How Does A Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style Develop?

That's exactly it. The children want to approach the parent but are afraid of them. Sometimes my mom was kind, sometimes she was a raging, cruel monster.

My inner child thanks you for recognising that she absolutely did her best.

For anyone else who has this attachment style, are you also as scared as I am that this nightmare will last forever? I literally just want to let my guard down and be able to give and receive love. It's so difficult to live like this. Edit: There absolutely is hope. It takes work to understand your patterns, but with some therapy work you can absolutely get to an "earned secured" attachment style. Also, to anyone who hasn't tried it, do EMDR therapy. That really helps even more than talk therapy in my experience

Sounds about right. I used to joke that I had to be a different person depending on which parent I was with. Mom operated on emotion only, while Dad despised emotion in anyone other than himself. If the two were in the same room, I practically short-circuited trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I was expected to be mature and responsible, fill in for Mom, help Dad with his problems, take care of my younger siblings, and never have any needs of my own. You really don't get to be a person at all in that kind of dynamic.

The concept of having a parent who was prone to lose control really resonated with me as FA. My dad wasn’t abusive in any way and was a consistent caregiver, but because of his trauma from not having gentle, supportive male figures in his life, he lashed out and was super authoritative. He was a ticking time bomb and got angry whether necessary or unnecessary. Whenever I mom needed alone time I’d get extremely upset if I couldn’t go with her abs had to stay home with my dad. I don’t harbor any resentment towards him as he’s grown and changed a LOT, but now as an adult it seems harder to initiate conversation with him rather than my mom.

Heidi I feel so understood right now that my fuckin stomach literally is tensed up. I want to cry, cuss, hit something, give you the biggest hug and just sit in this feeling of happy/irritated all at the same time. I’m 39 now and I’ve spend a lot of my years feeling like a “bad guy” all of my relationships have been short lived flings or long term roller coasters of confusion for me and the women I was with. Leaving me feeling years of guilt and “would have-could have-should have thinking even till this day. I thought I was dismissive avoidant but with more research I realize I land more on the fearful avoidant side, low key I didn’t want to be fearful avoidant because the profile/description of them seem really fucked up which plays into how I already feel about myself, not to mention the comment sections on these videos people HATE us…and I’m like whoa I just got here (the world of attachment theory) I did not choose this and I want healing just as much as you do, why do we rag on each other when WE ARE ALL in need of healing, doesn’t make sense. Anyway thank Heidi for all your research and help with all this stuff, today burdens have been lifted off of me, I am more than ready for healing. I want to put in the work to get to a more secure style. Keep up the great work!! 💪🏾💪🏾

What I'm convinced was a Fearful Avoidant broke my heart, but especially after watching this, I can only feel compassion for her and hope she can heal herself eventually 😢

“Their body and their nervous system can only tolerate the experience of true intimacy when it’s not present for them” I SCREAMED

I think it's important to note that attachment styles impact all areas of life, not just relationships. The disorientation described with the FA is something I have experienced everyday. It is a dislocation I feel in my career and life decisions, and making any decision, big or small. Just choosing what I want to eat at a restaurant is so overwhelming for me because THAT is how much I deeply feel on even a subconscious level that I cannot trust myself. And my partners have criticized me for it. I think this specific disorientation with FA's is exacerbated SO much if you have narcissistic abuse, hyper vigilance, or extreme low self esteem that makes it so you have no self trust.

I really love that final message, that if your attachment style is evoking problems now it means that you are in more secure circumstances. This is for me a very ressource oriented perspective to this matter as well as the fact that our attachment strategies were functional (healthy) strategies to a more or less dysfunctional environment. This for me is the starting point for a selfcompassion based view towards yourself and others and lets me remind myself of how wondersome the human existence is. We are all made of stars. ✨

I used to have a recurring nightmare where I would wake up and get out of bed with this deep yearning feeling like I really needed something from my parents. It was never clear what it was but I knew I needed comfort and couldn’t resolve the problem on my own. I would get out of bed and walk very cautiously and look over this railing that was in the house. My parents sometimes weren’t there but sometimes they were talking to each other and sometimes they were having a party. I would feel terrified of asking for help because I didn’t want to make them angry or be laughed at and shamed by them or their guests and I didn’t want the guests to see me in my pajamas or see me being needy and I felt like a burden and an impostor. I would stand in the shadows and constantly go back and forth between wanting to step forward and wanting to go back to my room and cry myself to sleep. I kept trying to look for more information to determine whether it was safe to proceed or not but I couldn’t discern anything further so I had to just go for it. When I finally decided I was gonna approach my parents and ask for help, I would lose control of my body and tumble over the railing and wake up feeling like I was falling. Nothing more fearful avoidant than that. I guess I’m pretty lucky to have a brain that was trying so hard to process things and that repeatedly forces me to face my problems through dreams. My dreams have…awoken me a lot in my life. They don’t let me hide from my issues.

