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What Is Attachment Anxiety? · Trauma Free Relationship

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Today we're going to talk about attachment anxiety.
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Now, this is not something that happened solely because of
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relational trauma. However, if there is a history
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of trauma, then attachment anxiety usually can be worse.
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But this is something that everybody struggles with whether
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they have trauma or not because it is part of the attachment
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system. So by the end of this episode,
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you're going to understand what attachment anxiety is.
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You're going to understand where it comes from and how it fits
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into your attachment style and maybe most importantly, really
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effective ways to tame your attachment anxiety.
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Hi, I'm Tom Phelp with Trauma free Relationship and I've been
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working with adults who struggle with relational trauma to regain
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trust in themselves and others so that they can experience a
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safe and secure relationship. Let's get started,
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OK? As I mentioned in the opening,
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we're talking today about the attachment system and
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specifically about attachment anxiety.
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So what is attachment anxiety? It is one of four parts of what
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we call the behavioral system of attachment theory.
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Those four parts are the fear or weariness system, meaning our
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ability to detect danger, The attachment system, which is our
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ability to seek closeness and care in times of threat.
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The caregiving system, which is being able to provide care and
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support to a partner. And finally, the exploratory
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system, meaning learning about our world when we feel safe.
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Now, if we want to put this into a context of children for just a
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moment, which is originally how this was sort of researched and
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discovered, what you have is children by about the 12 to 18
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months of age are firmly attached.
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Meaning that they understand that they now have one or
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potentially two people in the world that can care for them.
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And they are sort of In Sync biologically with that parent or
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caregiver. So that when they sense danger
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or when they sense the parent is not attuned to them, is not In
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Sync with them, that creates a sense of fear that the
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attachment bond may be fraying or broken.
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And their whole behavior at that point, for lack of a better
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term, is to get back In Sync with the parent and the child.
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This is this is displayed beautifully in Edtronix video.
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And you can look this up on YouTube where the mother is
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playing with the child and the protocol of the experience is
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that she's to turn around and turn her back towards the child
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for just about 10 seconds and then turn back around.
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And when she does, she is a supposed to have no expressions.
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It's called the still face experiment.
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Again, you can find it on YouTube.
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The the baby immediately notices that the mother is no longer In
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Sync. It, the baby notices the
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mother's no longer mimicking what it's doing and it's trying
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to get the mother's attention and it's pointing and it's
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laughing and it's smiling. It's doing all the things baby
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do babies do. And eventually it gets very
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scared, right? It's detecting danger.
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But if you watch the video closely, the danger was detected
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immediately as soon as the mother turned around and had no
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affect on her face, Nothing that mimic the child.
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You can almost see the child sort of jolt like what is
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happening. This is scary.
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And so that's part of the fear weariness system, detecting
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danger in our relationships. The attachment system is that
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when we feel scared, we go to somebody and seek proximity to
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somebody who's by an all, all large parts, you know, older,
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wiser, so to speak, right? In other words, we seek comfort,
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we seek care. That is so important in, in the
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attachment theory, this part of the system, because in many ways
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that's what attachment is. It's learning that people are
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there for you that will show up for you when you need them and
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so they are safe to go to. And when that happens, then it
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creates a a biological bond between you and another person.
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Whether that be a child with an adult or whether that be
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romantic partners, married couples, couples that have been
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together a long time, cohabitating, whatever it might
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be. If you've been together long
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enough, presumably if you've had sex a few times by about 18
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months, you are your, your nervous system is wrapped around
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their nervous system so much so that if something goes wrong,
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you seek them out because they are your person.
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So that's kind of what the attachment system is.
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The caregiving system is being able to provide care and
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support. Your partner comes home, they've
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had a really bad day. They look sad or scared on their
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face. What do you do?
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You lean into that. You sit down with them, you
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listen to them, you provide comfort and care.
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Maybe you help problem solve. After they feel heard from you,
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whatever that may be, your caregiving system shows up
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because this is your person and you know they need you in this
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moment. And then finally, the
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exploratory system that is just simply when we are attached,
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when we feel safe in the world, then we can turn our attention
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to the outside world. We can get up, we can go to
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work, we can slay the dragon or, you know, kill the beast, drag
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home the meat, whatever types of metaphors you know, that that we
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want to talk about here. But all of that is more easily
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focused on when we feel secure in our relationship.
