Anxious Attachment 101 Chapter Two: How Anxious Attachment May Show Up in Adulthood

How An Anxious Attachment Shows Up in Adulthood

Attachment styles are going to show up in their most extreme form in relationships where the emotional stakes are highest (higher relationship needs, higher attachment needs, and higher emotional needs; more fear of loss).

It's important to remember that attachment styles are predominately defined by the way a person handles stress in their closest relationships. However, those with anxious attachments often display behaviors in life and other relationships which are related to their anxious attachment.

This, however, is not always the case. Some people can feel relatively secure in other parts of their life, such as with work and friends, but their anxious attachment shows up strongly with their loved one. This post is related to how anxious attachment may show up outside of the romantic relationship.

Anxious attached adults are outer-focused, meaning they tend to focus on controlling their environment to manage their anxiety, rather than learning to manage their anxiety with self- or co-regulation. This may show up as a need to control other people (their actions, feelings, or thoughts), or a need to control their environment with organization, people-pleasing, rigid schedules, rigid behaviors, achievement, over-responsibility, busy-ness, compulsive cleaning, etc etc (the list can go on and on and everyone will try to over-control their environment in different ways). This happens to a degree which isn't healthy, or which pushes others away.

Nobody wants to feel powerless over their environment, and that's not healthy either. The key is learning to control what you can, and what you should (for your own good and the good of others) and work toward letting go of the rest. When you want someone else to change, which is perfectly normal, you can influence them but you can't control them.

Sometimes controlling behaviors can show up as compulsive caretaking. This is caretaking which goes beyond healthy human support. Compulsive caretaking comes at the expense of one's own self-care, and usually creates resentment. This is a form of control because the intention of the caretaking is to control one's own experience of feeling needed, useful and/or valuable. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Sometimes caretaking is coming from a place of genuine empathy and/or responsibility AND from a place of control. The work is to find the line between the two and work on not crossing it.

In part 3 of this series, I'll address more specifically how anxious attachment shows up in relationships, but for now it's important to know that those with anxious attachments have elevated relationship concerns, and excessive worry about what others think. This can show up with family, friends, co-workers and others.

Those with anxious attachment are particularly sensitive to feeling invalidated, rejected and/or criticized. This is related to their need to feel safe with others by knowing others see them as worthy and valuable. When those needs aren't met, they feel anxious. Then they go about managing the anxiety in all the ways I've described.

The way out is to learn to step out of your comfort zone and start doing new things to manage your anxiety....things that don't ultimately make things worse. We'll talk more about this in Chapter 4: Healing.

The experience of an anxious attachment is on a spectrum. At the extreme end, anxious attachment may be become a form of disorganized attachment. In this case, the feelings associated with anxious attachment will be bigger and more painful, the individual will experienced increased feelings of emotional unsafety with others (difficulty trusting the good intentions of others), the behaviors will be more extreme and variable, and the person will have more significant problems in life and relationships.

Some people on the anxious attachment spectrum will experience a more mild version, and may only have their symptoms show up under elevated levels of stress. Others may experience anxious attachments in some relationships, especially with those who are avoidant (including non-partners) and may experience feelings of avoidance with others who have an anxious attachment (including non-partners).

In Chapter 3, "How It Shows Up in Close Relationships" we'll explore Anxious Attachment in romantic relationships which is where attachment insecurity REALLY comes alive. In Chapter 4, we'll talk about how to heal.

• The coaches/therapists at The Secure Relationship are trained specifically to work with attachment related issues. Visit thesecurerelationship.com for more information.

• You can also visit the website ICEEFT.com for an attachment focused therapist in your area

• Somatic Experiencing therapy is especially useful for attachment and trauma related issues: traumahealing.org

• Internal Family Systems therapy is another good option: ifs-institute.com

• For those wondering, 75% of those with anxious attachment are female.

• 25% of those with anxious attachment are male.

• Yes, most with anxious attachment are female, but 25% male is still a big number.

• I don't know the statistics of those who identify as trans-gender or non-binary.

• If you take nothing else from this, take this: You CAN heal. Attachment issues stem from relationship contexts and they are healed in relationship contexts (the relationships you have with yourself, your partner and/or with others). And, even better, nobody else has to change in order for you to heal.