Do You Have an Anxious Attachment Style?
An anxious attachment style (also referred to as preoccupied attachment) often develops due to inconsistent caregiving during your childhood, where your caregiver (parent or other) may have been emotionally available but at times unresponsive or neglectful.
For example, if your caregiver was emotionally unavailable or unpredictable—sometimes attentive and other times neglectful—you may have learned to be anxious and hyper-focused on gaining their love and attention.
This may have led to feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about whether your needs will be met, often resulting in heightened anxiety and uncertainty.
As a result, you became hypervigilant about watching their every move and being focused on when they would be attentive, in hopes of feeling safe and that they were available for you.
Unfortunately, their unpredictability caused a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about their love. This created a fear of being abandoned or unloved. It made you feel unsafe. Even though as a child, you might have not had the words, but you certainly had feelings.
An anxious attachment style develops primarily during early childhood, based on interactions with your caregivers, though it can also be influenced by later life experiences - meaning you can develop this attachment style through unhealthy and toxic relationships.
5 Ways How This Typically Forms:
1. Inconsistent Caregiving
Unpredictable Responsiveness: Your caregiver was inconsistent in their attention and responsiveness to y0ur needs as a child. You became unsure whether or not your needs will be met. Sometimes your caregiver might have been nurturing and present, and other times distant or unavailable, creating confusion.
Emotional Unavailability: Your caregiver may have been physically present but emotionally unavailable, leaving you feeling unsure about the relationship's stability.
2. Uncertainty and Anxiety
Fear of Abandonment: The inconsistency in caregiving created anxiety in you and you started to worry that your needs won't be met or that you will be abandoned. This can lead to clinginess, neediness, and a desire for constant reassurance.
Heightened Emotional Sensitivity: You became hyper-attuned to the moods and reactions of your parent/caregivers, constantly scanning for signs of withdrawal or rejection. You might also feel like you walked on eggshells due to the uncertainty of your caregiver.
You became hypervigilant about watching their every move and also when they would be attentive. This caused a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about their love. This also created a fear of being abandoned or unloved.
3. Dependency and Validation
Seeking Reassurance: Because of the instability you experienced, you grew up needing continuous validation and reassurance from others to feel secure. This continues to be how you relate to others especially in intimate relationships.
Fear of Rejection: Because you developed a strong fear of rejection, this led to behaviors that prioritize maintaining close relationships—even if those relationships are unhealthy, toxic, or one-sided. Your fears of abandonment and rejection drives your behaviors even if in the moment they are not rational.
4. Impact of Life Experiences
Reinforcement of Attachment Patterns: Your anxious attachment patterns were reinforced in adolescence and adulthood, especially through romantic relationships or friendships where you continue to experience further emotional inconsistency or instability.
Trauma or Loss: Significant emotional trauma or loss, especially during key developmental stages, often contributes to the development of an anxious attachment style.
5. Internalized Beliefs
Self-Worth Dependent on Others: As a child, you often internalized the belief that you are only lovable if others validate you, which leads to feelings of insecurity and a constant need to be affirmed in relationships.
Uncertainty About Love: As adults, you fear that love and connection will be withdrawn at any moment, causing a persistent need for closeness and reassurance, which can manifest in anxious and sometimes controlling behaviors.
This can become a pattern in your relationships especially if you are in a relationship with a person who has an avoidant or fearful/avoidant attachment style.
The Impact on Your Adult Relationships - how many resonate with you?
It is very common for these unresolved feelings to carry over into your adult relationships.
“We repeat what we don’t repair.” ~Mary Beth Kean
1. Fear of Abandonment
Constant Worry About Rejection: You often experience a persistent fear that their partner will leave you, even when there is no immediate threat. This fear can lead to clinginess and a need for constant reassurance.
You may worry that your partner doesn't love you as much as you love them or you feel that the relationship will end suddenly, abruptly, or you will be blindsided.
This can create tension in relationships, as the constant need for reassurance may overwhelm a partner, potentially leading to the self-fulfilling fear of abandonment.
Hypervigilance: You are overly sensitive to changes in your partner’s behavior, constantly scanning for signs of distance, disinterest, or rejection. You are on high alert for any changes.
