#insecure attachment

[sweetdarling27]

Is my love suffocating you?

Am I too clingy? Too needy?

Am I annoying you?

Asking for too much of your time?

Too fucking bad

[dittohasadhd]

now that people are starting to recognize love languages as heteronormative nonsense, can we just talk about the pop psychology application of attachment theory for a second?

I know I'm not the only one who has noticed the fixation on Anxious vs. Avoidant Attachment. But is it me or does this false dichotomy sound suspiciously like a proxy for gender essentialism??

[fertilisedovumcell]

Passive dependency

Source: The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck

Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love.

The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents' failure to fulfil their needs for affection, attention and care during their child-hood.

It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deep-seated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves.

Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security.

Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of "I don't have enough" and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable.

It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention

wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behaviour that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve.

As also indicated in the previous section, love and discipline go hand in hand, so that unloving, uncaring parents are people lacking in discipline, and when they fail to provide their children with a sense of being loved, they also fail to provide them with the capacity for self-discipline.

Thus the excessive dependency of the passive dependent individuals is only the principal manifestation of their personality disorder.

Passive dependent people lack self-discipline.

They are unwilling or unable to delay gratification of their hunger for attention.

In their desperation to form and preserve attachments they throw honesty to the winds. They cling to outworn relationships when they should give them up. Most important, they lack a sense of responsibility for themselves.

They passively look to others, frequently even their own children, as the source of their happiness and fulfilment, and therefore when they are not happy or fulfilled they basically feel that others are responsible.

Consequently they are endlessly angry, because they endlessly feel let down by others who can never in reality fulfil all their needs or "make" them happy.

I have a colleague who often tells people, "Look, allowing yourself to be dependent on another person is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself. You would be better off being dependent on heroin. As long as you have a supply of it, heroin will never let you down; if it's there, it will always make you happy. But if you expect another person to make you happy, you'll be endlessly disappointed."

As a matter of fact, it is no accident that the most common disturbance that passive dependent people manifest beyond their relationships to others is dependency on drugs and alcohol.

Theirs is the "addictive" personality.

"They are addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up, and when people are not available to be sucked and gobbled, they often turn to the bottle or the needle or the pill as a people-substitute."

In summary, dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love; it is a form of antilove. It has its genesis in a parental failure to love and it perpetuates the failure.

It seeks to receive rather than to give. It nourishes infantilism rather than growth. It works to trap and constrict rather than to liberate. Ultimately it destroys rather than builds relationships, and it destroys rather than builds people.

[thebansheesknees]

[sadieshavingsex]

I think I've really started figuring out something about relationships and why mine seem to end so intensely. So this is just a little thought experiment, and, as always, I'm not an expert and I'm mostly writing this to talk to myself - take what resonates and leave the rest! So without further ado...

I think that these are some of the most basic ingredients a good relationship can have:

each partner having a baseline ACCEPTANCE of the other person and the ability to "let them do them" authentically

each partner being able to set BOUNDARIES that allow them to continue "doing them," as well as being able to tell the other "no" and stand up for themselves in order to keep those boundaries in place

each partner being COMFORTABLE with the concept that the relationship MAY NOT WORK OUT and truly being okay with stopping the relationship if it begins to go south

When these things start to get compromised, all hell breaks loose and you start the really vicious insecure attachment style cycles we've all come to know and love.

First of all, if someone starts to feel, for whatever reason, that this relationship "MUST WORK OUT," you are headed for disaster - this will create a scenario where at least one person in the relationship is more susceptible to letting go of their own boundaries if the other person asks. If there is any kind of question of the other partner not being able to accept them or their boundaries, the partner who feels things need to work out will simply let go of their boundaries for the sake of the relationship rather than stand up for themself or be able to walk away. Then you have a situation where boundaries are disintegrating and acceptance of the boundaryless partner is potentially starting to become conditional, so you've got the other two pillars of the safe relationship starting to fall.

Soon enough, you're in a very deep cycle. Putting aside your own boundaries for another person, no matter who they are, starts to breed resentment, and you start to feel unaccepting feelings toward the other person's behavior and probably feel that you're participating in an unequal power dynamic where they are making the rules of the relationship. Without your own boundaries, you likely start to impinge on your partner's - if you have to give up so much to be with them and earn their acceptance, they'd better be giving up the same! And then, the more that either of you give up, the more you probably start to subscribe to the sunk cost fallacy - you've changed so much for this person, so now you have to stay together even more, because this relationship would just be a total failure and violation otherwise.

