Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 27, Season 1: The Anxious Pre-Occupied

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Episode 27, Season 1: The Anxious Pre-Occupied · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Doc Podcast. I'm your co host
0:11
Speaker 1: Ryana Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hnsley. Hey, hey, hey, Hey,
0:15
Speaker 1: what's up doc?
0:16
Speaker 2: Ah? Gosh, how's your week?
0:19
Speaker 3: Hectic as always with the kiddos. Everybody's got a different
0:23
Speaker 3: place to go.
0:24
Speaker 2: But it's good, good good.
0:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. Same. It's been a crazy week for me too.
0:31
Speaker 1: I say crazy, but not really crazy, just kind of
0:33
Speaker 1: like with the time change, I'm like in this weird funk. Yeah,
0:37
Speaker 1: I don't know, it like knocks off my circadian rhythm
0:39
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, it's weird, and then I
0:41
Speaker 1: just get in these really strange funks. I'll snap out
0:44
Speaker 1: of it though. Speaking of funks, episode twenty seven, and
0:49
Speaker 1: we are going to cover a topic that I think
0:52
Speaker 1: a lot of people, based on your messages, are really
0:56
Speaker 1: really curious about, which is we're just going to cover
0:58
Speaker 1: the anxious preoccupied.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that attachment style.
1:01
Speaker 3: I don't talk about it as much because I just
1:04
Speaker 3: don't see it very much.
1:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:07
Speaker 3: So many people come to me in coaching and say
1:11
Speaker 3: I'm an anxious preoccupied and then when I do an assessment,
1:13
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're a total fearful avoidance. You're not an
1:16
Speaker 3: anxious preoccupied. I understand you feel very anxious right now
1:19
Speaker 3: because you're with a dismissive avoidant, and the fearfuls will
1:22
Speaker 3: lean opposite of their partner. So if their partner's very avoidant,
1:25
Speaker 3: they're going to feel very anxious and they're going to
1:27
Speaker 3: look a lot like an anxious preoccupied. But most people
1:30
Speaker 3: just do not recognize their avoidance side.
1:32
Speaker 1: So for first, I think the best question of the
1:35
Speaker 1: first question is, you know, so, what's the biggest variable
1:40
Speaker 1: that really differentiates the two between anxious preoccupied and fearful avoidance.
1:44
Speaker 3: Well, I think we have to start with childhood experiences.
1:47
Speaker 2: For sure.
1:48
Speaker 3: Fearful avoidance is born out of childhood trauma that makes
1:54
Speaker 3: a young child stop trusting one or more of their parents,
1:57
Speaker 3: so they develop a betrayal wound. The anxious preoccupied, in
2:02
Speaker 3: my practice, almost always reports that they had a very good,
2:05
Speaker 3: loving childhood. They can't really pinpoint one of their parents
2:08
Speaker 3: as dysfunctional, and they feel like they got emotional support.
2:13
Speaker 3: It was just there was something that made it inconsistent.
2:16
Speaker 3: So I see a lot of variables, Like I had
2:20
Speaker 3: parents that worked a lot, so and I was a
2:22
Speaker 3: latch key kid, but when my parents were home, they
2:25
Speaker 3: were really attuned to me and really gave me a
2:27
Speaker 3: lot of love and affection and emotional support. Or well,
2:31
Speaker 3: I had a lot of siblings five six, seven, you know,
2:34
Speaker 3: kids in the family. Nobody had enough time to give
2:37
Speaker 3: the child enough.
2:38
Speaker 2: One on one attunement.
2:40
Speaker 3: Or grandma got sick and she moved in with us,
2:42
Speaker 3: and so parents' attention was pulled away from child to
2:45
Speaker 3: you know, the elderly parent. And so it's usually inconsistency
2:51
Speaker 3: and the love, affection, emotional attunement that drives the anxious
2:56
Speaker 3: preoccupied because it's really intermittentaryenforced, and we've talked about that before,
3:02
Speaker 3: but just to remind our audience, intermittent reinforcement is when
3:06
Speaker 3: somebody meets your needs and then withdraws them. Meets your
3:08
Speaker 3: needs and then withdraws them. And anything that's inherently addicting
3:13
Speaker 3: and anxiety provoking usually has intermittent reinforcement. So gambling is
3:18
Speaker 3: intermittent reinforcement. You bet your money, you win, you feel great,
3:21
Speaker 3: You bet your money, you lose, you feel awful, right,
3:23
Speaker 3: making you anxious and wanting to go back to the
3:26
Speaker 3: table to bed again. And that is essentially the experience
3:30
Speaker 3: of the anxious preoccupied person. Yes, they you know, most
3:33
Speaker 3: of them had a nuclear family growing up. They felt
3:36
Speaker 3: like parents were very you know, emotionally supportive, hugs, kisses,
3:40
Speaker 3: I love you's, but there was just too much inconsistency, right,
3:45
Speaker 3: just too much and that that stinks because we look
3:49
Speaker 3: as parents and we say we do the best we can,
3:51
Speaker 3: and man, I can't always be there for every moment
3:53
Speaker 3: my kid needs me. And that isn't necessarily true in
3:56
Speaker 3: terms of what has to happen, but it's sort of
4:00
Speaker 3: The research shows like it needs to be like sixty
4:02
Speaker 3: percent of the day right to create that secure attachment,
4:06
Speaker 3: whereas for the anxious preoccupied person, it was probably more
4:09
Speaker 3: like thirty forty percent of the time their parents nailed
4:11
Speaker 3: it and then more absence than presence.
4:14
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah in that regard.
4:16
Speaker 1: So do you ever see like the traumas was with
4:20
Speaker 1: an anxious preoccupied like you do the fearful of what
4:22
Speaker 1: not big traumas?
4:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe some little t traumas like my parents bickered
4:26
Speaker 3: or yeah, you know, maybe I was bullied, or maybe
4:28
Speaker 3: we moved a lot, or.
4:30
Speaker 1: They divorced really young before the child could even remember.
4:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe but I mean they still the nervous system
4:36
Speaker 3: of the child remembers, Yeah, like Dad's home every day
4:40
Speaker 3: and then he's not, where's Dad?
4:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:42
Speaker 2: So it's really interesting in attachment research.
4:44
Speaker 3: So so many bad parenting ideas are born out of
4:51
Speaker 3: the idea that kids are so resilient and little kids
4:54
Speaker 3: don't remember stuff. Yeah, listen, their nervous systems remember. And
4:59
Speaker 3: I I get a lot of people that come to
5:01
Speaker 3: me and go, oh, but I don't want to get
5:02
Speaker 3: a divorce because of the effect of my kids, And
5:03
Speaker 3: I'm like, I get that.
5:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not ideal.
5:05
Speaker 3: Right. Of course your kids will have some effects from
5:11
Speaker 3: growing up in a divorced home, right, but those effects
5:14
Speaker 3: can be insanely minimized by good co parenting.
5:18
Speaker 1: I've said all of my adult life, how I wished
5:22
Speaker 1: my parents would have divorced way earlier than they did.
5:24
Speaker 2: Yes, I wish my parents would have divorced at all.
5:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they and they did the best they could.
