clinginess, conflict & attachment
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This is a really exciting episode. I wanted to find more about my own attachment style as well because it's kind of confusing. I thought there was one strict criteria you had to meet to be in a specific or have a specific attachment style and what I found in my research is that

it can change and you can morph different attachment styles throughout your life, depending on the person that you're with and also the experiences that you have. Because your brain is elastic, you can form it in a different way. So you can go from being insecure to having a secure attachment, or you can go from having a secure attachment maybe to having an insecure, depending on the relationships you have in your adulthood. But usually the blueprint for your attachment style that you're going to have in your adulthood is

is set out for you in the first seven years of your life. So they would be the crucial years where your personality is developing, your attachment styles are developing, your conflict resolution skills are developing, your self-worth, your self-esteem, all of that is developing within your first seven years. And that is usually going to be indicative of the person that you're going to be in your adulthood and how you're going to react to life's obstacles. So the way that your parents treat you as a child usually depicts

the type of person that you're going to go with in your adulthood or when you start dating or being romantically involved with people. So for example, if you're used to love and affection and being told that you're worth something and

being proven time and time again that your parents are going to love you regardless of your behavior, you are going to seek out that in a partner as well. So you are going to seek someone who is loyal to you and who is going to be with you through ups and downs. But if you have an unreliable parent or maybe they show you conditional affection, so if you're only on good behavior, they'll give you love and affection or you feel like their love is conditional for you, that's usually, you're going to mirror that relationship

in your romantic relationships. So you're going to seek out familiarity and comfort because that's what you're used to. Your parents basically set the bar for your self-worth and what you think that you deserve. You know that saying from The Perks of Being a Wildflower, we accept the love we think we deserve. That's usually the first person that is supposed to love you unconditionally is your parent. So we will...

mirror that and replicate that throughout our lives to try to appease that inner child in us but also just because that is setting the bar on our heads for how we're supposed to be loved. How are we supposed to know what conditional true love even feels like if we haven't received that from our parents? So we are just going to repeat that same pattern over and over again. Whereas if we do feel unconditional true

unbelievable love from our parents we will find that then again in romantic partnerships and in other relationships in our lives like friendships as well and this can apply to any relationship you have with people friendships colleagues kind of anyone you are going to have

close relationship with or are going to inevitably get into conflict with this is going to be a pattern throughout your whole life and something that we should be aware of. What I found out is there are two types of attachments secure attachment and insecure attachment but with insecure attachment there is anxious which is probably the one we are all very aware of avoidant which we're all very aware of as well I mean protagonists in usually films and books are

are the embodiment of these kind of attachment styles we never really hear a story of someone with a secure attachment because it's safe and it's boring there's nothing to write about there

You know, it's just things are usually going smoothly and things work out for them. It's like the conflict resolution comes naturally and there's usually not huge ups and downs or anything to write about. So anytime you watch a film or a rom-com or a drama, it's usually people who have insecure attachments. But the official names for them are preoccupied, which...

I would think of as the anxious one, which we all commonly know as the anxious attachment. Then dismissive, which we would commonly know as avoidant. And then there's unresolved slash disorganized. So this can flip between the two. It's kind of

unpredictable, erratic sort of behavior. So you kind of flip between the different attachments. The way that you can tell what attachment a child is developing is if a child has a secure attachment, they will be distressed when away from their normal caregiver, but then they will be easily reassured and calmed down. Whereas if a child has an insecure attachment, they will be

Sometimes they won't care if their caregiver goes away, but they can't be reassured easily when their caregiver comes back. A child can also be seen as on the exterior, very normal and calm, but on the inside, they're very stressed or otherwise have really erratic behavior up the wall sort of buzz. How insecure attachments develop in kids and how you can tell if it's developing in children. So there will be attention seeking behavior. So this would usually be, you know, like the class clown or they could be

or they could be bullying or just doing really, doing stupid shit all the time that you can't really explain and you don't know why they're doing it. It's usually attention seeking behavior because they can't,

communicate properly what they need so they will just act out in the best way that they know they can and usually in parent-child relationships you're going to get a reaction from negative behavior especially a child that isn't being loved proficiently or isn't receiving conditional love from a parent you usually the easiest way to get attention from those caregivers is to act out and also they don't calm down when caregivers return and then how that develops in adulthood they'll get a preoccupied

