Anxious Preoccupied Attachment Style

This episode explores the behaviors that are present for people operating with an anxious preoccupied attachment style, how relationship dynamics work within those partnerships, and how the attachment style was formed. Understanding attachment styles and which one you operate from is the first step toward achieving a more healthy and secure attachment. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Reassurance is your drug, but it only works like a temporary fix, never curing the inner conviction that you are not enough. I'm your host, Shalee. And I'm your co-host Sam. And you're listening to Pathway to Empowerment, where we believe in thriving, not surviving. As promised, today we are working to gain a deep understanding of what the anxious preoccupied attachment style is, what behaviors may be present for those operating from that base, and how relationship dynamics work within those partnerships. Shalee, can you first explain to us what exactly it means to have an anxious preoccupied attachment style? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So when you think of the preoccupied attachment style, it can be characterized by a deep-seated fear of abandonment and an intense craving for intimacy, as well as reliance on others for self-validation. They really struggle with self-validating or having an internal locus instead of an external locus of control. Often stemming from inconsistent early caregivers, adults with this style frequently feel insecure in relationships, which can lead to high anxiety behaviors like hypervigilance regarding a partner's availability and fidelity, clinginess, and a desperate need for constant reassurance. This pattern often results in an exhausting cycle of protest behaviors where the fear of being alone drives a passionate pursuit of closeness that can ironically overwhelm their partners. What is protest behavior? So protest behavior is where the person is, you know, really looking at how if somebody's coming at you and they need, they need, they need, you're going to like push back that protest of not being not being their caregiver, not being their their source of comfort, not not not needing to validate them as an individual. So that can be a really big part of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Okay. How does an anxious preoccupied attachment style commonly manifest in early childhood behaviors with their caregivers?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

So they can have extreme separation anxiety. That's a big one that we see with people with anxious preoccupied attachment. The child becomes highly distressed when the primary care caregiver is not present for them or leaves the room and they can't see them. That clingy, uh almost like wild, like running to you, grabbing hold of you, crying. I'm sure you've seen that type of a child where you're like, oh my gosh, what is happening? You think the the that you think there's maybe a zombie after them or something, and it's just that their parent has turned around and was talking to someone else or going to leave the room. Gotcha. Hypervigilance in their moods. Children really monitor their caregivers' moods. This is this is one of those areas where we've talked about before where people say, Well, I'm an empath. You're not an empath in a healthy, productive way. You're an empath in this kind of situation because you are trying to read your caregiver's emotional output so you know how to navigate yourself. Reluctance to explore their world and their surroundings. They they sit right next to their caregiver, they won't play with other children, they they they won't get up and wander around. They are they are like glued to your side. Okay. Okay. And then when the ambivalent ambivalence, when the caregiver returns, can be also something. So when that that caregiver returns, the child may display ambivalent behavior, like, so what you're back kind of behavior. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's what we see a lot of times develop further on into a personality disorder called borderline personality, where it's a push-pull, I want you, I need you, come back, I hate you, go away, kind of relationship. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Can you explain the difference between healthy interdependence and the codependent tendencies often found in anxious attachment?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Absolutely. So with interdependence, we let's start there. So an interdependent relationship is where you and I are having a conversation, we have a relationship, and you are you are able to be yourself and do the things that you want. I can be myself, I can do the things I want. And we do things really great together where we don't have to be codependent. And codependency looks like that what we just talked about, that child sitting right next to you, not leaving your site, having to have that person do everything with them. So if you're gonna go play pickleball, I'm going to play pickleball. If you're going to dinner at I don't know, in and out, I'm going to dinner it in and out with you. Like we are, we are two together, and that's how it's going to be. We're codependent. What what I feel you need to feel, what you feel I need, vice versa. Does that make sense? So when we're in a codependent relationship, we feel deprived of the person when they actually go hang out with their friends or they go and do something for them as a hobby by themselves. We feel like we have been abandoned.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So is that like the behavior that like you see on things with like the the mother-in-law with her son when the son has now has this partnership?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So cutting the apron strings kind of thing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

