We all have had our consciousness raised to have a working knowledge of attachment styles. People tend to fall in one category: anxious, secure or avoidant. However, I think most people can vacillate between all three depending on what they are presented with on the other side. I know that this is not likely supported by the research on the subject, but my experience of people and observation of relationships, says there is a middle path where people respond differently than their attachment style based on the dynamic they are being presented with...
And that is why I think this whole idea of dynamic in the interplay of relationships needs to be considered...
If someone is not responding to you, is telling you certain things that don’t check out, is hot and cold, the appropriate response in that dynamic is to not trust it, to feel insecure and to feel unstable. The feelings generated are appropriate given the dynamic. It doesn’t mean that you are just an anxious attacher. It means, instead, the relational dynamic is unstable and you are responding appropriately.
Now the million dollar question is: what are you going to do about it? And THIS is where the attachment style really comes into play. The avoidant is going to be out. The anxious attacher is going to try to get the person giving them all the mixed signals to stop doing that. And the secure attacher is going to spend a little time attempting to communicate about the dysfunctional dynamic to see if improvement can be made, and if it can’t, the secure person is going to move on swiftly. And likely the secure person wouldn't have been attracted to the dysfunctional dynamic in the first place.
So our attachment styles aren’t necessarily about what our nervous systems are throwing down, so much as they are about what we DO when we find ourselves in an unstable dynamic. IT is not the feelings that are the issue, it is what we DO with them that causes the future damage.
Feeling destabilized when someone is gaslighting you, is emotionally unavailable, avoidant, secretive and inconsistent is a NORMAL response to such behaviors. This is not wrong. You feeling knocked off center is how one is supposed to feel when up against this dynamic. There is nothing wrong with the way you feel. Where things tend to go South, is what you do with those feelings and what comes next.
The secure attacher is out after a little bit of effort, if they were ever In to begin with... The avoidant is out after no effort at all. And the anxious person, because their attachment style is born out of an inconsistent connection to begin with feels right at home in all their discomfort and so they stay and attempt to resolve the original wound with the new presentation of it.
For me, the work I have had to do is to see that I am the problem in this dynamic, not the other person. If I do not like what I am getting from the other person, my job is not to try to change THEM, it is instead to work with the feelings brought up in me and then align them in a way that supports me and my growth. The other person is the catalyst for change but not the vehicle. I have to drive myself there, instead of demanding the other person do it for me.
I guess what I am attempting to say is that the feelings are not the issue. The issue is what happens next. When you are all dysregulated and in fear, doing something to help you get out of the dynamic is what is operative here. And far too often, myself included, I have attempted to stay and make the other person stop doing things that make me feel uneasy and adrift.
This would be where I have gone wrong every single time. Believing the words that promise change when there is in fact no change that is ever going to come and the other person is going to just keep doing shit that makes you feel crazy.
So, as always, the solution resides in us. If you are engaging with a person who makes you feel like you are unimportant, lost, being avoided or cannot be emotionally consistent with, then those feelings are there to give you the impetus to change YOUR behavior, not stick around and get the other person to stop doing all the things that make you feel so destabilized in the first place...
We may not be able to change our attachment style. But perhaps we can pay closer attention to the dynamic at play and what feelings are being generated by the dynamic of the relationship. Instead of just labeling ourselves with some archaic label that doesn’t really explain our current situation all that completely. Feelings are indicators, tools if you will, to show us where we are stuck, where we are in danger, where we are lost and where we are off track. Use them to your betterment. And for fuck's sake, pay attention to the dynamic and then ask yourself, "what the fuck are ya doing here?"
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