So that means they're extra sensitive, express dramatically, very clingy and constantly seek reassurance. I would like to reiterate, because I know specifically people with anxious attachment

you'll be listening to this and usually people with anxious attachment think about the style you know think about the effect that they're having on the people around them because it's the fear of abandonment and that's why you're acting out and trying to cling on and seeking reassurance is because you love that person so much you don't want them to leave you this does not mean that you're a bad person and it does not mean that you're unlovable the only way that you can cure yourself in

of this anxious attachment and kind of ease yourself out of it is to be more forgiving of your behavior and know that you are worthy of unconditional love because the reason why you're acting out like this and have an anxious attachment and constantly seek reassurance and you feel and usually people with anxious attachments know that they're being clingy and know that they constantly seek reassurance it's not the it's not the opposite with avoidant where they kind of are unsure of how they're behaving and they think that they're doing the right thing and people with anxious attachments or preoccupied attachments

usually are aware of the fact that they might be annoying the people that they love or that they're scared that people are going to leave them because they're high needs or that they're extra clingy. The only way that you can help yourself get through this is to actually do the opposite and stop being so hard on yourself. Know that you are worthy of love and know that you are worthy of that unconditional love that you so badly seek.

reassurance for and I know that's extra difficult but it does not mean that you're a bad person and that does not mean that you're unlovable it's actually the complete opposite people with anxious attachment just want to love completely and wholly they probably love more than anyone else and they're extra empathetic and they're constantly aware of other people's

uh feelings and emotions because they're so attuned to it because they're so anxious i would really like to reiterate that that does not mean that you're a bad person or that you're not lovable because you are extra lovable and you're just a sweet person you know that's you just want to be loved and you want to love other people you know it's not the end of the world if you find out or if you're listening to this going oh god i think i am that person

It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you. These are all just different styles and you can earn a secure attachment over time with just work on yourself. Another thing I'd like to add is you cannot really get that reassurance from other people or the expectation that you are going to receive it from other people is just going to leave you in a catch-22 cycle of abuse. The only person you're harming is yourself. No one is going to save you from this and make you, you know, there's not going to be an end goal relationship.

where the partner that you're with is going to go, is going to do all these specific things to make you feel better, because when you have an anxious attachment, your mind is constantly scanning for signs that the other person doesn't love you. And that's just the way that your brain is wired. So even if your partner is going above and beyond, does love you unconditionally, but if they say anything that involves conflict or bringing up a problem in the relationship, you are going to see that as the be all and end all, that they want to leave you, that this is

the end of the relationship and that cannot be cured from the other person. You need to be retraining your brain to scan for the lovely things that your partner does for you and the acts of love that they do for you and everything positive in the relationship because otherwise your partner is going to feel fearful for ever bringing up a problem or

wanting to fix something to make the relationship better because anytime someone in a partnership or a relationship brings up something approaching you going I have a problem with this that is not because they don't want to be with you it actually means the complete opposite if anyone ever brings up a problem they have in the relationship that they want to fix and they want to speak over and communicate with you that is them wanting to make the relationship the best that it can be so they don't build resentments and you guys can love each other even more but I know if you have an anxious attachment it's