You are more vigilant to changes in your partner’s emotional expression (and others) and can have a higher degree of sensitivity to their cues. However, even though you may have. higher degree of accuracy to those cues, you may find that you jump to conclusions quickly, and often incorrectly, which results in a misinterpretation of their emotional state.
You have a sensitive attachment system that can put your feelings into over drive and once activated, you may find you are consumed with thoughts to re-establish closeness with your partner quickly. These are often called activating strategies.
In the book, Attached, activating strategies are any thoughts or feelings that compel you to get close, physically or emotionally, to your partner. Once they respond to you in a way that reestablishes the security you crave and need, you revert to your calm, normal self.
2. Dependence on Partner for Validation
Emotional Reliance: You rely heavily on your partner for emotional validation, fulfillment, and self-worth. You seek constant affirmation that you are loved and valued, which can feel overwhelming for your partner.
You tend to seek frequent reassurance from your partner to feel secure, often needing validation of your worth and the relationship’s stability. This is not their job to do that for you. You will need to learn how to do that for yourself.
Difficulty Being Alone: The fear of being abandoned can make it difficult for you to spend time alone or feel secure when you are not with your partner, leading to excessive neediness or attempts to control your partner’s time and attention.
3. Overcompensating to Maintain Connection
People-Pleasing: To prevent potential rejection, you often go out of their way to please their partner, sometimes neglecting your own needs and boundaries in the process.
You are a people pleaser because growing up you learned that this helps reduce your anxiety and gives you security (an illusion) that you are loved and worthy.
Avoiding Conflict: You avoid addressing problems or expressing negative emotions to prevent your partner from leaving, even when issues need resolution. You might say you are ‘conflict avoidant.’
4. Insecurity and Jealousy
Mistrust in the Relationship: Due to low self-esteem and fear of abandonment, you may struggle with jealousy and often mistrust your partner’s commitment, even if your partner is faithful and devoted.
Your self-esteem is often tied to the approval and affection your receive from your partner, making you feel unworthy or inadequate if you don’t get enough attention or love. Despite craving closeness, you struggle to fully trust that your partner is committed to you, which leads to constant cycles of doubt and fear.
Frequent Checking: You seek reassurance through frequent texts or calls, check on your partner’s social media, or ask for repeated confirmation of love and commitment. This becomes never ending and exhausting for both people even though for you, it serves a purpose of needing your partner to manage your emotions and fears.
You may overanalyze your partner’s behavior, reading into small changes or perceived signs of disinterest. This hypervigilance can lead to jealousy and insecurity. You might find that you are also emotionally exhausted from doing this.
5. Emotional Intensity and Dependency
Emotional Highs and Lows: Your relationship is marked by intense emotions, with dramatic swings between feeling deeply loved and valued when your partner is present and feeling rejected or abandoned when they are unavailable.
You tend to experience emotions more intensely, feeling extreme highs when you feel connected with your partner and extreme lows when you sense distance or disconnection.
Anxiety in Separation: Even brief separations, like spending a weekend apart or not hearing from your partner for a few hours, can cause intense anxiety and distress, leading you to overanalyze the situation.
You spend a lot of time thinking about your relationship, worrying about its future, and trying to predict what your partner is thinking or feeling. This only increases your anxiety and creates a negative feedback loop.
6. Difficulty Setting Healthy Boundaries
Fear of Pushing Partner Away: You may struggle to set boundaries because you fear it could lead to conflict or distance in the relationship. You often prioritize the relationship’s stability over your own needs.
You have difficulty setting boundaries and engaging in self-care with your focus on your partner to quell your feelings of abandonment.
Over-Involvement: Your intense need for closeness may lead you to over-involve yourself in your partner’s life or try to merge identities, blurring the lines between personal space and togetherness.
7. Clinginess and Control
Efforts to Control the Relationship: In a bid to prevent abandonment, you may attempt to control your partner’s actions, sometimes through guilt or manipulation, believing that maintaining control will prevent emotional loss and prevent them from leaving. It won’t.
Seeking Constant Reassurance: You may demand frequent displays of affection or proof of love, such as frequent texts, physical closeness, or verbal affirmations, which can be exhausting for your partner and they may start to distance themselves more from you.