So the mom all of a sudden has to be almost like competing with the girlfriend.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

That can be part of it for sure. And that can be part of the, you know, that attachment for sure. Is it healthy? No. Absolutely not. Does it happen sometimes? Absolutely. And we need to work with the parents as well as the child. What even if the parent and the child are both adults?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

We have to we have to work on if the parents not available, we still have to work with the child. The adult child helping them see like you're in a you're in a different relationship now and your bond needs to shift and look different. Yeah. Which can be very scary for the adult child as well as the adult parent because that parent's so used to holding on to that child.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah. What are some commonly overlooked protest behaviors besides the constant texting that someone with this style uses to get attention from their partner?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Well, it's there's a lot of things that happen when when you think about when you think about the protest stuff. And what I mean by that is when you have a person that is anxious and and preoccupied, attached, they they need to they need to feel like they have your undivided attention where you whether they're with you or not. They need they need you to know that they're displeased. So the texting is a big part of it, right? But also there's these unspoken words and unspoken unspoken actions that occur within the relationship for the person to know they're in trouble. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so that that can be a really big part of the protest behaviors.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I've heard it said that people with anxious attachment styles often end up in relationships with people who have avoidant attachment styles. Do you think that's true? And if so, why do you think that is that they attract that style?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So more often than not, we're going to attach and attract the people that are vibrating on the same level that we are at. So if we haven't healed some part of our attachment or our issues and concerns throughout our life, we're going to attach to somebody that is at that same level. So, but a lot of times we're also trying to figure out how to navigate and heal things from a perspective of someone we've loved. So if we go back to what you just said about the mom and son thing, we might find that anxious attached child, or maybe the child isn't anxious attached. It might have been the mother that was anxious, preoccupied. And the child may be a different attachment style, but you're more going to try to heal the things that you didn't feel like you could when you were a child through your partnership. So if I if so, for instance, if I have something where I feel like I've abandoned, been abandoned, I'm most likely going to seek out people that are unemotionally available, people that will will cheat on me, people that really will abandon me, because I'm trying to prove my worth and I'm trying to prove that I'm worthy. So I'm going to seek those people out, even though, and this is the important part about Psalm, is more often than not, we're completely unaware that we're doing that. We're completely unaware that our that's where we're headed. And we end up with those types of people repeatedly. And then we ask ourselves, how'd I get here again? I was not going to be here again. What's wrong with me that I'm attracting those people? Yeah. And the answer is you haven't healed that part of you to move forward and move on in a healthier fashion.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

In my mind, it would make sense, and I know this is wrong based on what you're you've just explained to us, but in my mind, what would make sense is that if I have an anxious preoccupied attachment, I would be attracted to somebody that's also anxious preoccupied, because then my constant texting them isn't like it's fulfilling the anxious preoccupation for both people. In in my mind, that's how it would work. But with like an anxious person going with a feel an avoidant attachment, the avoidant person's going to be like turned off by that anxiousness. And so it doesn't make sense to me that they would they would find each other. Find each other. And yeah, like it.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

But if you think about that in long terms, okay. So when when we think about why these push-pull relationships are even there, it really comes down to that need to feel loved and supported and not abandoned. And that is something each, whether you're the push or whether you're the pull person, or maybe you're both, that happens because we have these abandonment wounds that we're trying to heal, and we're trying to heal them with a partner, and they go way deeper than that. They they and not again, this is important for us to talk about really quickly. It may not even be that their parent was this attachment style. It could have been a nanny, it could have been a grandmother, it could have been someone else significant that helped raise them. Does that make sense? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

How do I distinguish between a legitimate relationship concern and a scenario where my attachment anxiety is triggering a false alarm?