5:31
Speaker 1: But I think they did more damage that last ten
5:35
Speaker 1: years of their marriage and staying married than if they
5:38
Speaker 1: would have just cut it, you know, and then just
5:40
Speaker 1: moved on. Because those last ten years were rough.
5:43
Speaker 2: Right, they were rough.
5:44
Speaker 3: I am a very big proponent that a dysfunctional marriage
5:50
Speaker 3: is worse for a child's attachment development than a well
5:54
Speaker 3: handled divorced and co parenting situation.
5:57
Speaker 2: So really, it's not even the research SHOs.
5:59
Speaker 3: It's not even a about divorce that really makes or
6:02
Speaker 3: breaks someone's attachment. It's how the divorce is handled. Are
6:05
Speaker 3: the parents fighting all the time? Are they putting the
6:07
Speaker 3: child in the middle? Are they parentifying the child? Are they,
6:10
Speaker 3: you know, sending messages back and forth between the child
6:12
Speaker 3: and putting responsibilities on the child that they shouldn't have.
6:16
Speaker 3: You know, that's really what parentification is. And we can
6:18
Speaker 3: have emotional parentification, which we've talked about, which is sort
6:21
Speaker 3: of like using your child as a therapist, which your
6:23
Speaker 3: mom did to you, right, Yes, And we've talked about that,
6:26
Speaker 3: and my parents did my entire childhood.
6:29
Speaker 2: Again, I love you, mom, And it was more my dad,
6:33
Speaker 2: because my mom's more da Like.
6:36
Speaker 3: My dad sort of used me as a therapist to
6:38
Speaker 3: complain about my mom. And that really strained my relationship
6:42
Speaker 3: with my father in later years because I just didn't
6:45
Speaker 3: want to hear him talk so much trash about my mom.
6:47
Speaker 2: I was just like, leave her alone.
6:49
Speaker 1: The same my mom. It just made me resent her, yes,
6:52
Speaker 1: And then it wasn't until I got older that I
6:54
Speaker 1: started to recognize well, I just started to remove myself
6:58
Speaker 1: and understand where her pain came from. And then I
7:00
Speaker 1: was kind of able to understand it better. But in
7:03
Speaker 1: the midst of it, you know, it was it was brutal, right,
7:07
Speaker 1: and I didn't know how to cope with it. I
7:09
Speaker 1: went through when my parents were going through that divorce
7:11
Speaker 1: and I was the only one at home. I'm the
7:13
Speaker 1: baby of four, and and my mom was really using
7:17
Speaker 1: me as her confidant, and not really a confidant, like
7:21
Speaker 1: she was just unleashing, Like she was just unleashed. I did, yeah,
7:25
Speaker 1: she would, and it was always anger filled and so
7:28
Speaker 1: it was scary, you know. And so those younger years,
7:33
Speaker 1: like seventeen, eighteen nineteen, you know, I would just kind
7:36
Speaker 1: of sit back and take it and just try to
7:38
Speaker 1: be like this soundboard for her. But then once I
7:42
Speaker 1: got into like that twenty twenty one, twenty two, and
7:45
Speaker 1: she kept doing it, and she was still doing it
7:48
Speaker 1: even in my thirties, I was just like, enough, I.
7:51
Speaker 2: Can't take it anymore. Yeah, when are you going to stop? Yeah?
7:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, when are you going to get your own therapists.
7:57
Speaker 3: Do not use your children, please not.
7:59
Speaker 2: Please, don't want to know.
8:01
Speaker 3: They love both parents, and they should have the right
8:03
Speaker 3: to love both parents, even if the other parent is
8:06
Speaker 3: a legitimate a whole right, Like, just don't tell that
8:09
Speaker 3: to let your kid make up their mind.
8:11
Speaker 2: They will.
8:11
Speaker 3: They will find out who's the a whole parent. Yeah,
8:14
Speaker 3: later in life they will find out who's the a hole.
8:15
Speaker 1: My son is proof of that. And I mean, it's
8:18
Speaker 1: just not fair speaking of the anxious preoccupied, because I
8:21
Speaker 1: think this is a trait of a trait that anxious
8:23
Speaker 1: preoccupied has is they feel so emotionally responsible.
8:27
Speaker 2: So emotionally responsible for people.
8:30
Speaker 1: And I feel like when you put a child in
8:32
Speaker 1: the middle, and I can attest to this with my
8:34
Speaker 1: own child because I feel like his attachment style is
8:36
Speaker 1: anxious preoccupied. He just feels so emotionally responsible for his
8:42
Speaker 1: dad's well being and my wellbeing, and he will do
8:44
Speaker 1: whatever it takes. And now that he is he just
8:47
Speaker 1: turned eighteen, now that he's in a relationship, it translates
8:51
Speaker 1: into that relationship. So it's like, here's one thing that
8:54
Speaker 1: JP will do that drives me absolutely bonkers. He'll say
8:58
Speaker 1: he's sorry, and he does and even know what he's sawry.
9:01
Speaker 2: It's fawning.
9:02
Speaker 3: So for the anxious preoccupied, So let's just kind of
9:06
Speaker 3: talk about how it translates into adult relationships. The anxious
9:10
Speaker 3: preoccupied person learned very early on, if I wanted to
9:14
Speaker 3: get the attention of my parents because it's inconsistent, I
9:17
Speaker 3: need to really make sure that I'm pleasing, right, So
9:22
Speaker 3: I'm going to like jump in front of them and
9:23
Speaker 3: show them how pleasing I am because the inconsistency is
9:27
Speaker 3: very hard, and I want them to see me. I
9:29
Speaker 3: want them to pay attention to me now while they're around.
9:32
Speaker 3: And one of the ways I can do that and
9:33
Speaker 3: get sort of this positive attention I'm craving is to
9:36
Speaker 3: really be pleasing, to be kind of like a people pleaser.
9:39
Speaker 3: And so anxious preoccupiedes are notorious people pleasers. They're notorious
9:44
Speaker 3: for dropping their own boundaries, apologizing for nothing because their
9:49
Speaker 3: deepest sphere is that of abandonment. Because the times when
9:52
Speaker 3: their parents were not available to them, the felt experience
9:56
Speaker 3: in the nervous system was abandoned, right, And it's sort
9:59
Speaker 3: of like, well, what do I have to do to
10:01
Speaker 3: get my apparents' attention while they're around. So that's how
10:04
Speaker 3: they're not good enough. Wound develops, which is like, okay,
10:06
Speaker 3: how can I figure out how to be what they
10:08
Speaker 3: need me to be? So anxious preoccupied people will sort
10:11
Speaker 3: of twist themselves into a pretzel to be what they
10:14
Speaker 3: think someone else needs in order to not be abandoned, right,
10:18
Speaker 3: And so fearful avoidance is really a fear of betrayal.
10:21
Speaker 3: Fearful avoidance and the fear of betrayal is I'm going
10:24
Speaker 3: to attach to you, then you're going to show me
10:26
Speaker 3: you're not who I thought I was. Then I'm going
10:28
Speaker 3: to be stuck with you, and I'm going to be
10:30
Speaker 3: really hurt and really angry, but still really wanting to
10:33
Speaker 3: be connected. And that's the fear. The anxious preoccupied person's like, well,
10:37
Speaker 3: I'm not as actually as concerned if you treat me
10:39
Speaker 3: like crap, just please don't leave me yep, yep, don't
10:42
Speaker 3: leave me by myself.