8. Cycle of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Pushing Partners Away: Ironically, the anxiety-driven behaviors of constant seeking, clinginess, or control can overwhelm your partner and push them away, reinforcing your fear of abandonment. It’s a vicious and toxic relationship pattern and cycle. It becomes self-fulfilling.
Relationship Burnout: The emotional intensity and dependency may lead to burnout for your partner, who may feel they can never provide enough reassurance, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction or even breakups.
9. Impact on Conflict Resolution
Difficulty Handling Conflict: You may experience intense fear during arguments, seeing conflict as a potential precursor to abandonment. This can make it hard to navigate disagreements productively.
Your fears around abandonment prevent you from having healthy conversations that can help you manage and process disagreements in a productive way.
Seeking Immediate Resolution: You may want to resolve conflicts immediately, fearing that any delay in reconciliation signals deeper relational issues, which can feel suffocating to your partner if they need space to process.
10. Attraction to Avoidant Partners
The distancer/pursuer relationship. You find that you are attracted to avoidant partners, creating a push-pull dynamic that reinforces your insecurities where no one gets their needs met in the relationship. You may pursue closeness and reassurance from your partner.
Yet, a person with an avoidant attachment style may feel overwhelmed by what they perceive as neediness or demands for intimacy.
You may be drawn to avoidant partners because they represent a challenge to attain the emotional connection you crave.
Avoidant people may be drawn to anxious partners because their need for closeness reinforces their own need for independence.
What Now? 10 Steps to Heal and Grow and Become More Secure
Making changes in your life isn’t always easy. It takes work, attention, intention, a desire to change, commitment, showing up, and being vulnerable.
My experience has been that it’s a path that many people want to take, but don’t know how or they are not ready to make the changes they need to make so they can create a healthier sense of self and become more secure as a person and in relationships.
Ask yourself - am I willing to do the work? Am I at a place in my life where I know I have to make these changes and recognize that it will take time, patience, grace, and a lot of self-compassion?
Overcoming anxious attachment requires self-awareness, emotional growth, and practice in developing healthier relationship patterns. This doesn’t happen overnight.
You have been struggling with an anxious attachment style most likely for a large part of your life.
The goal is to transition from a place of insecurity and neediness to one of confidence and emotional independence.
1. Build Self-Awareness
Recognize Your Patterns: Start by noticing your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in relationships. Pay attention to when you feel anxious, clingy, or insecure, and the situations that trigger these responses. Start an emotion journal.
Identify Your Triggers: Notice what specific events or interactions make you feel anxious or fearful of abandonment. Understanding these triggers is the first step in managing them.
Examine Core Beliefs: Reflect on any underlying beliefs fueling your anxious attachment. For example, you might believe that you are unworthy of love or that others will inevitably leave you. Ask is this a fact or a feeling? where is the evidence for this thought?
2. Challenge Negative Thoughts
Reframe Your Thinking: When anxious thoughts arise, question their validity. Are you jumping to conclusions or catastrophizing? Replace these thoughts with more balanced, realistic perspectives. Are they true? Again, is this a feeling?
Practice Positive Self-Talk: Challenge self-doubt and insecurity by consciously practicing self-compassion. Remind yourself of your worth and your ability to be loved. Give yourself the grace and compassion you would a friend in this same situation. What would you say to them to help them? Do the same thing for yourself.
3. Foster Emotional Independence
Cultivate Self-Esteem: Work on building your self-worth independently of your relationships. Focus on your strengths, achievements, and personal growth to develop confidence in who you are. Start a list and keep adding to it.
Learn to Be Alone: Spend time alone to grow comfortable with your own company and self-soothe when anxiety arises. This helps reduce dependency on others for validation. What are 1-2 things you can start to do alone that will help you learn how to ‘sit’ with your feelings of loneliness and/or abandonment?
The only around is through. If you keep ‘kicking the can’, you will never learn how to be by yourself and move through the negative feelings you are experiencing. Mindfulness and meditation will also help you.
Engage in Hobbies and Interests: Pursue activities that bring you joy and fulfillment outside of relationships. This will help you feel more balanced and centered within yourself.