It can feel like everything is an attack or that every single thing like that is a sign that the other person doesn't love you or that a sign that you're not lovable or you're imperfect or you can't be the best partner you can be for them. That is, it's actually the opposite. They want to do the two of you to just be in the best position possible. But I will say if an anxious attachment person is with an avoidant attachment, that is almost a recipe for disaster. And that's usually the, it's like the archetype for people

the archetype couple from a will they won't they romance novel because it makes a good story you know and at the end usually it's like oh we're going to be the perfect couple now but realistically that's not the case and it's like they both need actually extensive therapy and to work on themselves alone separately rather than work through together someone with an anxious attachment is going out with someone with an avoidant attachment you're never ever going to get that reassurance the person with the avoidant attachment is never going to bring up a problem

because they're avoidant and they don't even realize there's a problem. And then the person with the anxious attachment is so scared of abandonment that they're not gonna ever bring up a problem either. So it's usually just going to end in tears. Okay, so avoidant. In children, they appear normal, but stressed out on the inside. And they often avoid caregivers. As adults, this develops as uncomfortable with emotions, preferring distraction, rarely communicate their needs and are proud,

on being very self-sufficient, but at the expense of emotional connection. Your man in the kissing boots who rides the motorbike, Jacob Elordi, he would be prime example. And it's usually the man bad boy that is the archetypal or stereotypical avoidant attached type of person. And for some reason, we've equated that with being mysterious and cool. But...

In reality, it's probably a nightmare to be with someone like that. You can't meet someone at a specific level if they haven't gone to that level themselves. If you want a deep, intimate connection, it's very hard to emulate that with someone who has an avoidant attachment style. I would say myself, the majority of my life, I've had an avoidant attachment style. So I can speak on my own experience. Now it has changed depending on who I've been with.

I would say I've flipped between anxious and avoidant in my life. Avoidant in terms of I just find it very hard to process things, so I would just choose to ignore them. If there are problems, I will just brush it under the rug and then keep going. So a lot of friendships or relationships in my life in the past have just ended without ever talking about it.

or trying to figure out why. It's just like, okay, this is over now, which is difficult to learn from. You know, if you're not getting a clear answer as to what went wrong or how you could improve the next time, you're probably just going to repeat those patterns again because you've never processed them or thought about them or reflected. And usually avoidant is just a protective coping mechanism, you know, self-preservation sort of thing. Whereas if you don't think about something or if you don't acknowledge that there's a problem,

Somehow you're getting away with this or making yourself believe that there's not a problem to begin with when realistically it's still there. You're just not coping with it at that time, but usually a few months down the line, then it will hit you. That's what I found anyway for myself. I think since I've had my daughter and I've spent a lot of time talking about myself and

Thinking about myself and talking about myself, as self-indulgent as that sounds, and sometimes it does feel very self-indulgent, but at the same time, all of that thinking about yourself and going through your emotions and your past can have a positive impact on your relationships with other people. And specifically if you're a parent and...

have children. I think that's crucial to have that time to think about your past, about your patterns, about your conflict resolution skills, about your communication skills, so that you could be the best parent possible for your child. Learning the skills to be able to take accountability, to be able to know when you're in the wrong, because I found that very difficult. I mean, it's a bit of a gray area, especially in your brain, if you tend to avoid conflict at all costs. You can never see then your own faults and where you've gone wrong if you're just completely avoiding them. I suppose the same things

it goes the same way but sort of the opposite with that anxious attachment. If your brain is constantly thinking I'm unlovable and this person is going to leave me, you're never going to be actually aware of the other things that are going on. I mean, you could be with an absolutely shit partner that's not even treating you right but you're so...

focused on receiving a reassurance and validation that you're just with them so that you can feel loved or feel something even if they're a fucking shithead to you. Okay, and then disorganized attachment. In children, it's portrayed as very erratic behavior. And then in adulthood, it develops with seeking and rejecting closeness. I feel like there's a lot of parents with this disorganized attachment. Hot and cold sort of people, you know, they don't know what they want. Seeking and rejecting closeness, difficulties with trust.

result of abuse or neglect, chaotic or defensive approach to relationships. And then if you have secure caregivers, they usually get it right. And this isn't rare. I just feel like people who have...