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And often times the the image I talk about with a lot of my
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individuals and and couples that I coach is like a Pebble
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dropping into a pond. That initial ring that the water
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makes when the Pebble drops in, that is the sense of safety and
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security in the relationship. And when that is secure than all
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the other ripples. How well we can parent, how well
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we can show up to our jobs, how well we can be community
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members, how well we can be citizens of the world.
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You know, all the ripples that expand out from that initial
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drop in the pond. That is because the basic unit
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of society is the couple. Some people say it's the family.
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I go even further. I say it's the couple because
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before you have children, you are still a type of family.
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It's you and your partner and that is a family.
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And so as as a result, how well that functions and how well you
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can turn your attention to the outside world and explore and
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learn and grow in other ways is based in large part on how
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secure you feel in your relationship.
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So those are the four parts of the attachment system.
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Today, we're going to talk about the fear system.
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We're going to talk about the anxiety that happens when we
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feel like our bond with our partner is strained.
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We're going to talk about how does that fear show up in our
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relationships and show up inside ourselves when we begin to
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detect danger. And, and by that I mean not, not
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physical danger like our partners harming us, but
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emotional danger that somehow the bond is fraying between our
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partners, us and our partner. And so I think about this a
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little bit like a smoke alarm that's too sensitive because
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sometimes this can happen. And I don't know if you've ever
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been cooking in the kitchen. I sure have.
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And you know, maybe something didn't go quite right and now
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there's some excessive smoke in the kitchen.
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I mean, I've probably burnt something or I had left it in
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the oven too long. And soon as I open the oven, all
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the smoke pillows out and that sort of thing.
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But right, the smoke alarms might go off.
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And it's one of those things where I'm like, Oh my gosh,
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there's no fire. I know there's no fire.
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I don't want the smoke alarms to go off.
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But I understand why they are because they're doing their job.
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They're detecting smoke even though they know that there's no
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legitimate, or even though I know there's no legitimate fire
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in the house. I can open a window, open a
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door, kind of fan the smoke out, everything's OK.
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But that smoke alarm still goes off.
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And so attachment anxiety is a little bit like having a smoke
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alarm internally inside you that's set to the most sensitive
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setting, and it tends to go off at times even when you don't
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want it to. And that is because more often
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than not, you have struggled with past relational trauma.
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Past relational trauma makes that smoke alarm more sensitive
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than it needs to be. It's going off when there's
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smoke, whether there's a real fire or not, because that's its
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job. That's what it's supposed to do.
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And so when we have a smoke alarm that is too sensitive,
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often times it can cause us to misread situations with our
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partner. And not only can we misread
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them, we can project our own fears onto our partner.
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We can, we can read into what they're doing as fear of they're
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going to abandon me, they're going to reject me, so on and so
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forth. Once again, they're telling me
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I'm not good enough. I don't measure up.
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And so this smoke alarm can be really sensitive inside of us
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and we have to be able to try to tease apart and perceive when
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there's real fire and when there's not.
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Yes, there may be some smoke, but that may be coming from
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inside of us, not because our partners really ready to abandon
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us. And so I hope that's a helpful
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metaphor for how we might talk about attachment anxiety.
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When you perceive, real or otherwise, when you perceive
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your partner's pulling away, your partner is, you know, the
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bond is fraying. Your partner maybe uses phrases
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like I can't do this anymore in the middle of a fight.
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And all of a sudden, you know, as if you weren't a little bit
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panicking before, you're really panicking now because now your
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partner's threatening the whole relationship.
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Or your partner comes home and says, I, I just need time.
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I just, I don't want to talk to anybody.
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It's been a horrible day. I'm just going to go in the
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other room. I just just leave me alone.
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I just need some time and completely shuts you out.
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That shuts out the caregiving system.
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That's part of how we're designed.
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We want to show up for our partner and provide them comfort
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and care. And when they push us away and
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they don't allow us to be able to do that, that causes anxiety.
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And so this, this smoke alarm can be really sensitive and we
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have to learn how to sort of begin to reset it to its factory
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settings. So it's not so sensitive.
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We don't want it to go away. Every home needs a smoke alarm
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because sometimes there is fire and we need that danger system.
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We need that part of us that is able to to discern danger when
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it really happens in our relationships.