FRIEND. Let me just say it right here from the start: if you stick to the three pillars above, you will probably be able to maintain a much healthier relationship with your partner and yourself!!! Because when you are not bending over backwards in ways that harm you, it's likely that you expect less of that from your partner as well. If you maintain the boundaries, it's probably easier to maintain your acceptance of each other, too. And if you keep your comfort with being alone, you're able to decide to leave in a respectable, peaceable way if the other relationship pillars start to fall in a way that makes you uncomfortable. I feel like these 3 pillars are the way to have a healthy, happy relationship with realistic expectations, that can still end really amicably if it needs to! But if you lose one the whole thing comes crashing down.

[serenityquest]

[shippingmclennon]

hi so idk if you usually answer asks but i sort of had a shower thought about the whole john/paul/yoko triangle. when john and yoko were separated, and yoko found out that john was planning to go down to new orleans to maybe cut a record with paul, she freaked out knowing that she definitely wouldn't get john back if he did go and re-establish his songwriting partnership with paul. when john and paul were drifting in 1968, after whatever happened in india went down, suddenly john's all over this new woman like a bad rash, the same woman he'd had no interest in before then. and he brings her into the studio, not because he actually needs her there or because she particularly wants to be, but to wave her in paul's face and say if you don't give me what i want, or enough attention, or a declaration, then i'll flaunt my new relationship in front of you and i'll make music with HER instead. and of course we know paul didn't do anything at all, so john just nosedived completely into his new relationship with yoko. the entire basis of their early relationship, songwriting partnership and marriage was contingent on yoko being a replacement for paul, or the "anti-paul". yoko didn't get rid of john when he slept with a woman at a party, yoko had even set up his affair with may pang, and a prolonged separation didn't threaten their actual marriage because their relationship was not one built on romantic love, it was built on john's feelings for paul mccartney, and when paul reared his head, that's when yoko called time on john's freedom and called him back to her, because she knew she served a function only insofar as she was a substitute for paul mccartney.

Hey anon! Okay so here's my thoughts (and these are based on nothing more than my own, personal, opinion based interpretations based on whatever energy I was able to see in them)

- John's choice to be with Yoko was predominantly ego driven, as was hers to John (as we know, like attracts like, so not surprising that they married for the same reason, although the details of those egos are different from one another)

- John's secondary reason for staying with Yoko, and I've said this often before, is due to trauma bonding. This is not love, this is an attachment, and we don't mean that in a happy, loving, romantic way. We mean it in a desperate, anxious, insecure way.

- Paul was John's leverage for true love, so naturally he could've freed him from Yoko. Perhaps John's involvement with her was in fact a cry for help, towards Paul specifically. But as a captor convinces the victim that he/she needs them, Yoko somehow got John to believe this and completely obey her every request (again, trauma bonding. The emotional side of the brain can be very persuasive. And fear is the most influential motivator) and John was trapped.

- I have frequently wondered if Yoko was performing some sort of witchcraft or black magic on John (depending on if you believe this) but I have seen victims of that and it's very much "not themselves and completely brainwashed" type of shit. However, on the contrary belief, this could have just the same been the effect of a disorganized attached man, helpless and fallen into the traps of an ill intended, ego driven, sneaky woman so.... There you have it.

Those are all my thoughts, and I pretty much agree with all the claims you made in the ask. Thanks for sharing!

[litchiteany]

What Love is Not

💔

You asked me once, “What did I want?”

I thought you knew—our bond, a front—

To build, to grow, to share our minds,

Not simply echoes, hollow, blind.

You rushed ahead, yet kept your guard,

Distrust entrenched, emotions barred.

I laid my cards, exposed and raw,

While you stood back, observed each flaw.

Your focus fixed on flags unfurled,

Insecurities mapped your shallow world.

I played my part; I bared my soul,

Yet yours remained a guarded whole.

I reached for more while you withdrew,

A quiet war I never knew.

Through every door you closed with care,

You left me grasping empty air.

Your planned escape, a silent flight,

While I believed we’d hold the fight.

I’ve seen this act, rehearsed and thin—

A farce that kept the shadows in.

Walls went up—too high to breach—

Your silence spoke what words won’t teach.

Deflection was your chosen shield,

To doubts you never dared to yield.

So here I stand, my heart laid bare,

The weight of hope now worn to air.

