Seeking, some thoughts on your thread

Seeking, I know we've had some crossed wires and difficulty connecting. I hope to share some things about my own process, how over many years I've been able to make sense of my life and relationships. Without adding commentary about your process, I will share some things about myself that maybe you can relate to, maybe not... but I truly understand the way that all the facets of our experiences can create quite a tangled knot, difficult to unravel.

I'll just list some things....

My primary attachment style, in adulthood, is DA as identified both via testing but more importantly, in therapy. I've got FA in there too, some situational some in my origins... blah blah because that all gets confusing and the rabbit hole is deep and I lose interest in parsing it all out. I've had primarily avoidant strategies, some anxious, some disorganized, but mostly avoidant (plus secure ones by now, yay.)

I learned here, I am textbook HSP, check every box. Forever. Yes, that goes with DA also, there is a thread somewhere that Anne posted about HSP and the different attachment styles. The HSP impacts my outcomes as much as my attachment style, I am certain of it.

For example... usernametaken posted a link to an Instagram describing disorganized. Toward the end, a distinction is made between a malnourished disorganized person who avoids social contact and relationships, or a DA, who seeks both. Well, by that description I'm a malnourished disorganized socially... until you consider that I am HSP with sensory issues and have avoided social situations for literally decades because they are downright overwhelming to me. See, it gets so complicated, because we are unique in some ways, our situations are nuanced.

Having children with a poorly chosen partner created a dynamic in my life that turned out to be majorly avoidant, but also somewhat dependent! I left him, became a single mother. Over years, between lengths of singlehood, I also tried like hell and failed like hell to find a stable relationship to provide a better foundation for raising children. Emotionally, hyper independent. Financially, logistically? Not as much, back then. Where I live, it's damn hard to single parent unless you're relatively wealthy or have another parent competently co-parenting and contributing financially, and I had neither wealth nor a good co-parent. So for many reasons, I sought partnership, but choose poorly out of insecure attachment, and stayed too long because it's out of the frying pan into the fire when you're in a difficult parenting situation, alone, without support. Daycare issues alone gave me nightmares I swear. I was that mom that had to dose my kids with Tylenol and take them sick because if I called into work again, I'd be fired. Horrible sadness and stress shadowed my life at some points.

HSP impacted my parenting, as did my attachment style. Don't get me wrong, I'm a good mama, my now young adult kids tell me so lol! I love my children, and I did all the things! But as I was reading the bedtime stories, giving baths, cooking, cleaning, disciplining, hugging, taking to the doctor, taking to the park, whatever... a lot of the time I was overwhelmed being HSP. AND being avoidant, being simply overwhelmed from the attachment standpoint. So, yes I had an awareness that I was burning the candle at both ends, I was stretching myself as a single parent. I wanted better for my kids, a total family, I wanted a helper and a friend and I found neither in the partners I chose because I just didn't know what that looked like.

I chose abusers, I chose men who had a strong agenda and who wanted something I had. I thought they had something I wanted too. Transactional, yes. Romance, love, happily ever after was not my aim, as I literally viewed partnerships as practical arrangements, it's how I was raised and it was my view. I saw relationships as DA do, and with that perspective I chose perfectly inadequate and harmful partners. It was all totally in line with my beliefs.

Love isn't real (I thought)...and I chose unloving (but demanding!) partners. Sometimes it got REALLY CRAZY.

I was low functioning emotionally in relationships and chose the same. Not unemotional partners... emotionally malfunctioning partners. Intense partners.

I was, believe it or not, conflict avoidant and chose men who ran me over with aggression.

The list goes on and on, the point being that my partners all slotted in perfectly with some aspect of my limited beliefs and impaired functioning, be it boundaries, self- image, esteem and worth, logistical aspects of living, etc etc etc.

I'm not a cookie cutter this-or-that. My challenges from my original family, my experiences as a mother, my attachment style, oh and trauma, it's there too... get traumatized by abuse from one partner and you'll be choosing the next one from trauma, and on and on till you eventually heal from all the compounded trauma (trauma therapy is where I began to understand attachment and many other things, over time). I've said before I don't have a lot of trauma because I have lived my life largely disconnected from that in a bubble I made for myself, but it's there, plenty. I've done a bunch to resolve that and no longer consider it much of a factor. I responded to abuse in an avoidant way as well, not being triggered by "I need love and I feel hurt" but rather "I will be fine if I can get away from you" (which I did when I was able). But I was also trapped by logistics, the real problem of surviving without resources controlled by a bully. If only the court process was expedient andnfair, but often it is not. So it's all complicated, it doesn't all fit a cookie cutter template of an attachment style, or whatever.

Anyway, just empathizing a bit with the befuddlement of it all. But the answers will come if you keep exploring.

ALSO, I have accepted over time that the dynamic that me and a particular ex had, is not the same dynamic they may have with someone else. Yes, there are patterns in people's relationships but quite frankly, my exes have done better (if you can call it that, it's not mine to say) with more dependent types. They have been in long term relationships and I can't speak to their level of satisfaction or health, but they are stable in terms of NOT ENDING. I left them because our dynamic was intolerable. I know for a fact it was toxic, and abusive, and it wasn't all about him, or all about me, it was our dynamic together. Their current relationships mystify me to some extent but shoot, as long as I don't have to experience them I don't give a damn, seriously.

I really relate to what alexandra wrote about learning how to choose differently, over time. Such a long process to unpack all the limited beliefs and challenge them. But it's possible bit by bit.

Anyway, wanted to write this out without interrupting your thread over there.