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Emotional danger, emotional disconnection is what I'm
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talking about here, of course. And so being able to understand
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that attachment anxiety, it is part of a larger system that
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includes proximity seeking when we're scared, wanting to turn
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towards our partner, seeing them as a resource of comfort and
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care, providing that comfort and care to our partner.
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And then when the crisis is over, being able to return to
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normal, being able to return to talking about the kids or
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vacations or any other thing that might be going on in our
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world because we've weathered that crisis together.
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So now we can turn our attention to day-to-day life and when that
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attachment anxiety becomes too ervasive, when it begins to get
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trigger and go off at the slightest signs of smoke.
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Oftentimes, in my experience with thousands of hours of
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working with individuals and couples, it's because that alarm
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system has, has been, has had experiences that are making it
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too sensitive, and rightfully so, rightfully so.
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Those are experiences that probably were very traumatic in
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the past. And as a result, it is now set
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to the most sensitive setting. But we want to try to be able to
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distinguish between what happened back then versus the
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safety that is happening in the here and now.
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And so our our nervous system, of course, plays a huge role in
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this attachment at at the root is about how our nervous system
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learns to adapt and to adjust. And so our nervous system has
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ways of keeping us safe. And when that smoke alarm goes
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off over the slightest signs of smoke, it's because our nervous
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system has learned to perceive danger in even the smallest
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amounts. To perceive if our partner
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doesn't maintain eye contact as long as he or she used to, tends
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to be very off putting. When you try to connect with
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them, you're just explaining some things that happened.
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And instead of them listening intently or really attuning to
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you, what happens is, oh, OK, yeah.
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And they kind of just dismiss you or downplay it or turn the
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focus to them. And all of a sudden you're
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starting just to sense, man, what's going on here?
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It seems like it seems like they're really not interested in
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hearing what I have to say today at all.
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If you have a sense of secure attachment, you can blow that
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off. You can go, OK, well, maybe
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they're just distracted. Maybe they're having a bad day.
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I'll just go and soothe myself, comfort myself, go to my own
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room and we'll reconnect later. That, you know, that's not a
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problem. I trust that this will realign
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itself, this relationship, but if you're lean towards an
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insecure style, then that may not at all be your reaction.
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It could be that your attachment system, your need to be
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comforted and and soothed in that moment because of the
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perceived threat gets hyperactivated.
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And so now instead of being able to soothe yourself or blow this
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off, what happens instead is you start really amping up the
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pressure on your partner. Hey, what's going on?
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What's wrong? I'm just trying to talk to you.
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How come you're blowing me off? Why is it that you always
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minimize this? And then you start using
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absolutes like always and never and things like that.
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And so now what happens is your partner does get defensive.
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They start to feel very attacked and they start to use their own
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protection in those moments. Or if you lean more towards the
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avoidance style, then what happens is maybe you don't
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perceive that much at all. Maybe your partner is distancing
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themselves. But what do you do?
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You turn off your attachment needs after feeling that that
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smoke alarm goes off and you completely ignore it.
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And you go and you distract yourself and you go to your own
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room and you're completely happy to do that because you're an
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island unto yourself anyway. You don't want to call out
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what's happening to make things worse.
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You don't want to feel your own feelings because that feels
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really bad. So you just go and move on to
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the next thing and distract yourself.
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And you robbed yourself of an opportunity of being able to
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work through what happened in that moment with your partner to
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be able to actually re establish a more secure connection.
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So your nervous system, when it perceives threat, is going to
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act accordingly based on the previous experiences you've had.
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And if you learn more towards the anxious style, then it's
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going to hyperactivate your attachment system and you're
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going to seek proximity, seek closeness, seek some kind of
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reassurance from your partner. If you learn more towards the
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avoidance style, it's going to do the opposite.
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It's going to shut down, it's going to move away, it's going
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to turn it off. It's going to go self soothe and
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comfort itself at the expense of the relationship.
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And if you're listening to that, it might sound for a moment
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like, oh, that sounds like the one I want to have.
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That sounds great. Just not being able to feel that
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anxiety and having that smoke alarm not go off or being able
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just to yank out the battery when it does so that it doesn't
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cause me into distress. Oh, that's the one I want to
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have. But let me tell you, there is a
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big downside to being the more avoidance style because you want
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to go and self soothe and you're capable of doing that.