10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't leave me alone.
10:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:45
Speaker 3: And so it's very much fundamentally a difference between being
10:49
Speaker 3: hurt and being left and so anxious preoccupied they get
10:53
Speaker 3: so much of their worth and so much of their
10:55
Speaker 3: validation from the idea that someone loves them, right.
10:58
Speaker 1: And the toxicity that exists in the relationship is just codependence.
11:02
Speaker 3: So the definition of codependence is I'm not okay if
11:04
Speaker 3: you're not okay, right, And the anxious preoccupied feels that
11:08
Speaker 3: to their very deepest core, you have to be okay
11:11
Speaker 3: because if you're not okay, you could leave me yep,
11:14
Speaker 3: and then I'll be alone, and then that makes me
11:16
Speaker 3: worthless and that makes me like incapable of regulating my
11:22
Speaker 3: own nervous system because another thing about the anxious preoccupied
11:25
Speaker 3: person is that they really lack self regulation abilities and
11:28
Speaker 3: they really need and prefer code regulation. They want someone
11:31
Speaker 3: else to swoop in and soothe They're nervous systems for them, right, That's.
11:36
Speaker 2: Why abandonment's so scary. Well, then there'll be nobody to
11:39
Speaker 2: soothe me.
11:40
Speaker 1: And I think they have the biggest in terms of
11:42
Speaker 1: their own identity major issues.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yes, they're very much chameleons, yes.
11:47
Speaker 1: Because they don't know who they are outside of the
11:48
Speaker 1: people that love them, right. And so I've tried so
11:52
Speaker 1: hard with JP specifically, and you know, I mean my
11:56
Speaker 1: fear is that he's going to have to kind of
11:57
Speaker 1: learn it the hard way right, like it his heart
11:59
Speaker 1: broke or but you know, I've tried to tell him,
12:02
Speaker 1: you know, you have to have some sense of identity
12:04
Speaker 1: in who you are outside of this person that you
12:06
Speaker 1: love absolutely, you know, because he you know, he's in
12:10
Speaker 1: the midst of his first love. And they're precious, right,
12:12
Speaker 1: They're so preciure, precious, they're sweet to each other. But again,
12:16
Speaker 1: the toxicity exists in the codependency. Like they're not breaking
12:20
Speaker 1: like they're not like two fas right that are breaking
12:22
Speaker 1: up every other way and getting back together. You know,
12:24
Speaker 1: they're not that level of toxic. But the codependency I
12:27
Speaker 1: see is toxic and scary for most.
12:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean some of the things like that you've
12:35
Speaker 3: told me you can see like an FAAP dynamic a
12:39
Speaker 3: little bit.
12:39
Speaker 2: Yea out, yeah, for sure.
12:41
Speaker 1: But he's really dismissive though, which I also think is
12:43
Speaker 1: a trait of the AP. So he'll disassociate really quickly
12:47
Speaker 1: when any type of emotion like strong like big emotions
12:50
Speaker 1: come up, right, So he'll kind of if there's if
12:54
Speaker 1: I'm showing big emotions or anyone around him is showing
12:57
Speaker 1: really big emotions.
12:58
Speaker 3: It's probably a flight response. It's probably not real dissociation.
13:02
Speaker 3: It's probably he's internalizing it and he's not speaking, he's
13:06
Speaker 3: not verbalizing his dysregulation, but he's feeling it deeply on
13:11
Speaker 3: the inside. Which that's a very strong ap trait, which is,
13:15
Speaker 3: if stuff really starts getting out of control, I'm going
13:17
Speaker 3: to go quiet because if I say or do something
13:20
Speaker 3: that could lead to abandonment, quiet is like the most
13:22
Speaker 3: neutral space, right. So, but but on the inside, they're
13:26
Speaker 3: like their insides are like jello.
13:27
Speaker 2: They're shaking, yep.
13:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I've told you a million times. You can
13:31
Speaker 1: hug JP and just feel.
13:32
Speaker 2: His like rigidity.
13:34
Speaker 1: Oh, he's just I mean, he's just this ball.
13:36
Speaker 2: He's like a rock of anxiety.
13:38
Speaker 1: He is a rock his body and he's not like
13:41
Speaker 1: he's a little guy, right, but you hug him and
13:43
Speaker 1: you can just feel his nervous system is just so tense.
13:47
Speaker 3: Which is so interesting because when you've had difficulty and
13:52
Speaker 3: I think, if I had to guess how it, JP
13:56
Speaker 3: probably developed this. Yes, his dad is very dysfunctional, but
14:00
Speaker 3: you really protected him hard kind of hardcore as much
14:04
Speaker 3: as you could. And so the intermitt and reinforcement came
14:07
Speaker 3: when Mom is super loving and attentative, attuned to me
14:10
Speaker 3: and protective of me. But then I don't really get
14:12
Speaker 3: it from Dad. So I get it from one parent
14:14
Speaker 3: but not another. That is also inconsistent reinforcement. Right when
14:17
Speaker 3: I go to Mom, it's met. When I go to Dad,
14:19
Speaker 3: the needs not met. So I go to Mom, the
14:20
Speaker 3: needs met. I go to Dad, that needs not met. Right,
14:22
Speaker 3: And I think that you and props to you, because
14:26
Speaker 3: fearful avoidance is harder to deal with the names just
14:28
Speaker 3: preoccupied attachment, and so props to you for sheltering him
14:32
Speaker 3: as much as you could from the bad. I mean,
14:35
Speaker 3: I've never heard you say a bad word about your
14:37
Speaker 3: ex and you know, in front of him.
14:39
Speaker 2: I've never heard you.
14:41
Speaker 3: Go down you know, past history with him of what
14:44
Speaker 3: happened between you know, you and your ex and his
14:48
Speaker 3: dad and when his dad was behaving badly. I mean,
14:53
Speaker 3: you did everything you could to not disparage him while
14:55
Speaker 3: also helping.
14:56
Speaker 2: Him process and protect.
14:57
Speaker 3: Really, so that probably protected him from that fearful avoidance.
15:01
Speaker 1: I hope so. And I've tried to try. I still
15:03
Speaker 1: try to walk him through some things, you know, because
15:05
Speaker 1: now he's getting to that age where he really sees
15:07
Speaker 1: it for what it is. And I know I've talked
15:09
Speaker 1: about this too in the past, but you know, he's
15:11
Speaker 1: seeing his dad's behavior and he's like, hmmm, this doesn't
15:15
Speaker 1: feel right, this doesn't feel good, and now will he stick,
15:19
Speaker 1: you know, stand up to him. I don't think he's
15:21
Speaker 1: quite there yet, but you know, he said.
15:24
Speaker 2: The aps the least likely to stand up to anyone.
15:27
Speaker 1: To know that I was. We were at dinner last
15:30
Speaker 1: weekend with my sisters and I don't know, his dad
15:34
Speaker 1: came up, and you know, I think my sister made
15:38
Speaker 1: just a casual joke or something, and JP said, you
15:42
Speaker 1: know what I was like. He said something like something like, yeah,
15:46
Speaker 1: my dad, you know, he's just he's complicated, and he
15:49
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just waiting for my window to kick
15:51
Speaker 1: his ass.
