Avoidant, Anxious, or Secure? What are Attachment Styles and How Does Our Past Shape Them?
Attachment styles are everywhere online right now, and for good reason. Understanding how we connect with others—and ourselves—can be life-changing. But let's cut through the noise and talk about what attachment styles really mean, especially for highly sensitive people who often find themselves struggling with relationships.
What Are Attachment Styles, Really?
Your attachment style is the pattern that emerges from your childhood experiences. It's not just one thing that creates it—it's a combination of your innate personality, your temperament, the parenting you experienced, and all your interactions with other humans throughout your life.
For most people, attachment styles don't change much. But if you're someone who's actively working on yourself (and if you're reading this, you probably are), you have the power to become more securely attached. That's what we're all working toward: security.
The Four Main Types
Secure Attachment is the gold standard. When you're securely attached, you trust yourself and others. You can navigate relationships without constant anxiety or the need to pull away.
Anxious Attachment shows up as questioning everything, not trusting yourself, and often feeling like you need constant reassurance from others.
Avoidant Attachment comes in two flavors:
Fearful Avoidant: You desperately want closeness but you're terrified of getting hurt, so you avoid intimacy even though you crave it
Dismissive Avoidant: You don't seem to care about deep connections and dismiss what's required for healthy relationships (this might just be narcissism with a new label)
Here's what gets tricky: someone can be both anxious and avoidant, depending on the situation, their stress levels, and who they're interacting with.
The Real Story Behind Attachment Styles
I used to be anxiously attached, and it wasn't just because my father abandoned me as a kid—though that played a role. The deeper truth was more complex. My actual fear wasn't that people would leave me; it was that they would stay physically but abandon me emotionally. They'd want to be right next to me in life but refuse to meet me halfway or work on their part of our relationship.
This is why attachment work is so nuanced. We're not just categories to be labeled and left alone. We're complex, layered human beings who might show up differently depending on circumstances, stress levels, and the energy of the people around us.
When Trauma Complicates Everything
If you have PTSD (real PTSD, not the watered-down social media version), your attachment style gets even more complicated. When your nervous system is hijacked by trauma responses, what looks like avoidant behavior might actually be a flight response. Your brain is literally preparing you to run for your life.
Different people trigger different responses in us. I have secure relationships with some people where my old insecurities never surface. But if my mother walked into this room right now—after decades of no contact—I'd probably experience a resurgence of post-traumatic stress that could affect my current relationships for days or weeks.
This is why I don't like how mental health professionals talk about these things as if they're permanent labels. We're living, breathing creatures who grow and change based on our environment and experiences.
How Insecurity Gets Planted
Let me share a story that perfectly illustrates how someone can chip away at your security, one interaction at a time.
When I was 18 and married to my first husband, I was doing laundry—proud of myself for contributing to our household. Out of nowhere, he started berating me for how I was hanging his pants on hangers. He said things like "What are you, stupid? Were you raised in a barn? Everyone knows this."
I'd been doing laundry since I was 12. I was confident in my abilities. But in that moment, he planted a seed of doubt that grew into a critical voice that followed me everywhere. After that interaction, laundry wasn't just laundry anymore. It became an activity filled with anxiety and hypervigilance.
This is how insecurity spreads. That critical voice learned to question not just how I hung pants, but how I cooked, how I dressed, how I spoke. It was like I couldn't trust myself about anything.
A securely attached person would have had an internal dialogue that went something like: "Hey, don't listen to him. You know how to do laundry. You don't have to do it his way. Let him do it himself if he doesn't like your way."
But I didn't know how to do that yet.
The Path to Becoming More Secure
Healing your attachment style isn't just about working with other people—it's primarily about the relationship you have with yourself. Here's what it takes:
1. Radical Honesty
You have to embrace the truth of things, even when it's uncomfortable. This means being honest about:
Your own willingness to do the work
Other people's actual willingness (not just their words)
What's really happening in your relationships versus what you wish was happening
2. Accept That You're Breaking Generational Patterns
Recognize that you're doing something your family has never done before. You're bringing things into the light instead of sweeping them under the rug. This takes tremendous courage.
3. Better Communication
Learn to sit with yourself before trying to have conversations with others
Understand when your inner child is trying to grab the wheel
Practice meaning what you say and following through
4. Understand Real Boundaries
A boundary isn't declaring your line and expecting others to respect it. That's what an eight-year-old thinks a boundary is. A real boundary is always about what you can control and what actions you'll take to protect yourself.
5. Take Personal Responsibility
You have to manage your own attachment style. If you're anxiously attached, don't make your partner responsible for managing your anxiety. If you're avoidant, don't expect others to chase you down or drag you into doing the work.
6. Choose Your Front Row People Wisely
Not everyone gets to be in the first few rows of the theater of your life. Some people earn a spot in the 10th row, some in the 20th row, some only get to stand in the back sometimes, and others get kicked out entirely.
The Reality About Relationships
Chemistry is not compatibility. We need to teach young people this fundamental truth. Just because your hormones light up around someone doesn't mean you're compatible for a long-term relationship.
Some attachment style combinations are particularly challenging:
Anxious + Avoidant: Often creates a painful cycle where the anxious person chases and the avoidant person runs, then comes back when they want connection, only to run again when it feels like too much
Two anxious people: Can create an overwhelming emotional environment
Two avoidant people: Often results in a relationship that lacks depth and intimacy
Having one secure person in the relationship makes everything easier. They can model what security looks like and feels like.
A Crucial Truth for Avoidant People
If you're avoidant and think you're protecting your anxiously attached partner by not telling them things, you're doing the opposite. Anxiously attached people (especially highly sensitive ones) don't get anxious about the thing itself—they get anxious because they can't figure out what's going on.
What anxiously attached people want most is full honesty. Even if it's bad news, they'll handle the truth better than being left in the dark. Hiding things from someone who can feel that you're holding something back will skyrocket their anxiety.
You Can Change Your Attachment Style
I'm living proof that you can heal and become more securely attached. At 44, I'm about as securely attached as anyone can be, but it took decades of intentional work. I started working on this before I even understood what attachment was.
The work isn't easy, but it's absolutely possible. You don't have to accept being insecure forever. You can learn to:
Trust yourself
Set healthy boundaries
Attract more mature, secure people
Repel dysfunctional types
Have fulfilling, deep relationships
If you can't believe this is possible for you right now, borrow my belief. I'll believe it for you until you can get there yourself.
The Bottom Line
Your attachment style isn't a life sentence. You're not stuck being anxious, avoidant, or insecure forever. But changing requires:
Commitment to radical honesty
Willingness to do uncomfortable work
Understanding that healing happens primarily within yourself
Choosing relationships with people who are also willing to grow
Remember: behavior is the most honest language. Don't just listen to what people say about their commitment to growth—watch what they actually do.
You deserve to have secure, fulfilling relationships. You deserve to feel at peace within yourself. And yes, it's absolutely possible to get there.
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 16
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 9
- Bullying 5
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 8
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 74
- Existentialism 2
- Faith 1
- Family 25
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 11
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 52
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 38
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 16
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self Respect 1
- Self-Care 26
- Sex 1
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 16
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 9
- Bullying 5
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 8
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 74
- Existentialism 2
- Faith 1
- Family 25
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 11
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 52
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 38
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 16
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self Respect 1
- Self-Care 26
- Sex 1
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