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It comes at the expense of learning how to seek comfort and
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care in those moments. And that is something that your
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nervous system never learned how to reach out to others.
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And oftentimes what will happen then is when you do decide to
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take the risk to reach out and be vulnerable and ask for help,
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you might do so in a way where your partner won't recognize it.
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And I see this happen a lot with my couples where the more
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avoidance style partner says, well, you know, three months
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ago, I, I was really having a bad day and I tried to talk to
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you about it. And then your response was,
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well, you know what? I've had a really bad day to let
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me tell you about mine. And it just taught me that, boy,
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I'm not doing that again. I was trying to open up.
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This was actually a big moment for me to try to do that.
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And you never recognized it. You never saw it.
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You made it about yourself or, or you dismissed it or whatever.
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And as sad as those moments are, I also recognize that that
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probably the more avoidance style partner did not show up in
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a way that the partner could recognize they were in distress
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or recognize that they were feeling attachment anxiety.
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And so they blew it off because they just didn't recognize it.
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They didn't see it. And it's unusual to see in their
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partner. They usually think they're
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partners got it all figured out. Rarely it ever experiences
20:16
anxiety and so they didn't recognize it.
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And so of course the opposite can be true for the more anxious
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partner. They can be totally flooded with
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anxiety, so much so that they come like a wall of feelings and
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a wall of words to their partner because their ability to
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hyperactivate their attachment system, meaning their need for
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comfort and and security and reassurance in those moments can
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overwhelm their partner. So your nervous system learns to
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adapt to that. And when your nervous system is
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triggered or perceives danger, you pop out of the window and
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you can go into fight or flight. Now here's one of the takeaways
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I want you all to hear that, that both partners, whether you
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are anxious or avoidant in your style, both partners feel
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anxiety. It's not just one, It's not just
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the anxious person that feels it, the the more avoidance style
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partner feels it as well. It's just that they're capable
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of masking it and distancing themselves from it better.
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So on the outside it looks like they're unaffected, but on the
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inside it's like a duck on the water.
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Their feet are going 100 miles an hour, but you don't see it
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from the outside. The outside, they've learned to
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lock it down. It doesn't help them to talk
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about it. If they can't find a solution to
21:44
a problem, it actually makes the anxiety worse.
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And they've never learned to be able to reach out and seek the
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comfort and care that they need because originally it wasn't
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there in the 1st place. So those are the different
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styles and the different ways that attachment anxiety can show
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up in our relationships. All right, let's talk about now
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the most important part. What do we do when we perceive
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that we are sensing danger in our relationship, when we're
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sensing a threat to the emotional bond?
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And that may be a better way to phrase that.
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What happens when the smoke alarm goes off and we are
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sensing a threat, an emotional threat to our relationship, to
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the bond, to the connection? Well, one of the first things I
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think we do is we need to name, notice and nurture right secure
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couples. One of the things they do
22:43
immediately as they try to control themselves, not each
22:46
other. Meaning they they first work on
22:49
regulating themselves and their own emotions, not trying to
22:54
regulate their partners emotions.
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What I see often times is when couples try to talk through
23:02
something that's sensitive and it becomes more emotional and it
23:06
starts to escalate. They, they both have an oxygen
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mask, but what they try to do is they try to put the oxygen mask
23:13
on each other instead of themselves.
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And so naming, noticing and beginning to nurture is a way to
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sort of put the oxygen mask on yourself.
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So name the emotion. I feel scared that they're going
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to leave. I feel scared they're going to
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abandon me. I feel scared that once again
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they're telling me I'm failing them.
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These are some of the core emotions that are being
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triggered inside you. Then notice anybody sensations
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often times anxiety is rooted in the stomach.
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When we feel anxious, it usually sits in our abdomen.
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And so it's just like you might be nervous before having to
23:57
stand up and speak in front of people.
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The, the biggest fear there is out there public speaking, how
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that kind of nervousness in your stomach that oh, something could
24:07
go wrong. That's usually where anxiety
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sits. And sometimes you can feel it in
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your chest. Sometimes you feel it down into
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your arms and your legs and your extremities.
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But more often than not, it's sort of sits in your stomach.
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So can you notice what it is you're feeling?