insecure attachments are probably just drawn to each other because you don't feel like you're worthy enough for someone with a secure attachment and I do think this is you know when you're a teenager no not even when you're a teenager if you have an insecure attachment usually or if you have low worth low self-esteem and you're texting someone this is usually this is only if you're in the talking stages with people or you go or going on dates and

And you know if that other person is really into you or likes you a lot, usually we'll see that as intense or there must be something wrong with you to be able to like me that much. So I'm turned off by you. That is usually indicative of your attachment style, I would say. Also the other person, it depends on how intense they're being. But if it's just like,

firm in yes I do want to see you not like oh my god I'm obsessed with you not obsessive behavior or if it's actually creepy and intense that's not what I'm talking about but if it's just like someone acting normally offering the normal level of reassurance wanting to meet up with you wanting to go on dates with you and actually respecting you and you seeing that as a turn off it's usually you that's the problem I would like to say from my own experience it's

If there's someone, if you're seeing someone and they just have respect for you and you're going, there must be something fucking wrong with you. You're a weirdo for having respect for me and for treating me nice and for liking me without knowing me that much. I feel like a lot of our parents, it's hard to be, you know, it's hard to be perfect. Most parents are going to, like I'm,

100% going to you know have a negative emotional impact on her somehow that I'm not aware of right now but I'm doing my best so I can only imagine how difficult it would have been for our parents generation without all this access to information that we have without normalizing you know going to therapy it was seen as

and this is probably still in certain areas, I mean, in more conservative areas, it's still sort of taboo to even say that you're going to therapy because it's sort of saying there's something seriously wrong with me rather than you just want to improve as a person. You know, reading books on psychology or having this, you know, it's crazy that we could just look all this shit up. Whereas our parents didn't have all that. And it wasn't the norm to be like,

Like acknowledge your own faults or what went wrong in your life because you were seen as too soft or a snowflake. Even though all those adults now are probably sending abuse on Instagram real comments because they haven't processed what happened to them in their childhood. So they're going to take it out on someone on the internet. The people who don't have access to all this information when they were younger or refuse to reflect on their past or how it affected them or not aware of it are usually...

using unhealthy coping mechanisms or taking out their anger on other people when that's not what we want to be doing anymore. That's why we make these videos on the internet. But yeah, secure caregivers,

validate and acknowledge a child's feelings. They provide a sense of safety. They effectively manage conflict with warmth and calmness. And then preoccupied caregivers, they overreact and intrude upon their child's emotional experience, causing a very stressful and anxiety-ridden environment. And then dismissive caregivers, they prioritize independence and

and ignore slash intellectualize a child's emotions. Disorganized caregivers are erratic and they fearfully react to a child's emotional needs. How your parents treat you creates a blueprint for how you think you deserve to be treated. So if you receive genuine affection, you will feel valued and secure. But if you have a lack of affection slash conditional affection, that leaves you with the feeling of being unworthy or being unloved. So I have a little exercise for you all. If you feel like you need some help,

healing from your childhood or how you were treated as a child. And it doesn't necessarily mean that something had to be terribly wrong. I mean, your parents could still be loving normal parents, but something slight might have gone wrong in those crucial years for you where it's kind of had a negative impact on how you view yourself or how you view your worthiness. And that's okay. Everything is worthy of like help and care. You're worthy of all this love and attention and care and thought and

And just because you're a person, you know, it doesn't mean that something absolutely fucking horrific has had to happen to you for you to be able to look after yourself. It's just regardless of that, if you want to be a better person, if you want to look after yourself, and if you don't want to take out all your negative emotions on other people, that's usually the reason I do it. And why I think so much about my reactions to things and my past is because I don't want to take...