15:52
Speaker 2: Oh. I wouldn't have seen that one, but I know
15:56
Speaker 2: me neither.
15:56
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, you know, I mean again,
15:59
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't let's not know, you're not
16:01
Speaker 1: going to kick your dad's ass.
16:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can't.
16:05
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm like, but secretly like, well,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, I can't say I blame him.
16:10
Speaker 2: Because that's from years of oppression.
16:11
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, his dad like you are not allowed
16:15
Speaker 3: to speak up right, right, right, no other way. Yeah,
16:19
Speaker 3: and then the idea of like, Okay, I'm a people pleaser,
16:23
Speaker 3: I'm going to I'm not going to buck on your
16:25
Speaker 3: fearful would buck on that?
16:27
Speaker 1: Yeah?
16:27
Speaker 2: They I bucked on my dad constantly too.
16:30
Speaker 1: I bucked on my mom too. That is not JP.
16:32
Speaker 1: JP won't buck for anything.
16:34
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
16:35
Speaker 1: I mean, I've looked at him.
16:36
Speaker 2: It's not crazy. It's an anxious occupy.
16:38
Speaker 1: It's anxious preoccupied. I say him three or four times
16:40
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you realize, like you're almost.
16:42
Speaker 2: Eighteen, like he is eighteen.
16:44
Speaker 1: I was like, he is, Yes, he turned eighteen on Tuesday.
16:47
Speaker 1: I said, you can. It's free will. Our our greed
16:50
Speaker 1: order is nolan void.
16:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, no longer. There's no more parenting plan, right, Like.
16:55
Speaker 1: You can come and go as you want, you know,
16:57
Speaker 1: to a degree, right in terms of who you stay with.
17:02
Speaker 1: But he'll never book.
17:03
Speaker 2: On his dad. Yeah, he won't. He won't give up
17:05
Speaker 2: the parenting schedule. He won't.
17:06
Speaker 3: He won't know because he feels an obligation to please
17:08
Speaker 3: his dad. Right, it's anxious preoccupied.
17:13
Speaker 2: There's a yeah, to a degree sweet.
17:16
Speaker 3: It is sweet, but it's also can be self abandoning. Right, So,
17:20
Speaker 3: anxious preoccupied people are very very self abandoning, meaning that
17:25
Speaker 3: they just won't assert their boundaries because when they start
17:29
Speaker 3: to and they see that it could potentially lead to abandonment,
17:32
Speaker 3: it's like, nope, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop her here
17:34
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna fawn. I'm gonna apologize for even bringing
17:37
Speaker 3: it up in the first place. The AP things people
17:40
Speaker 3: don't understand about this one. They hate conflict just as
17:42
Speaker 3: much as the DA does. So apdas. Actually their relationships
17:47
Speaker 3: kind of go on a long time and both people
17:49
Speaker 3: are like fairly unhappy, but you don't see the volatility.
17:54
Speaker 3: You don't see like the anger and the resentment like
17:59
Speaker 3: you do when there's an FA in the relations Right.
18:02
Speaker 3: I am not trying to just you know, hate on
18:05
Speaker 3: the FA because I we are both former fas.
18:08
Speaker 2: My husband's a former FA.
18:10
Speaker 3: And again, when you earn your security, it's not like
18:13
Speaker 3: every single thing changes perfectly. You are a heck of
18:17
Speaker 3: a lot better than you were, and then when when
18:19
Speaker 3: little traits or patterns pop back up, you catch it
18:22
Speaker 3: and correct it quickly. And that's really what security is.
18:25
Speaker 3: But man, anxious preoccupied people, they don't speak up for themselves.
18:30
Speaker 1: They really don't.
18:31
Speaker 2: They won't.
18:31
Speaker 3: They won't come to their partner and say, you know what,
18:32
Speaker 3: this is unacceptable now, right?
18:35
Speaker 1: And then you know, I have a very good friend
18:39
Speaker 1: that is also a p Yeah, and you know what
18:41
Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
18:42
Speaker 2: I do.
18:43
Speaker 1: And you know she she reacts in the same exact
18:47
Speaker 1: way where she won't say anything, she'll go silent.
18:50
Speaker 2: But I can see killing her anxiety.
18:53
Speaker 1: What's going on.
18:55
Speaker 2: She's becoming very upset and disregulated.
18:57
Speaker 1: And I mean, and I have even told her at
18:59
Speaker 1: times she say, which you want to say? Say what
19:02
Speaker 1: you want to say. It's okay, this is a safe space.
19:04
Speaker 1: You can say what you want. And I'm still going
19:06
Speaker 1: to be here. I'm still going to be your friend.
19:08
Speaker 1: I might not agree with you, right, but you can
19:10
Speaker 1: tell you can you can speak your truth with me.
19:12
Speaker 1: You can always speak your truth with me. Right.
19:14
Speaker 3: Aps can also be a little bit passive aggressive, not
19:19
Speaker 3: like in the mean, low blow way that fearful avoidance
19:22
Speaker 3: will like fearful avoidance will toss out like a real
19:24
Speaker 3: below the belt thing. Right, anxious preoccupies will be just
19:28
Speaker 3: like the littlest bit passive aggressive, because that's the only way,
19:31
Speaker 3: they feel like they can safely assert what they really
19:33
Speaker 3: want to say or really feel like how they really feel.
19:37
Speaker 3: But they're never going to come out and say it
19:39
Speaker 3: directly because that would be too vulnerable. And that's the
19:42
Speaker 3: other point I want to make about the anxious preoccupied
19:45
Speaker 3: is they're actually not vulnerable like they think they are.
19:48
Speaker 3: They think they want this really vulnerable emotional connection, but
19:52
Speaker 3: they don't because they don't choose people that can give
19:55
Speaker 3: it to them.
19:56
Speaker 2: They're inherently not.
19:57
Speaker 3: Attracted to secure people, acted to the avoidance that give
20:01
Speaker 3: them the intermittent reinforcement that they had in childhood. Right.
20:05
Speaker 3: They get addicted to people that give and take away,
20:08
Speaker 3: give and take away, give and take away, because that's
20:11
Speaker 3: what their parents did unknowingly, right, So.
20:14
Speaker 2: That's why they're so attracted to the DA. Then you
20:16
Speaker 2: have two people.
20:16
Speaker 3: So in an ap DA, which is anxious preoccupied dismissive
20:20
Speaker 3: avoidant dynamic, there's not a lot of conflict, right, there's not.
20:24
Speaker 2: They're like, well, we don't really really, we don't really fight.
20:26
Speaker 3: That much, but also like, neither of us feel like
20:30
Speaker 3: we're getting our needs met right, And I'm like, yeah,
20:33
Speaker 3: because you're both avoiding conflict, you avoid both avoiding standing
20:37
Speaker 3: up for your needs. The DA is over here not
20:38
Speaker 3: even knowing what their needs are, right, and the AP's
20:42
Speaker 3: over here absolutely knowing what their needs are, but scared
20:44
Speaker 3: to death to avoid it.
20:46
Speaker 1: Gosh, that sounds almost more miserable because I oftention. Yeah,
20:53
Speaker 1: that's what I was gonna say. The FA and me.
20:56
Speaker 1: You know, I gotta I gotta let it bloo. You
20:58
Speaker 1: be like, oh, hell, yeah, things have to be said.