Ask yourself, what are a couple things I have always thought about doing that I can start to do now? Not sure? Read about different hobbies and activities that you can start to do.
4. Communicate Openly and Honestly
Express Your Needs Clearly: Practice communicating your emotional needs to your partner without overwhelming them. Use "I" statements to express how you feel, without sounding accusatory or needy.
Set Boundaries: Learn to establish healthy boundaries in relationships to protect your emotional well-being. This involves saying "no" when necessary and allowing yourself and your partner space when needed.
5. Practice Emotional Regulation
Develop Coping Strategies: Learn techniques to manage anxiety and regulate your emotions, such as deep breathing, mindfulness, or journaling. These tools can help you stay calm during moments of emotional distress.
This is one of the most important things you can do but also the most challenging. In order to engage in more constructive ways of thinking, you will need to calm the emotional part of your brain first.
Then you can start to implement skills and strategies. Grounding techniques help. Read more about them here.
Pause Before Reacting: When you feel anxious or triggered, take a moment to pause before responding. This can prevent you from acting impulsively or clinging to your partner out of fear. Learn how to pump the brakes and take a 5 minute time out.
6. Focus on Secure Relationships
Choose Partners Who Are Secure: If possible, seek out relationships with individuals who have a more secure attachment style. These partners can help model healthy relational behaviors and provide the stability and reassurance that may be lacking in more volatile connections.
Accept Reassurance: While it’s important to work on self-soothing, allow yourself to accept reassurance from your partner when it’s given. Trust that their actions reflect their commitment to you, rather than constantly needing to seek out validation.
7. Embrace Growth and Patience
Be Patient with Yourself: Overcoming anxious attachment is a gradual process. Recognize that progress takes time and that setbacks are normal. Be kind to yourself and give yourself some grace as you begin to make changes in your life that have been with you for a very long time.
Change doesn’t happen over night.
Celebrate Small Wins: Acknowledge and celebrate even small victories, like responding to a trigger with less anxiety or effectively communicating your needs. Write these small wins down and keep track! They all add up.
8. Seek Therapy or Professional Support
Explore Attachment-Based Therapy: Therapy, especially attachment-based approaches or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), can help you process past experiences, change negative thinking patterns, and develop healthier relational behaviors.
Learn About Attachment: Educating yourself on attachment theory can provide insights into your behavior and help you understand your attachment style. Books, podcasts, and workshops can be valuable tools for self-awareness and growth. Reading blogs, books, articles, and eBooks will help provide a deeper understanding of your attachment style and how to make changes that are sustainable.
9. Practice Mindfulness and Self-Compassion
Mindfulness: Engage in mindfulness practices to stay present and aware of your emotions without letting them control you. This helps reduce emotional reactivity and impulsive behaviors in relationships.
Mindfulness is the act of accepting how you feel about a situation without passing judgment on yourself. Again, learn how to ‘sit’ with your feelings while being mindful of them.
Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with kindness and understanding when you feel anxious or insecure. This will help diminish the harsh self-criticism that often accompanies anxious attachment.
10. Build Trust Gradually
Take Small Risks: Gradually challenge your fears of abandonment by taking small relational risks, like giving your partner more space or not seeking immediate reassurance during moments of uncertainty.
This could be the practice of learning how to ‘sit on your hands or biting your tongue.’ This allows you to learn how to calm your body and mind down, will the impulsive feelings start to diminish.
Trust the Process: Learn to trust both yourself and your partner. Relationships are built over time, and security comes from consistent effort, patience, and trust-building interactions.
Final Thoughts
In overcoming an anxious attachment style, it's important to remember that growth is a journey, not a destination. Through self-awareness, healing from past wounds, and building healthier relationships, you can transform the way you connect with others.
By cultivating self-love, setting boundaries, and seeking secure bonds, you learn to trust both yourself and the people around you. With time, patience, and consistency, your anxious tendencies can give way to a deeper sense of security and peace, allowing you to thrive in relationships where mutual trust and respect flourish.
By following these steps and committing to your personal growth, you can gradually shift away from anxious attachment and develop more secure, fulfilling, and balanced relationships.
Not sure of your attachment style? Take the quiz here.