things out on other people that's really the only reason I want to do and I want to be able to love properly and not fuck up my relationships because I have done that in the past I mean friendships have been ruined relationships have been ruined because I don't know how to process my emotions and I didn't know how I was reacting I didn't think that it was abnormal I just thought that it was a normal way that people go on and I was usually mirroring the the reactions of my parents or how they treated me or how they just are as adults and that doesn't mean that they're bad people as well

I mean, they're both loving people. They're both there for me and my siblings. But sometimes it's just not the right way to go about things. And it has had a negative impact on my life. And I would just like to do better. You know, I would like to be a better person. So the little exercise I have here is what if things were different for you growing up? And what if your needs were totally met? This could also be helpful if you write a letter to your child, your

self on something that you think that you deserve to hear or something that might have helped you or if you can close your eyes and imagine going back to you as a child as you presenting as yourself now what would you say to them that would comfort them

and make them feel better or what do you think they needed to hear someone said I've gone from being anxiously attached my whole life to being with and subsequently having my heart broken by avoidance that I've now become avoidant I feel like I've lost a lot of my softness and believe in love which I always saw as some of my core characteristics oh that's awful so that's what I mean by um you can switch between attachment styles throughout your whole life and depending on who you're

with. The good news is your brain is elastic and it can be trained in different ways so that you actually behave in different ways as well and it does take a lot of work. I will say that being alone does help a lot. You can now retrain your brain but it is going to be much harder if you're in a relationship with someone to figure out those problems but what really helped me because I

The same thing I think happened to me. I was very anxious. I went from being avoidant, I would say avoidant, avoidant to then anxious, then avoidant again, which is, I remember for a small snippet of my romantic life being really anxious. And I think it was because the person I was with wasn't actually, I thought that it was real normal because I'm avoidant, but they must've been avoidant as well. But

like worse than me and I wasn't receiving any reassurance at all and I wasn't used to that and then they were actually kind of sneaky and texting her looking at other girls and

And that obviously had a huge negative impact on me. I nearly fucking lost my mind, to be honest. And then I went avoidant again. I completely hardened up. And it, yeah, it just really, and it fucked up my, a lot of my relationships. The only way I've ever, I spent then a good an hour, a year and a half single, then healing myself, thinking about, now I spent a lot of that fucking riding, riding around and

being a slag but I did also spend a lot of it journaling, time with myself, looking after myself and a lot of thinking and I do think that did help me soften out a lot and I find it really hard not to slip back into the avoidant style because it's just so much easier than being soft and it's I think it actually is it's so brave to open up your heart to someone else and to give them the power to be able to hurt you because if you have been hurt so many times

So I've always tried to go back because love, nothing feels better than loving someone and being loved in return. But I suppose to avoid the being hurt and have your heart broken, we can just slip back into avoiding loving completely and opening up our heart as sort of self-preservation and a protection method, which does in turn damage your relationships. It damages your friendships and your romantic relationships.

And it's really, really not worth it. If we want the world to be a more loving and forgiving place, we have to start with ourselves. We have to start at home in our hearts. So that's the way I, especially, I mean, I know if you don't have children, it's really hard to describe this, but it's, you can't love, if you have a voidant, you can't love a child wholly and properly enough.

The way that they deserve to. You will have a bad impact. Negative impact on them. If you are an avoidant person. Because you just can't be receptive to their emotions. You really need to break down all those walls. And be so vulnerable. To be able to love a child completely and wholly. Because you have to be so strong for them. Because if you're reactive to another person's emotions. So much that you turn away. I mean your child is going to feel neglected. And not looked after. And not cared for. So if you could imagine yourself having.

maybe looking after in your head you're looking after yourself as a child or your own baby and it's like your your inner child is crying out to be cared for and looked after but you're denying them that as out of protection which is fair enough because you know having emotions is hard

It's sometimes, it's sometimes overwhelming. But if you can imagine yourself as a baby, how would you want to be looked after? You know, and if you could look after yourself like you're a child with the same empathy and love and care as you would a child, you would be able to improve your romantic relationships and your friendships because you'd be...

