The way my (disorganized) insecure attachment – the ways in which I relate to people – works is that I doubt myself a lot. Whether I’m too much, not enough, boring, demanding, avoiding, clinging, etc.
Whenever I’m in a confrontation with someone, something in me sends off an alarm signal. Uh oh, we’re in unsafe territory here! The likeliness of getting hurt is huge now!
My fight/flight system is predisposed to fleeing, I’ll only fight when you touch my kids. If flight is not an option, I’ll move to freeze.
But more than those options, I tend to fawn. To appease. To bend towards the desire of the other, whether that’s an opinion about the news, what’s for dinner, and even big life decisions.
A simple example I figured out a while back: when I walk in a forest with you and we come to a place where we need to decide whether to go left or right, I will hyperfocus on your body language, slow down, and see where you want to go – and then follow, telling myself that’s the direction I wanted to go in.
It may avoid some conflicts. It got me in places where I never chose to be. And when being in a connection over a long time where the other prefers you to fawn ánd is used to it, letting go of this programming and stepping up for my needs and desires is a guarantee for all the conflict once avoided – and then some.