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Can you notice that sensation and where it resides in your
24:27
body? And then finally, you need to be
24:30
able to nurture yourself in those moments.
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Self soothing nurture with supportive statements like it's
24:37
OK if I ask for things that I need or I'm safe in this moment,
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or my partner is just upset right now but they want to hear
24:47
me. I know they care about me.
24:50
So one of the first things we need to do is name notice and
24:54
nurture. One of the second things we need
24:58
to do that can be very helpful is just to pause for at least 90
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seconds to stop. Take a deep breath and pause.
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And when we take a deep breath, one of the techniques I really
25:10
like is the 446. So stop, breathe in for four
25:14
seconds through your nose, hold it for four seconds, and then
25:19
exhale for six seconds from your mouth.
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This really helps your nervous system almost reset in that
25:26
moment. Now, it won't completely get rid
25:28
of your anxiety because your brain is still wired to look for
25:33
the potential threat, but it will help you hopefully relax a
25:39
little bit through that conversation.
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And when your body's a little more relaxed, it will help shift
25:44
your facial expressions and your tone.
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You'll be less likely to show up as scared or anxious or or
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avoidant or shut down or disinterested or angry or any of
25:58
those defensive kinds of looks on your face as well.
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So being able to stop, pause, count to 90, use the 446
26:09
technique, those are all really helpful ways as well.
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Another way that I think is a good way to combat anxiety is to
26:19
Orient yourself in the moment. When we feel anxious our our
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brain is designed to hyper focus on that which is making us most
26:28
anxious. So if it's our partner in that
26:31
moment we are going to be laser focused on our partners words,
26:35
their tone of voice and their facial expressions.
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That is where our our gaze is going to be if we stop and we
26:44
look around and we tried to Orient ourselves a little bit,
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that can help us pull our focus and shift our focus enough that
26:53
we can ground ourselves a little bit.
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So using the 54321 technique, I've talked about this before on
26:59
the podcast, really important. Name five colors, name 4
27:04
objects, name three things you can touch and then touch them.
27:09
Name two things you can hear, and then name one thing that you
27:14
can smell or taste one of the other.
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And so that kind of helps just Orient us to the here and now a
27:23
little bit and shifts our focus away from the threat so that we
27:27
can soothe ourselves a little bit better.
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And then I think those are some short term things we can do.
27:35
Long term, what we have to do, as I mentioned at the openings,
27:38
we have to figure out how do we sort of try to reset the smoke
27:42
alarm back to the factory settings so that it's not so
27:46
sensitive. And this is a longer term work.
27:49
But I firmly believe we're all capable of doing this.
27:53
And so we have to be able to recognize that the old model
27:59
says that I'm too much or I can never get it right, or people
28:05
leave, or I have to work hard to earn love, or I'm not lovable or
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I'm broken or any of those those old internal working model
28:18
statements, models of ourselves that we carry deep inside us.
28:22
People are going to leave. It's just a matter of time.
28:25
I'm never going to get it right for my partner.
28:27
I'm always going to fail them. Those types of really deep
28:35
statements that we believe to be true about ourselves and our our
28:39
deeper, quieter, more solemn moments.
28:42
Those are the those are the really sensitive markers of the
28:48
smoke alarm. The new model needs to be I
28:53
matter, my needs matter. I can get it right for my
28:57
partner. I can love them well, my partner
29:01
can give me feedback letting me know that I'm a good partner,
29:05
that I'm not failing them, I'm not too broken to be loved.
29:10
It's not all up to me. My partner's a willing partner
29:14
in this relationship, at working on the relationship and trying
29:17
to love me the way that feels good for me.
29:20
Those are the new models. And so part of what we need to
29:24
do is replace the, the old really sensitive smoke alarm
29:28
with the factory setting that says I'm worthy of love, I'm
29:33
capable of love and my needs matter.
29:37
And so being able to long term shift that focus allows us to
29:43
sort of reset the the the smoke alarm to its factory setting.
29:48
So it's not so sensitive. OK, Well, I hope that you have
29:54
enjoyed this podcast today. Please reach out, give me a
29:58
comment, let me know what you like, what you don't like, what
30:01
you'd like more of to hear. Until then, my name is Tom
30:05
Phillip, and I'm here to tell you to stay grounded, clear and
30:09
connected.