vulnerable with each other. Does that make sense? I grew up in a household where the silent treatment from one parent was the norm, sometimes for two or three days at a time. Now finding myself completely unable to deal with day-to-day conflicts in my romantic relationship, I completely freeze up and retreat like I used to as a child instead of having the confidence to talk it out. Currently working on this in therapy and it's been really helpful in understanding how my childhood self is impacting my current relationships. Again, I'd like to go back to because people with anxious...

attachment to think that conflict or a problem being brought up in a relationship means that you're not loved or that your relationship is going to end and that's not the case. Your relationship is not a bad relationship depending on how much you argue or how much you're having fights. It's all about how you fight. One of the common themes I feel like in relationships that I've had is if you bring up a problem, now I've really tried to improve on my conflict resolution and how I communicate problems because I will usually not say things in

expect my other partner to pick up on the hints that I'm giving, build resentment. And then once we have a fight about one thing, I'll bring up every single other thing that I have a problem with, which you are never going to come to a resolution if that's how you're approaching conflict. Nothing is ever going to get solved. If you're saying, oh, it's annoying the way you go on your phone when we're watching a movie in the evening,

And then the other person is going, well, you never buy me flowers and you never clean up after yourself and you never put things in the laundry basket and you never give me affection at nighttime. You don't even kiss me goodbye in the morning when you're going to work. I want more good morning texts from you. I want you to plan dates. You know, that is like unloading on your partner. And that's when it can sometimes feel like,

the end of a relationship because it's I have I'm coming to you with one issue and you're coming at me with 10 you know so it feels like a competition sort of rather than actually talking to each other like adults and wanting to have a good relationship so the way that I've approached problems and I know it can't be really related because I'm not in a romantic relationship right now but I think being in a co-parenting situation with my um babies with my baby daddy there's no way of that sounding there's no way to make that sound um

like mature, my baby daddy, my daughter's dad. So it's just easier to say baby daddy. So anyway, so having, you really have to have really good communication skills with, in a co-parenting relationship. If you want to have a good communication

family dynamic because I've experienced my parents don't speak to each other you know you know it they won't talk to each other if one of us gets married and that's not a nice environment for even if you're an adult as a child as a daughter of my parents it's not nice to see and it's not something that I wanted for my daughter either I wanted us to be able to still have

family days out I wanted us to get to a point where we could be friends it really really pushes to the forefront the priorities in a relationship even if it's not romantic so we needed to work these things out I would really recommend though if you are in a co-parenting relationship to get a mediator or a couples counsellor even if you're not planning to get together because it can be hard sometimes to get a non-biased opinion

because if you're asking your friends and family for advice, they're usually just going to always be on your side and you want to actually have real, real advice to be able to move forward. But anyway, I found that the co-parenting relationship has just really matured me and the only thing I was thinking about was I want my daughter to have a good childhood and I want us to have a good relationship for her. So that really made it easy to

suck things up and actually speak about things as soon as they happen that's not to say that we haven't had a lot of volatility in our relationship and haven't fought like there's been many many times where we've hated each other but we're able to suck it up and

we can happily now say we've gotten to a place where we get along which is such it's really hard to get there and it does take a lot of work but that is all down to not building resentments and not holding things against each other and not being in a competition because once you have children as well it's so easy to slip into that where you're keeping tabs on each other

Because it feels very unfair. Everything feels very unfair. But nothing is fair after you have a child. It's just like your priority is looking after another human. Nothing's going to be fair ever again. But I think that it's so easy to be like,