21:02
Speaker 2: I cannot keep this, I cannot hold something back.
21:04
Speaker 1: I have a threshold.
21:05
Speaker 3: You know.
21:06
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll hold back or I'll hold back, but then
21:08
Speaker 1: you know, I'm that boiling pot of the water.
21:11
Speaker 2: It is the FA.
21:12
Speaker 3: So I can't hold things back. But now I do
21:16
Speaker 3: it in a secure way where I really sit on
21:19
Speaker 3: it and thoughtfully decide how I'm going to bring this
21:22
Speaker 3: up right. And I'm better at picking my battles. But
21:25
Speaker 3: I still lean more towards No. I'd rather risk a
21:29
Speaker 3: disagreement and work through it than carry resentment because I
21:32
Speaker 3: saw my parents as the most resentful humans towards each
21:38
Speaker 3: other on the face of the earth. I was so
21:40
Speaker 3: resentful in my first marriage, and I refuse to be
21:44
Speaker 3: resentful in this marriage. So if in a tiny bit
21:47
Speaker 3: of it creeps up, I'm going to consider that something
21:50
Speaker 3: that I want to talk about, air it out, get
21:53
Speaker 3: it fixed, move on from it. But I try to
21:55
Speaker 3: sit back and instead of doing what Fa Sarah would
21:58
Speaker 3: have done, which is just snap out, snap back back,
22:00
Speaker 3: whatever sorry crappy thing would have come out of my mouth,
22:07
Speaker 3: I just sit back and I think, how can I
22:09
Speaker 3: approach this with curiosity, with love, with respect, with understanding
22:14
Speaker 3: kind of him and where maybe it's come from.
22:16
Speaker 2: Right.
22:17
Speaker 1: I usually do that when it's the things have already
22:21
Speaker 1: been said.
22:26
Speaker 2: It's still a catch and correct.
22:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I catch it so much, quicker, so.
22:30
Speaker 3: Much, And that's what the building of attachment security helps
22:34
Speaker 3: you do. It helps you catch it quicker and quicker
22:38
Speaker 3: and quicker until you start catching it more in the moment,
22:42
Speaker 3: right and being able to adjust and switch courses in
22:46
Speaker 3: the moment when the difficult circumstances happening between you and
22:50
Speaker 3: your partner.
22:51
Speaker 1: Because I did say something to Josh, I can't remember.
22:54
Speaker 1: I just snapped on him because sometimes he'll get a
22:56
Speaker 1: little passive aggressive about certain things that JP doesn't do
22:59
Speaker 1: in the house. You know, it's that strange dynamic that
23:01
Speaker 1: I know a lot of families deal with when you're
23:04
Speaker 1: you know, a mixed family, you know, and even with us,
23:07
Speaker 1: it's still hard. And Josh doesn't have children of his own,
23:09
Speaker 1: and it's still difficult because it's hard to find your
23:12
Speaker 1: place right as a stepparent. I've always said stepparenting is
23:15
Speaker 1: really it's a really really difficult, difficult role to play.
23:20
Speaker 1: And you know, he where he came into John Paul's
23:22
Speaker 1: life later thirteen fourteen fifteen, it wasn't as easy for
23:27
Speaker 1: him to really know his place. And so but he'll
23:30
Speaker 1: do this passive aggressive thing where like he'll see that
23:32
Speaker 1: the garbage needs to be taken out and John Paul
23:34
Speaker 1: hasn't taken the initiative to do it, and he'll get
23:37
Speaker 1: really pissy and like you know, slammed doors and like
23:40
Speaker 1: take the garbage out and huff and puff and I
23:42
Speaker 1: can't take it.
23:43
Speaker 2: I'm like, I can't take passive aggressive and like.
23:45
Speaker 1: Just say what you want to say.
23:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, passive aggressiveness is something that makes me want to
23:50
Speaker 3: blow my top. And my husband was raised with a
23:54
Speaker 3: mom who really parented him through passive aggressiveness, and my
24:00
Speaker 3: husband has a lot of trauma and humor and sarcasm
24:04
Speaker 3: is a very big defense mechanism for him, but he's
24:07
Speaker 3: also hilarious. Yeah, no, I don't want him to lose
24:10
Speaker 3: that trait to some degree. But if we ever get
24:14
Speaker 3: in a disagreement, it's because I feel like he's been
24:16
Speaker 3: too passive aggressive in something that he said, and I'm.
24:18
Speaker 2: Like, just tell me how you really feel, baby. Yeah,
24:20
Speaker 2: I could take it.
24:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's okay, and I should have probably approached it
24:23
Speaker 1: that way with Josh, but I'm like, I can't stand
24:25
Speaker 1: the passive aggressiveness, So just say what you want to say.
24:27
Speaker 1: I said mainly because I don't want you to resent
24:29
Speaker 1: John Paul, right, because that's how it's coming off. It's
24:31
Speaker 1: coming off like you resent John Paul because I'm like,
24:34
Speaker 1: he's a kid, Babe, He's a kid. He's like, yeah,
24:37
Speaker 1: but you know, you're not setting enough boundaries for me,
24:39
Speaker 1: you know, And then it comes back on me. I'm like,
24:41
Speaker 1: that's okay, blame me. You can blame me because we
24:43
Speaker 1: can sit here and have a conversation. I'm like, but
24:45
Speaker 1: you can also stay you know, you can say something.
24:47
Speaker 1: You can say something to JP like hey, Bud, like
24:50
Speaker 1: the garbage needs to be taken out, like can you
24:52
Speaker 1: grab it? Like it's that easy? And he's not gonna
24:55
Speaker 1: like be like, you're not my dad. Yeah, I mean
24:58
Speaker 1: that's not his style, you know, And I think Josh
25:01
Speaker 1: fears that so badly. Yeah that you know, he just
25:04
Speaker 1: chooses the passive aggressive route. But no, no, I'll put.
25:08
Speaker 3: A stop to that stat Yeah, yeah, I understand that
25:14
Speaker 3: is that is the only real battle that my my
25:19
Speaker 3: my extitute, my current husband love you baby sort of have.
25:23
Speaker 3: And then I get really weird around my period. I
25:27
Speaker 3: get really weird. I get so weird, like two days
25:30
Speaker 3: before he knows, Yeah, and so he very much like
25:34
Speaker 3: looks at the calendar and doesn't take it personally or
25:37
Speaker 3: I don't know what why. Yeah, I heard that there's
25:40
Speaker 3: this big correlation between ADHD and PMDD, which is like
25:44
Speaker 3: ADHD deers are so much more likely to have a
25:47
Speaker 3: major hormonal imbalance before their menstrual cycle.
25:50
Speaker 2: And I'm just wondering if maybe that's it.
25:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I get really weird, Like I definitely have
25:55
Speaker 3: two days where I like I have to do some apologizing.
26:00
Speaker 1: Since it and my sister Rachel, like I always know
26:02
Speaker 1: when Rachel calls me and she starts like Rachel is
26:06
Speaker 1: always like this buffer where she'll just sit back and
26:08
Speaker 1: kind of let me talk and vent. Like it's always
26:11
Speaker 1: our dynamic has always been that way. But like once
26:13
Speaker 1: a month she'll call me and she's just like on
26:16
Speaker 1: this ram page and I'm period.
26:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:20
Speaker 3: Donald will go, it's okay, baby, your period'll come tomorrow
26:23
Speaker 3: and you'll feel a lot better. And I'm like no,
26:25
Speaker 3: and then I'll look at the colend I'll be like maybe,
26:28
Speaker 3: And then without fail, the next day, the next day,
26:32
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm you know, I I'm that hyper vigilant babe.
26:35
Speaker 3: I know when it's gonna happen. But I think the anxious,
26:39
Speaker 3: preoccupied person, the only way that they know how to
26:44
Speaker 3: insert themselves just a little bit is through past passive
26:47
Speaker 3: aggressiveness because they can't they're too scared, they're too anxious
26:52
Speaker 3: to be direct, right.
26:54
Speaker 1: Gosh, I hate that for JP, and honestly I would.
26:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate it for my friend too, because
26:59
Speaker 1: I've the dynamic without telling who she is, of course,
27:02
Speaker 1: but I've seen the dynamic kind of play out in
27:04
Speaker 1: her current relationship, and I think she They have a
27:06
Speaker 1: good relationship for the most part, but she has a
27:09
Speaker 1: difficult time, which I've tried, you know, when she confides
27:11
Speaker 1: in me, you know, I've tried to tell her, you
27:13
Speaker 1: got to just say what you feel here. You got
27:16
Speaker 1: to be able to set your boundaries and set them
27:18
Speaker 1: firmly and securely and confidently and compassionately and not be
27:23
Speaker 1: afraid to do that, right, because it's the only way
27:26
Speaker 1: that you can grow and communicate. Like she's just not
27:29
Speaker 1: communicating enough, and then again she sits back and she
27:32
Speaker 1: feels like her needs aren't being meant. And I think
27:34
Speaker 1: if John Paul going back to him, you know, I
27:37
Speaker 1: think that he would probably just as an example, if
27:40
Speaker 1: he were emotionally mature enough. I mean, he's just in
27:43
Speaker 1: the first relationship of his life, right, He's not recognizing
27:46
Speaker 1: any of this, Yeah, none of it.
27:48
Speaker 3: Well, you're going to be a great guide for him
27:51
Speaker 3: as he gets older and confides more and new about
27:55
Speaker 3: certain struggles, right, because the teenagers don't want to talk
27:58
Speaker 3: to their parents.
27:58
Speaker 1: No about their especially about their relationship.
28:01
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, but he might more later in life.
28:05
Speaker 3: And again, nobody's perfectly attachment secure. Like Josh is probably
28:10
Speaker 3: the most secure person that I know.
28:11
Speaker 1: He's still falters, he's still Yeah.
28:13
Speaker 3: Nobody's one hundred percent secure. It's just like, what do
28:17
Speaker 3: they do like eighty five percent of the time? Right, Like,
28:20
Speaker 3: what are they like eighty five percent of the time.
28:22
Speaker 3: That's a solid B and that's secure. It is because
28:26
Speaker 3: the people that I work with are DS and fs
28:28
Speaker 3: in terms of security, most of them, not all of them.
28:31
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say all of my clients are
28:32
Speaker 3: DS and fs in terms of like they're great. If
28:35
Speaker 3: an A is perfectly secure and an F is not
28:38
Speaker 3: secure at all, most of them are. And there's a
28:42
Speaker 3: selection bias there because they're in the most pain. Therefore
28:44
Speaker 3: that's why they reach out. So I'm not putting any
28:47
Speaker 3: of my clients down by any means. I'm just saying
28:50
Speaker 3: they do seek me out because they realize I had
28:54
Speaker 3: really disruptive childhoods or I have this really difficult relationship
28:59
Speaker 3: and my life and I can't reconcile it and I
29:01
Speaker 3: don't know what to do right, And then they don't
29:04
Speaker 3: recognize how insecure that they were because nobody has ever
29:07
Speaker 3: taught them anything different. So again, the majority of people
29:12
Speaker 3: don't know what they don't know. Yep, if that makes sense, No,
29:15
Speaker 3: it makes perfect sense, right, And there was a lot.
29:17
Speaker 3: I didn't even know, you know, until I started, you know,
29:21
Speaker 3: working with you still and I and we had been
29:24
Speaker 3: friends forever, yeah, I mean we'd been friends for five
29:27
Speaker 3: six years even before that. But I still felt I
29:29
Speaker 3: still I mean I tell people this on the sales
29:31
Speaker 3: calls all the time. I'm like, I can sit in
29:34
Speaker 3: on a session or be like in doctor Hinsley's office
29:37
Speaker 3: when maybe a group session's going on. I'm like, I
29:39
Speaker 3: still learn things every single time, you know. And I've
29:42
Speaker 3: been around her for seven years now, and you know,
29:45
Speaker 3: I've been almost doing this. It'll be a year in February,
29:49
Speaker 3: you know, and so and I coached for three to
29:51
Speaker 3: four months and so I'm like, I still learn these
29:54
Speaker 3: little tidbits of information each time, because again it's like
29:57
Speaker 3: you don't know what you don't know. If you don't
29:59
Speaker 3: know what you don't yeah, that's exactly right. And so,
30:02
Speaker 3: but the great news about my clients is they very
30:04
Speaker 3: quickly come up to like bes, which is great. They
30:08
Speaker 3: very quickly are able to That's.
30:09
Speaker 1: Why you have a successful business to.
30:11
Speaker 3: Come up you know, they're just like, oh, I didn't
30:13
Speaker 3: know how to do things different, and it's not what
30:18
Speaker 3: to do differently. They come to me knowing what they
30:20
Speaker 3: should be doing right, they don't know how to do
30:23
Speaker 3: it right. Like, no, I don't want to get super
30:26
Speaker 3: mad and yell at my husband, but I don't know
30:28
Speaker 3: how to not do that. It happens so quick, I
30:31
Speaker 3: blow my top so quick?
30:32
Speaker 2: What do I do right?
30:33
Speaker 3: Or I don't know how to shut down and like
30:34
Speaker 3: go talk to my wife. I'm terrified. I don't want
30:37
Speaker 3: to deal with it. It feels like walking into one
30:39
Speaker 3: of my clients that it feels like walking into a
30:41
Speaker 3: moving chainsaw to have to go back to her to
30:44
Speaker 3: his FA wife being a DA after a conflict, like
30:48
Speaker 3: I'm going to get my head chopped off.
30:50
Speaker 2: I don't want to do that. I'm going to avoid
30:52
Speaker 2: it right.
30:53
Speaker 1: And for the anxious preoccupied, I think that they just
30:55
Speaker 1: become so dysregulated in their nervous systems. So it is
30:58
Speaker 1: ray the idea of going and having any type of
31:01
Speaker 1: conflict without being able to disassociate, dissociate, maybe like the DA.
31:08
Speaker 3: Is just torble because they're stuck in either like they're
31:12
Speaker 3: pretty much stuck in Flee and Fawn either got to
31:15
Speaker 3: internalize it or I got to apologize.
31:18
Speaker 1: And not not to And I'm not putting aps down
31:20
Speaker 1: when I say that. I say that with like true empathy,
31:24
Speaker 1: Like I feel like it would be the most for me.