SPEAKER_00 13:17

So that one's a really big one. Now and that one's a tough one because we're it's going to take a lot of therapy, a lot of self-investigation and understanding of who you are before you can get to a place where you can you can sit with yourself long enough to go, okay, is this because my attachment wound is is showing up? Is this because there is legitimately something wrong with the relationship? So knowing that it's not just you, but that it could be the other person as well, and maybe not have much to do with you. But again, we interact in that push-pull. And so it can be very challenging for us to actually figure out is this me, is it them, is it me? Is it them? Is it both of us? And more often than not, in some way it's both of us. We're interacting in this silent dance that we're trying to get our needs met, and we're failing miserably both ways.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Okay. What are the most common somatic sensations that occur when an anxious person's attachment system is activated?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So there can be a lot of things. Anxiety is a big one, right? We talk about anxiety a lot. And knowing where anxiety lives inside your body and what it looks like can be a really helpful one. But there can also be like the stomach aches, it can be headaches, it can be it can manifest in a lot of different physical ailments. So each we can't just say this is what it looks like. It can look different for each person based upon what's showing up for them. Is it anxiety? Is it depression? Is it is it fear related? Is it, you know, which piece is showing up? Where is it manifesting? And where not only where is it manifesting in the body, but what are those manifestations in the body creating?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Okay. How does an anxious person's inner script distort their perception of their partner's need for space?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So again, when we look at the vicious cycle that happens within the the nervous system, which breaks down the connection and the communication, it spikes the adrenaline and you feel panicked, right? That is a big part of what what is happening inside of each person when their partner is having something happen to them. And then what happens is that we start creating the excessive communication or the nonstop. I'm sure you've seen this where it's like the text gets so long that you actually have to start a new one because the text message won't go through because it's too big, and you just do text after text. I mean, and it's it's literally like so long that you're like overwhelmed when you open it. Yeah. Right. So there's that piece. And then if we look at the silent treatment that comes along after that, well, you didn't read my text messages and you didn't give me what I wanted. So now I'm gonna get now I'm gonna try something different. I'm gonna give you a the silent treatment. And when that doesn't work, then the score keeping comes into play. I'm gonna keep score. Well, you did this, so now I'm gonna do that. So you went out and spent $300 because you like to hunt, I'm gonna go out and spend $300 because I like to bake. And maybe you're now negative $1,200 in the hole, and then we go, see, you caused this. So we're keeping score. And then the there's a big one about like creating narratives in your head, creating scenarios where this person is hurting you or betraying you or doing things and telling other people. So then you feel like you have to even the score and you have to tell some you know, you have to do these things too, and build these scenarios where you can tell other people because your scenario is this person's doing it as well, which then you're dragging all these other people into the situation, and yeah, people like drama, so they're gonna get into the situation, right? And then what happens is then we start overanalyzing everything, which creates a really unhealthy balance in a relationship. Like none of these things create healthy wealth in a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

What are the underlying fears that cause someone to prioritize a partner's needs over their own so again the fear of being abandoned?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

That is probably the number one thing with an anxious preoccupied. There's there's this fear of being abandoned and not being safe.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Okay. How does that fear of abandonment manifest in daily non-romantic relationships with friends or colleagues? Or is it the same as romantic relationships?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

It it can look very, very similar in in most situations. If you have a best friend that that has the anxious, preoccupied attachment, it's gonna feel the same as a romantic in most ways. They're gonna they're gonna see things different. They're gonna they're gonna feel like you're abandoning them. They're going to act or react like, hey, you gotta go to the bathroom, I'm gonna go with you. And like, whoo. I haven't done that since I was five. Okay, come with me. You know, those types of things where the relationship looks very similar. At work, it can be a little bit different, but at work, this is the person that is always needing the approval, needing to to to have the attention of their boss or getting things done, needing the praise for it. Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Ultimately, while the anxious preoccupied attachment style stems from a fear of abandonment and inconsistency, it is a learned relational pattern rather than a permanent feature in someone's life. By cultivating self-compassion, identifying triggers, and practicing secure relational habits, individuals can break the cycle of high alert hypervigilance and move toward a secure attachment that makes room for stable, fulfilling relationships that provide closeness without sacrificing self worth. As always, click the link below to share your thoughts about today's episode and join us on Monday for our discussion about the dismissive avoidant attachment style. We'll see you next time.