are other potential explanations for things...including there may be nothing wrong at all. I have to come up with 3 alternative explanations each time I slide into that old familiar place. |
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Post by anne12 on Jul 4, 2020 10:50:37 GMT
caro "In a SAFE relationsship: When the desorganised experiencing love, the old system can say: "Oh no ..." They're used to, things goes wrong and they can disappear from the contact in the precent moment. When we're comfortable with our loved ones, so that we can relax and allow us to love/give in to the relationship, it causes the system to say:"Ah, now there's room to take a bite more of the trauma whirlwind" It's really annoying, because it gets us right in the middle of a trauma whirlwind, where drama and heavy emotions easily arise...." It's different from the AP pattern
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Post by anne12 on Jul 4, 2020 11:19:38 GMT
It can be really difficult to know when a person is reacting from an AP pattern, a fa pattern or a da pattern. Sometimes two different attatcment pattern can be in play at the same time or it can be a camuflaged pattern (fa pattern/trait that from the outside looks like ap or da but in reality is a fa pattern/reaction). The vast majority of us have elements from all of these four attatchment styles patterns. On the other hand, we very rarely have all the characteristics of only one attatchmentstyle pattern. We do not have either one or the other attatchmentstyle pattern - but degrees! jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/1188/attatchment-style-decription-relying-thetests |
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Post by kittygirl on Jul 4, 2020 18:21:51 GMT
Totally get that. Therapy is helping me to realize those are just my brain doing its bs and not reality. I was recently reflecting on my shut downs / triggered moments lately, so was working through that and wondering on the subconscious part because I realized this time I was the one to "start conflict" (aka I was just triggered) when things were going well. I don’t like referring to it as “bs”....it is an incorrect assessment of a situation left over from childhood. But it isn’t like your brain was like...I am going to mislead her for decades...on purpose. There were reasons your brain and nervous system developed that pattern. I try to gently remind myself (and my brain) that there are other potential explanations for things...including there may be nothing wrong at all. I have to come up with 3 alternative explanations each time I slide into that old familiar place. Ohhh! This is interesting because one thing my therapist and I JUST talked about yesterday was that I confided in her "Look, the truth is I have a pattern of leaving therapy when I get too close to someone because I will start to feel "bored" with how things are going and convinced I don't need it anymore but I can recognize that's just because real intimacy is forming" and she said "Well that is a defense mechanism and I think it's so important as a therapist that we recognize that defense mechanisms are there FOR A REASON and that if something else isn't there as a SOLID replacement, you are not going to be successful by simply trying to "plow through" those feelings." I started getting a little teary eyed! It felt so comforting that someone was validating what I also told myself was "bs" or "crazy behavior". I agree with tnr9 that it's really not "bs" if it helped you get through childhood. Our brains are so wonderful in that they have all these ways to protect us when we needed it most. The problem is that these strategies are antiquated now so it's like we have to just "relearn" how to function in a world where the threats to us aren't the same
I also agree with the stuff that was posted by several people that APs can self sabatoge...I actually might argue this is a hallmark of insecure attachment in general because we so often base our behavior on ideas and fears we have (and all those stories we tell ourselves that aren't true) and not so much on communicating and reality. Just my 2 cents
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