Reading The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel A. van der Kolk
The established study on attachment theory distribution shows 9% of children in typical middle class families developed anxious-ambivalent attachment, while the majority 62% were the normal secure type. I’m alarmed my parents might have made me a dysfunctional outlier. I was a little reassured by this slightly whimsical Washington Post article about dating and how the author is an anxious type. The article references Attached which states for adults, 20% are anxious while 50% are secure. Makes me feel a little better! One out of five adults are anxious, no wonder the drug companies make so much money.
It would be interesting to see a study that compares attachment types to income and residence. Maybe more anxious types live in the city and while the rest of the country feels calm and collected, we’re here bumping heads. This German study didn’t really see a big attachment difference in distribution of single people (who generally live in cities). The more damning observation was simply the inability to maintain relationships:
The anxiously-ambivalent attached individuals are unable to distance themselves from disappointing and conflictual relationships just as they are incapable of detaching themselves from overwhelming inner stress.
Ouch! Such is true when high emotions are involved, but the research says the emotions are involuntary, they are bound to happen because your parents didn’t coo you enough as a baby. It seems kind of ridiculous that simple actions could have a profound effect throughout my life.
But that is just talking about basic brain wiring, it’s what you fall back on. So talking with friends, learning from past experiences, one can build up a set of strategies of dealing with these fallouts and recognizing them as real but not true. I don’t have to stay glued to a former mate just because my brain-body is yearning so.
Another aspect of anxious-ambivalent I found annoying was the penchant to be super communicative and overshare, while actually being bored. I always have a need to perform, to wow, and afterwards still leaves me feeling hollow.
Individuals with a secure attachment style show positive beliefs about themselves (e.g., self-worth, social competence, sense of control) and about their partner or others (e.g., trustworthy, dependable, and altruistic). On the other hand, individuals with an anxious/ambivalent attachment style can be characterized by negative beliefs about themselves but positive views of the partner or others as well as an obsessive preoccupation with their partner. Individuals with an avoidant attachment style have a positive view of themselves and a negative view of their partner and others. They show a fear of intimacy and a lack of acceptance of the partner as well as distrust of others.
I can only imagine my last avoidant type would have taken any of my faults and used them to justify ghosting. Of course I have ghosted as well, an equally anxious type who I allowed to abuse my goodwill and wallet and never delivered much in return.
The Next Runner Up
I’m curious how I will bridge this knowledge with the next person to enter my life. On one hand I want to immediately spill this information in order to be transparent, but doing so is exactly fulfilling the destiny of an anxious-ambivalent to burden the partner with conflict before you’ve even gone on a second date. Of course encountering fellow anxious or avoidants are easy to spot.
The best way to see it is that people are social creatures with a complex background that affect how they appear and act. So it’s probably weird to start talking about innate compatibility when it’s clear someone who wants to be in your presence is interested.
For me, it’ll be good information to address my inner voice and the distortions created when I think there are problems. It also gives me pause to needing to “perform” in front of others. Authentic presence is performance itself.