If love to you is silent doubt,

Then I have learned what you’re about.

But know, when walls of stone decay,

My heart will turn and walk away.

JI

9-11-24

[addison828]

erm

im bored so, im gonna write down my insecurities and stfu if u dont care and just leave then pooks.

legs

face

stretch marks

stomach

tits yall...

thighs

my pcos

diabetes

my mental health

not being skinny

being taller then i want to be

my eyes

my hair

my voice

acne

facial hair

[sweetdarling27]

Please come back, I need you. I cant breathe without you my darling.

[gay-frogs69]

Crying reading my psych text bc why tf do I show all signs of insecure attachment in childhood. I wasn’t a “shy kid” I was just insecure in all my relationships bc I had a mother that didn’t care about me

[ka3herine]

Why?

The day I saw you with her,

Saw you talking so happily,

Saw you being so talkative,

Just how you were with me.

But when did it change?

Why did it change?

Why couldn't you just love me, For once.

How could you be so happy with her yet not me?

Was it me? Was I not good enough for you? Better enough for you? Not hot enough for you? Just why.

I sometimes just wish you'll talk to me again, Like how we used too. I wish you'll message me first, Be better for me. I wish you would love me back like how I did.

Please just come back to me. Please R

K.S.

[thebansheesknees]

[full original post]

[sophiemariepl]

I feel like TBoSaS fans can be put into these categories

Fans who idealize Coriolanus Snow:

- oh, Coryo is so handsome and smart, of course, he couldn’t be wrong!

- either think that Coryo was right about Sejanus deserving to die or say they know it was basically murder and that Coryo was a killer but don't care because Coryo is handsome and/or they like him #HaloEffect

- believes Coryo is more intelligent than everyone around him, he deserves the best #SnowLandsOnTop

- livin’ on TikTok edits

Fans disillusioned about Coriolanus Snow:

- believe that Coriolanus is a monster ever from the start of the book until the very end

- often don’t care about the background that Coryo grew up and developed in

- often read/portray Coryo as an incel, a dude completely entrapped in toxic masculinity, or a straight-up psychopath or a sociopath

- “OMG Lucy Gray run away from him!!1!”

Fans with an insecure attachment style and childhood trauma:

- understand the trauma and background that Coriolanus grew up in and that largely contributed to him becoming a monster in his early adulthood (Capitol is a morally rotten place)

- simultaneously don’t excuse his crimes - the fact that Coryo was largely shaped by an awful environment doesn’t excuse murder but it explains how he ended up in this place

- relate to Coryo’s mental health issues in many ways

- understand that Coryo was more of a human doing than human being, that his whole self-perception and self-esteem was based on the pressure to reclaim the honor for Snow's name as the last man in his family and on the lack of secure relationships for most of his time (his grandmother influenced him more than Tigris + outside of his household he was constantly pressured to pretend to be someone else)

———————

Of course, don’t treat this too seriously, just sharin’ my thoughts and perceptions

[fountainpenchess]

If our caretakers, however, were back and forth in unavailability, which would create an unorganized system, or they were completely unavailable, not being able to mirror our own emotions as children and unable to meet our own needs, then this would have created an attachment style that may be avoidant, anxious or disorganized. We may have also asked our parents multiple times if we were okay, safe, worthy or loved. In these moments, if the parent kept reassuring us that we were okay moment after moment, then this could have created a sense of understanding that one needed to get reassurance in order to relieve their own inner pain, guilt, and shame. This would be extremely common for people who continually go to their partner to make sure they are okay, enough, and worthy.

— reassurance seeking is keeping you stuck in ROCD (& how to break it by awaken into love

[litchiteany]

The Silent Distance

In the shadows where love’s light fades,

You hide, where fear’s cold cascade,

Attachment’s tendrils, you brush aside,

Closeness, a peril you can’t abide.

Love’s gentle whisper, a chilling call,

In your heart, it builds a wall,

All that’s precious, all that’s near,

Turns to ghosts you swiftly steer.

I chanced upon your heart, so cold,

In tepid waters, stories untold,

What was I? A fleeting need,

A means to sate, your fear to feed.

You claim a void, emotions stilled,

In a world where love’s pulse is chilled,

Yet within, a spark, a silent plea,

A hope to set your spirit free.

Believe in you, take courage’s hand,

Face the fear, let your heart expand,

To open up, to feel, to share,

A heart unbound, a soul laid bare.

JI

7-22-24