This explains a lot. My father was emotionally distant and my mother was chaotic. Sometimes, when I was scared or upset, she'd hug me and provide comfort and sometimes she'd get annoyed and call me crazy and paranoid for having stupid fears or laugh at me

Awww have a hug fearful avoidants

"It's like they can only tolerate the experience of true intimacy when it's not present for them." 😔

The idea of flipping between logic and feeling was a new concept.

I love that you geek out halfway through. THAT is the energy you love to see in a person who's very devoted to their topic, and excitement that draws an audience in. Just catching up with a ton of your videos, but want to convey how much I appreciate your approach, articulate descriptions and concise materials around attachment styles. Keep up the great work!

ive joked with friends how, as a child one parent would yell for me to "look at me when im talking to you!" and one parent say "dont look at me you put your head down". i had to learn to adapt to cultural differences with my parents on my own at a young age without anyone helping me to understand where that came from. I'd joke that as biracial i never could fully relate or be accepted by either parent, always othered. your video hit so many points. how id have to become so attune to reading people and always looking for the information i dont have, always high alert and never safe. things i have since learned but in this new way of framing is helpful to understand how its left a lasting impact because thats how i learned to be in the world. thank you

I feel like I have wasted so much time thinking I had an anxious attachment style because I only focused on just how desperately I craved intimacy. Realizing my tendency to invalidate my emotions and focus on my logic, at the expense of being able to be vulnerable and share my emotions, meant I was fearful avoidant has helped me so much. I feel like I have a better framework for understanding myself and moving forward. When I thought I was anxiously attached I focused on ignoring my emotions more to become worthy of a relationship. Now I realize I was completely wrong and I have to be honest with others how I feel to be able to move forward. Thank you.

FA mostly avoidant with crazy switches to anxious in romantic relationships. My secure and stable mum was our primary caregiver, but my dad was a doctor, and he was the one who cared for us when we were sick, he had an amazing healing touch that calmed us down and he always made us feel safe when sick. He also had almost daily bursts of rage and frustration, at us kids, at the phone or for the stupidest reasons. When we were adults we would laugh at these, but it is true it would have been scary for a small child. I also think my issues were enhanced by the school environment, where I got bullied as a super sensitive child and it only stopped when I learned to put the mask on. At home I was encouraged to be sensitive by my mum and rest of artistic family, and at school I had to be indiferent and emotionless

I feel related and resonated with BOTH vids about avoidant and anxious, hence I've realized I am actually fearful-avoidant. And indeed, I think since my dad was always absent, and showing zero emotions, it was impossible to predict his reaction and I constantly felt scared when having to spend time alone with him. While with my mom, I deeply resent her anxiety as she doesn't have the capacity to emphasize me as a child, needing me to take care of her emotionally, and at the same time always sometimes crying and other times getting angry at me with no reason. She was also incredibly emotionally/verbally abusive toward me. It was confusing as hell. Cuz even tho my morality and the outside world told me how amazing and loving she was, I did not feel it. Even today, she denies all the abuses and cannot see how much damage she's caused to me. After spending 21 years feeling extremely empty, miserable, unbearable, self-hatred, angry, and sad inside, I decided to self-discover and change things. Tried medications for 2 years and they did not work for me. Had some very short & very abruptly ending relationships, and after being in a 1y relationship with a narc, an emotionally abusive person just like my mother who trigged a whole complete side of my anxious attachment, I spent a lot of time to self-reflect and doing the inner work. Now I'm at the start stage of a new relationship, I can't tell if this story will turn out differently yet, but I'm already feeling like a diff person. I change the way I communicate with my partner, talk to myself, express my emotions, and I learn to tolerate some discomfort feelings while CHOOSING to trust. For sure, there are times I feel triggered, insecure, and overthink, I also have PTSD symptoms from my ex, but at the same time I'm practicing self-soothe and co-regulation. I really do want to move toward the secure attachment style and I believe I'm on my way to it.