I'm doing a lot more than you and you're not doing as much as me. And I, you know, but also the other thing is your partner has to be receptive enough to be able to comprehend what you're saying and actually take things on. If you're saying the same thing more than three times, there's usually a much, there's a much bigger issue at hand. If your partner is refusing to go to, you know, couples counseling, if your partner's refusing to speak to you on things, that's when obviously there's a lot more, you know, the issue runs a lot deeper than just,

your conflict style it's usually like are you with the right person if they're not willing to actually work on the relationship together being able to bring up issues as soon as they arise and to be able to work it out together and actually wanting a resolution because sometimes and I've noticed this in my own behavior and other people that everyone probably slips into this though sometimes you just want to fight sometimes

And I do think this, if you're used to a household that was erratic, unpredictable, and you feel like passion is in the same realm as fighting and being angry with each other rather than passion being like love, because love and hate are very near each other in the same family. I mean, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. So sometimes we can get mixed up between the two. I mean, it's the same thing with like...

attention seeking behaviors. Sometimes we can slip back into that where we will just create a fight to try, get a reaction from your partner or for them to prove how much they love you. I've definitely been guilty of this myself in my past relationships where I'm

start in a fight because I wanted their attention or I want to be reassured about something because I don't understand or I haven't thought about what the actual problem is. So you have to make sure that you're not just looking for a fight. You actually just want to make things better and you want the issue to go away and you want it to stop. So it could be, I want you to plan more dates. How are you going to bring this up? You're not going to wait until, well, you did this. You're not going to wait until they bring up a problem so that you can retaliate with the problem that you have. It's usually...

Can I check in with you? Can I talk to you about something? And then you have to offer, usually offer what the resolution is or come to a resolution together. You can't be expecting the other person to kind of fix it when you're the one with the problem. And I know sometimes that can be annoying if you're looking for extra reassurance. For example, if you're in a house and you feel like it's really the disparity between the domestic labour situation

really uneven so you're coming home from work and you're doing the dinner and washing up and putting the kids to bed or you're doing all the laundry and doing and planning the dates at the weekend you could that is not you being angry with the actual work it's much deeper than that it's

you not feeling loved enough for your partner to see those things or want to help you out or to make you feel relaxed and cared for. It's not the fact that you hate doing dishes or the fact that you hate doing laundry. It's the fact that you don't feel loved enough or cared for in your relationship for your partner to want to do those things for you. Because no one wants to do those things, but it's,

How are you not noticing all the things that I'm doing for you? How are you not appreciating me? It's like, if I'm doing one thing, could you not even us out and balance the relationship by doing another? And sometimes you can feel really dramatic or that you don't want to nag and you don't want to repeat yourself.

nag for the rest of your life and that's usually what the problem is so it's how you bring up those problems and how you come to a resolution together and not having to repeat yourself ever again obviously we've all fought with our parents and if there's ever been conflict i would always reflect on when i was a child if there was conflict in my house or between my parents and me or if just between my parents did i feel safe and comforted and reassured

Did you feel like it was the end of the world and your parents were going to kick you out if you did one thing wrong? Or did you feel like your parents loved you regardless and they only just want the best for you and for you to be the best person that you can possibly be? Or did you feel scared and like it was the end of the world? Because usually in conflict then, when conflict arises...

that feeling as a child is going to come up again. As a defense mechanism, sometimes we can be like, well, fuck you. This is all the problems I have with you out of fear of abandonment or not knowing how to fight or feeling like you're unloved. So you kind of harden up to...

to make it seem like you don't care either. In terms of separation, do you feel like you crave alone time or do you feel anxious and clingy when you're away from your partner? Is it like you're not getting enough reassurance if your partner spends time away from you? Usually then you can kind of have a better understanding of the kind of attachment style that you have from reflecting on those two things, your conflict and your separation. For people with anxious attachment issues,

to combat that clinginess and to help with the seeking constant reassurance or validation from your partner is to try retrain your brain to scan and look for all the acts of love that your partner does for you, all the compliments that they give you, you know, the little acts of service and the validation. So that will retrain your brain to scan for the positives rather than the negatives. And it is really hard work, but you have to make a conscious effort to do those things. And the only person, again,

you're helping is yourself and it is going to help your relationship. These are the traits of someone with a secure attachment if this is the kind of thing that you want to strive towards. So someone with a secure attachment is caring, empathetic, receptive,

receptive, takes accountability, takes time and self-care and pays attention to your partner's wellbeing. I feel a sense of sadness and experience damage, experience damaging thoughts when my partner wants to hang out with his friends. I feel scared and alone. It's been super tough on my partner and I, and I, as I'm always seeking validation and closeness, even when at times I know we need alone time. I have been in the situation as well. You get so clingy

And it feels as if you feel like a loser as well. You've literally, I got turned into, now this has happened to me on two occasions. I turn into a nut job and I want, it's like I get addicted to the other person and I want to spend every single second with them. So as soon as they want alone time or to be with their friends, I think that they're getting sick of me or they're bored of me or they think that I'm obsessed with them.

And I just want them to be as obsessed with me as I am with them. It's like, do you not want to spend every single second with me? Or is there something wrong with me? You obviously don't love me, you know? So, but then now, since I have a child, I value my alone time so much. And I know that I really need that to...

relax and calm down. And if you focus or if you put all of your energy into one person, everything in your life, every aspect of your life gets affected. Your relationship with your family, your relationship with your friends, your career, your self-esteem, your self-worth. If you're so reliant on another person to give you all of those things, to fulfill your cup, I mean, to fulfill your social cup and it would just damage you so much. What I did once when I was single, it took me a long time

especially after I broke up with my baby daddy it took me a long time during those weekends when I was away from her and away from him that was the longest I've spent basically on my own since I had her and I didn't know what to do with myself and the majority of the time I was actually just looking at the wall but that alone time helped me so much more with my relationships and my friendships that I do have now has helped me just look after myself and know which direction I'm going in

if you know what I mean. What I did was I would usually, if I don't plan how I spend my alone time, I will end up just literally sitting on my arse, looking out the window, looking at the wall or on my phone, which is obviously not good for you at all. So I would keep a list of everything that you want to do when you're alone because there are only specific things, especially if you're with a partner with different...

enjoyment, you know, if they have different hobbies and different likes to you, because they're obviously a separate entity to you, of course they're going to. There's going to be things that they don't like that you like, you know, for example, going to a pottery class or specific movies that you want to go see in the cinema or going to plays or going for hikes. There are going to be things that sometimes that your partner doesn't like doing, but you like doing. So I would definitely try plan ahead and

to do those things either with another loved one like your friend or on your own. If your partner has planned to go out with their friends, make sure that you have something else planned during that time as well because you will just get stuck in your head and in your own thoughts if they're out doing something and you're home alone not doing anything. That's usually when it's the hardest. You're not helping yourself by doing that. Okay, I think that's all we have time for. I would love to know more about other people's attachment styles and how if you have gone from either being attached

anxious attached or avoidant to now be having an earned secure attachment what kind of things you do to help that or combat that or how have you reflected on your own past behaviors to try turn it into something else or flip it on its head I definitely have an avoidant dad and disorganized mom but that's fine

I mean, I love them for who they are. And unfortunately, children are biologically wired to unconditionally love their parents, which is why it's such a fucking kick in the teeth if you don't have parents that love you back. And the majority of the time, they don't. Most of the time, love does feel conditional with other adults.

but for some reason kids I don't know why that is but children will love their parents regardless they did a study on children who were taken into foster care and the majority of the children regardless of their situation at home would always choose to be with their actual biological parents and be in foster care even if it was the most horrible environment ever they would always choose to be with their biological parents and we were wired to be that way or to be with the you know the not

biological parents but you know the caregivers that they have grown up with they don't have to be actually related to them but usually the people that you grow up with and look after you as a baby we would always choose them over everything else so it can be really hard to decompartmentalize how your parents have treated you and whether it was like the right or wrong thing to do because we're always going to love them regardless of how they treated us