31:27
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the FA in me, but I feel like
31:29
Speaker 1: it would be the most tortuous. Yeah, because holding all
31:33
Speaker 1: that stuff in constantly just feels so dysregulating.
31:38
Speaker 3: And the people pleasing is extremely dysregulating because you're tap
31:41
Speaker 3: dancing around meeting other people's needs without meeting any of
31:44
Speaker 3: your own. So what does your nervous system think about that?
31:47
Speaker 2: Right? It doesn't doesn't like that happy.
31:49
Speaker 3: It's not happy, but fas, I mean, every single type
31:54
Speaker 3: of attachment has very painful issues, you know. I mean
32:00
Speaker 3: even again, there's nobody's one hundred percent secure. Everybody goes
32:04
Speaker 3: through pain. It's just that some of us go through
32:07
Speaker 3: more pain. Like I was an f In terms of
32:09
Speaker 3: an f A, I was a f mins.
32:11
Speaker 1: It was.
32:14
Speaker 2: Crazy. You give me credibility because you're like, I saw
32:19
Speaker 2: you before you did your healing word and after you
32:21
Speaker 2: did your healing.
32:22
Speaker 1: Take my word for it, folks, I saw it firsthand.
32:25
Speaker 2: And I had so much knowledge. I know, I knew better.
32:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I just still like, but can I make
32:30
Speaker 3: it work with this extremely severe da and Rana's like, no,
32:34
Speaker 3: no again, Now you.
32:36
Speaker 1: Just gotta cut it clean.
32:37
Speaker 2: I'm like, but but I can change you. Yeah.
32:40
Speaker 1: And I didn't even know. I didn't need even I
32:43
Speaker 1: don't think I knew much about attachment then, you know,
32:45
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew anything at all other than
32:47
Speaker 1: maybe some of the stuff that you had told me.
32:50
Speaker 1: I just knew that you were deep down you were
32:52
Speaker 1: extremely unhappy.
32:54
Speaker 3: I saw it unhappy because I was being And here's
32:58
Speaker 3: the thing. This was not a bad person.
33:01
Speaker 1: No, he's a good person.
33:03
Speaker 3: Good person, yeah, good character, heartworking, but he lacked so
33:09
Speaker 3: much capacity for intimacy. And I look at my marriage
33:13
Speaker 3: with Donald, and I'm like, that's real intimacy. Like we
33:18
Speaker 3: Donald and I are so connected that we steal energy
33:22
Speaker 3: from each other.
33:23
Speaker 2: Like if he comes in.
33:25
Speaker 3: And he's a little bit sick, like it, there's like
33:28
Speaker 3: a superpower that makes me stronger so that I can
33:31
Speaker 3: take care of him and vice versa, or if he's
33:34
Speaker 3: like a little bit stressed, Like I feel like fas
33:38
Speaker 3: just have this hyper empathy, right, They have the hyper
33:40
Speaker 3: empathy which can become dysfunctional because it just regulates them.
33:43
Speaker 3: So it's like We've got all our own emotions, plus
33:46
Speaker 3: we feel the emotions of everyone else. And so when
33:48
Speaker 3: I feel like just a little bit of that stress
33:50
Speaker 3: or vice versa with him, then we're both like a
33:52
Speaker 3: little stressed. We're both like, Okay, what are we to do? What? Right?
33:56
Speaker 1: Right? So, speaking back to the anxious preoccupied, I know
34:00
Speaker 1: you don't see them a lot in your practice. I don't,
34:03
Speaker 1: but when you do. Interesting when you do. And this
34:07
Speaker 1: might be a silly question because it might be a
34:10
Speaker 1: blanketed response, but what are some of the coaching tactics
34:13
Speaker 1: that you use with the AP mm hmmm, Well, we.
34:16
Speaker 2: Have to be able.
34:17
Speaker 3: I mean there are some that are across the board,
34:19
Speaker 3: like taking control of your thoughts, becoming learning metacognitive skills,
34:23
Speaker 3: learning healthy emotional processing paired with neuroregulation is the hallmark
34:28
Speaker 3: of my coaching program. But there's nuances for each attachment
34:33
Speaker 3: and boundary setting is the thing that we have to
34:36
Speaker 3: work on with the AP because they have zipo boundaries yea.
34:40
Speaker 3: And being able to speak up and communicate those boundaries
34:43
Speaker 3: and then holding those boundaries again not allowing the fear
34:47
Speaker 3: of abandonment to override what you need in a relationship, right,
34:51
Speaker 3: so fear of because so anxious, preoccupied people again are
34:56
Speaker 3: constantly self abandoning when abandonment is actually their biggest fear.
35:01
Speaker 1: Right, It's how ironic it is.
35:04
Speaker 2: That's how the subconscious works.
35:05
Speaker 3: Man. And I think I don't see as many of
35:08
Speaker 3: them because they don't want to admit that they need help.
35:12
Speaker 3: They're so driven by But I can change to make
35:15
Speaker 3: things better. I can do the dance. I can twist
35:18
Speaker 3: myself into the pretzel. So I haven't just haven't tried
35:20
Speaker 3: hard enough.
35:21
Speaker 1: I've got a strong sense of pride, very strong.
35:23
Speaker 2: Sense of pride.
35:26
Speaker 3: Around being the fixer, right right, I can do the
35:30
Speaker 3: special dance to please everyone. Just give me another chance
35:33
Speaker 3: to do the special dance or to twist myself into
35:35
Speaker 3: that pretzel.
35:36
Speaker 2: And it's very.
35:37
Speaker 3: Unfortunate because sometimes you can't just do the dance. You're
35:43
Speaker 3: still going to face problems even being the extreme people pleaser.
35:48
Speaker 3: And again, how about that effect on their nervous system
35:52
Speaker 3: of constantly setting or I should say, giving up your
35:56
Speaker 3: boundaries and self abandoning.
35:59
Speaker 2: But you know, I think I'm not good enough.
36:04
Speaker 3: Wound implies you could be better, Yeah, it implies, well,
36:08
Speaker 3: you could try harder if I'm not good enough, We'll
36:11
Speaker 3: give me another chance.
36:12
Speaker 2: It's I'll figure out how to be good enough.
36:13
Speaker 1: Like the DA who has the defectiveness one.
36:15
Speaker 3: Right, which is a give up through your hands up
36:17
Speaker 3: in the air, there's nothing that can be done with me,
36:18
Speaker 3: type of feeling. Right, this is a hopeless situation type
36:22
Speaker 3: of feeling. The AP is like the energizer bunny ever
36:25
Speaker 3: motivated to do better, to try to fix the problem.
36:28
Speaker 3: If I can fix me, I can fix us, as
36:30
Speaker 3: sort of the AP motto, And so that don't I
36:33
Speaker 3: think that's why they don't reach out as much, because
36:35
Speaker 3: they're convinced that they can do it.
36:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
36:37
Speaker 2: I can fix him, I can fix her.
36:41
Speaker 1: I don't know if I see any fa qualities in him, honestly,
36:43
Speaker 1: I mean, which is surprising because he did have some
36:45
Speaker 1: you know, big T traumas growing up. And so you
36:49
Speaker 1: know that leads me to another question, because this question
36:52
Speaker 1: gets asked a lot. I think in your messages, can
36:56
Speaker 1: you shift like can someone be like an anxious preoccupy
37:00
Speaker 1: and if they had big T traumas they get into
37:03
Speaker 1: adult relationships and they're more fearful avoidant.
37:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I say is like attachment absolutely can
37:09
Speaker 3: shift and change, but not that much. Right, We're never
37:15
Speaker 3: going to have an AP turn into a DA. Yeah, right,
37:18
Speaker 3: we can have an FA that maybe has been in
37:23
Speaker 3: so many narcissistic relationships that they're kind of pushed so
37:27
Speaker 3: far into their avoidance that they the fear of connection
37:31
Speaker 3: sort of starts to outweigh their need for it, and
37:34
Speaker 3: so at their core, their betrayal wound is still kind
37:38
Speaker 3: of in the driver's seat, which would technically really make
37:41
Speaker 3: them FA. But their behavior so dismissive. Right, it's just
37:44
Speaker 3: so dismissive because this the fears of intimacy.
37:48
Speaker 1: Have gone so by for a little bit.
37:49
Speaker 2: Yes, you did.
37:50
Speaker 3: I remember your avoidant period. I'm not talking anybody. I
37:52
Speaker 3: don't have any dates. I don't care. Guys were like
37:55
Speaker 3: setting the hell out of you, asking you on all
37:58
Speaker 3: these dates, and you were like, I don't think so
38:00
Speaker 3: o hell. He's good looking, he seems nice, he's got
38:04
Speaker 3: a decent job. It seems like he might be an
38:06
Speaker 3: okay person. And you're like, no, I just like being
38:10
Speaker 3: at home.
38:10
Speaker 2: I'm not alone.
38:12
Speaker 3: You're like, I just want to be alone. I just
38:13
Speaker 3: don't think I want to date. And I was like, yeah,
38:16
Speaker 3: it was good because I think you did a lot
38:19
Speaker 3: of healing work in that.
38:20
Speaker 2: Thing, so I do.
38:21
Speaker 1: I do think so it was very good for me.
38:23
Speaker 1: I mean I've spent a certain times, certain seasons in
38:26
Speaker 1: my life, you know, spent you know, long periods of
38:29
Speaker 1: sabbatical from dating, and it was always.
38:32
Speaker 2: Good for me. Best thing I ever did. Ye, Yeah,
38:34
Speaker 2: that's when I did my healing.
38:35
Speaker 1: Sabbaticals from dating. Again. Just bringing that back to the AP,
38:41
Speaker 1: it's not something that they are very good at. No.
38:44
Speaker 3: The the AP is if there's a breakup, they are
38:48
Speaker 3: on the dating apps that night, Yeah, that night, because
38:52
Speaker 3: it's like, no, my worth comes from someone loving me,
38:54
Speaker 3: comes from me being in a relationship. So that's why
38:57
Speaker 3: they can't let bad relationships go. And then if it does,
39:01
Speaker 3: like they absolutely reach the breaking point where the DA
39:04
Speaker 3: leaves them or whoever leaves them right because they're so needy, pushy, whatever,
39:08
Speaker 3: then they're just like right on that dating app or
39:11
Speaker 3: right on like who's who's going to be with me next?
39:14
Speaker 3: Because I can't be alone.
39:15
Speaker 1: And that is why they're called the love.
39:17
Speaker 2: The love addict.
39:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, aloneness to them is like death. It
39:21
Speaker 3: just means they're worthless to them.
39:23
Speaker 2: That's so sad it is.
39:24
Speaker 1: We love you aps do you?
39:26
Speaker 3: Guys are so precious and their superpower is their warmth
39:29
Speaker 3: and their kindness. They're very warm, very kind, very loving,
39:33
Speaker 3: very generous people, and that is their superpower.
39:36
Speaker 1: With my son for sure. So if you are anxious, preoccupied,
39:41
Speaker 1: and you are looking for intervention, please go visit doctor
39:44
Speaker 1: Hansley's website.
39:45
Speaker 2: I'd like to say more of them, because don't think
39:47
Speaker 2: you can do the dance forever.
39:50
Speaker 1: It's exhausting. The dance is exhausting.
39:52
Speaker 2: Their nervous systems are exhausted.
39:55
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I hug my son next time you
39:57
Speaker 1: say them.
39:58
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting?
40:00
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know if that's related to
40:01
Speaker 3: his attachment or just some of the trauma itself when
40:04
Speaker 3: you have trauma, like the fashion of your muscles, like
40:08
Speaker 3: remember The Body Keeps Score Such a great book.
40:11
Speaker 2: I feel like everybody should read it, but it is a.
40:13
Speaker 1: Great book for those looking for a good book recommendation.
40:16
Speaker 1: The Body Keeps Score is a great.
40:17
Speaker 2: Book about how trauma lasts in the body.
40:19
Speaker 1: I read it as well because you told me to
40:21
Speaker 1: read it those years ago. It's a tough one though, Yeah,
40:24
Speaker 1: so you should go. It's a tough one, but.
40:27
Speaker 3: We can do a lot of sematic work for that.
40:30
Speaker 3: There's a lot of great sematic work. There's something called
40:34
Speaker 3: tre which is certain exercises for trauma release. You know,
40:40
Speaker 3: there's AMDR. There's like just somatic nervous system processing work,
40:45
Speaker 3: which is something that I teach. And so there's a
40:48
Speaker 3: lot of hope for us who have a lot of
40:49
Speaker 3: store trauma. We do need to think our sponsor, Cozy Earth. Holler,
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42:44
Speaker 1: And again, if you have enjoyed this content and you
42:47
Speaker 1: are looking for intervention and looking for help with attraction
42:51
Speaker 1: and your attachment style, please even if you are an anxious,
42:54
Speaker 1: preoccupied we see you and we love you. We do, yes,
42:57
Speaker 1: please go visit doctor Hensley and all her service at
43:00
Speaker 1: the Datingdecoder dot com. Check them all out there. Especially listen, guys,
43:05
Speaker 1: it's a better time than ever to start working on yourself.
43:09
Speaker 2: Get it done before the holidays.
43:11
Speaker 3: Don't be miserable during the holidays, because holidays, whenever you
43:15
Speaker 3: have outside tension, it's always going to decrease yourself regulatory abilities,
43:19
Speaker 3: which is the hallmark of security. And so the holidays
43:22
Speaker 3: are stressful. Not Let's just pretend for a second that
43:25
Speaker 3: we're all adults. We're all going to admit the truth.
43:28
Speaker 3: Christmas is stressful.
43:29
Speaker 1: It is I'll admit it. I've been admitting that for years.
43:32
Speaker 3: It's stssful and so and even Thanksgiving just being around
43:36
Speaker 3: family like, work on your attachment, work on your relationships.
43:39
Speaker 2: You have the skills to really enjoy the holidays.
43:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then go into the new year kind of
43:44
Speaker 1: refreshed and renewed, which is what we should all do exactly.
43:47
Speaker 1: So again, if you're loving this content, leave us a review, like, subscribe, follow.
43:54
Speaker 1: We've got so much more to come and we are
43:55
Speaker 1: just so thankful for our listeners. We love you, guys,
43:58
Speaker 1: we do. Yes, we love you so much. And until
44:00
Speaker 1: next time, peace, love and perspective.
44:03
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm