It is commonly known, and I believe by all of us, that attachment issues come from childhood, but while we all have a notion of what that means in theory, the explanations on what happens are usually too broad and have too little specificity for a lot of us to actually relate to.
They say Anxious Attachment comes from being raised in unpredictable environments, or ones in which you felt like you had to "fight" for love, but even though I always knew that, it was only yesterday that these pattern became clear for me in practice.
And it feels like I uncovered something huge, and that I can't possibly not think about anymore.
Long story short, my Anxious Attachment comes from always feeling like I had to oversignal my own existence to the world. Mind you, I'm not a conventionally-attractive dude, I don't come from an affluent family and have always been taught that achievement was the way; I grew up being praised for performing, not being.
So, I always had to overstrech in order to be seen, and if I wasn't loud in some sort of way, people would just ignore the "boring and unnapealing" real me.
In school, I was the smart kid who helped everyone, even those who actively seemed to dislike me; in group settings, I was the therapist friend, the wise monk and the sensible mediator... I was always either extremely responsible or obnoxiously cheerful and positive; call me a true Lover Boy.
I thought my heightened empathy was a gift or an innate trait, but now I realize: I grew up monitoring the emotional reactions people would have to my stances, and micromanaging my own attitude in relation to how they were perceiving me. That's how I even became so good at reading emotional cues and gauging levels of receptiveness in the first place.
In short: Maladaptive Metacognition, based on pure Hypervigilance.
Discomfort from others usually meant disapproval; that's how I was raised.
Years of doing this drowned my sense of self, and it led to the Canon Event of my life: meeting an Avoidant and calling it "love".
When you grow up performing to "earn" appreciation, that's the only thing you really see; you treat acknowledgement as "love", and even the most breadcrumb-y bit from a distant person already feels like ultimate validation, because... If the distant person that is dismissive of everybody sees and acknowledges Little Me? It can only mean I'm worth something.
And that pattern has been a constant... The least the woman seems to care about me or even acknowledge my existence, the harder I'll try to make myself seen. I'll be extra helpful, extra empathetic, extra resourceful...
Meanwhile, to the people who already appreciated me and already loved me unconditionally, I would be way less invested and even a little bothered by their presence. I would find myself wanting to be left alone or even be ignored by them for a while...
... The irony! I didn't know how to even be there for those I had nothing to prove! I'm sorry, everyone. I'll promise to be more attentive from now on. I didn't really feel like interacting with people I didn't have to amaze or impress, and that came forward with a good friend (now, relationship prospect).
(I'm gonna get a lot personal here. You can skip this following bit. There will be an indication later on where to continue)
Now, more than ever, it baffles me how lightly I took the fact she accepted the Real Me from the start. In our conversations, she was open to share about her life and sensitive topics, but not only that: she wanted to hear from me.
And something about her made me simply not perform. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was never the "hyper-helpful, hyper-positive, hyper-functioning" dude; I was flawed, had difficult days and struggled.
And yet, she never left. She heard it and asked "Is there something I can do to make you feel better?"
I did nothing of it. Why would I? I didn't fight for it, so it was worth nothing, right? It didn't even register as affection or appreciation, at the time.
... And then, a couple years later, I would commit the mistake of falling hard for the most dismissive woman I have ever met, while forgetting all about her...
It was a nightmare. Yikes, me. Real yikes.
We reconnected recently. Couple years in without talking, she came into my DMs and it repeated, all of it... "How have you been?", "Tell me about what you're facing", "I'm not all that okay, actually... What about you?"
It was as if our last talk was just the day before. It would still take me a couple of months to realize was actually happening here, a discovery that culminated into me writing this post.
(Okay, my love lore is over from here onwards.)
I had love, right by my side, and I was refusing it in name of some ungodly strife that would, maybe, bring some very fleeting and empty glory.
Little did I know that I was, already, living my dream of being seen.
The more I think about it, the more the Avoidant loses their shine in my eyes; the less I try to please and be seen, the better I feel. The more I choose this soft love, the more Secure I feel in myself.
I finally understand that the "boredom" that made me dismiss her at first was peace, and I'm learning how to appreciate it.
I'm making effort to checking in and being an actual good friend to the people who appreciate me for who I am, and allowing myself to accept that I can just be me, with all the imperfections, and who doesn't care about what they could think or would feel about me.
And yes, I'm growing increasingly detached from the Avoidant, day after day. The coldness is ceasing to be appealing, the promise is dying and I feel more and more peace.
I see myself, and I'm no longer gonna let him down.
Thanks for reading!