Pleasing, over performing or overstepping your own boundaries? Signs of anxious attachment

Have you ever noticed that you regularly give yourself away to others? Or that you are constantly seeking affirmation and approval? Maybe you feel extremely empathetic, and understand others very quickly, but at the same time are unsure of who you really are yourself. And last but not least, maybe you are an extremely hard worker and sometimes really go beyond your own (energy) limits? These can be signs of a disturbed or anxious attachment, a pattern that often has its origins in childhood. But what does this actually mean and how does it affect your daily life?

The basics: what is attachment?

An attachment style refers to the way a person forms emotional bonds with others, especially in intimate relationships.

As a child, you have a fundamental need for love, attention and security. But what if your parents - for whatever reason - couldn't provide that adequately? Perhaps they themselves had never learned how to give love and attention. Or they were simply (too) busy with work, financial worries or family problems. In some cases, loss or trauma played a role, or your parents came from a culture where feelings took a back seat and performance was paramount.

This does not mean that your parents knowingly made mistakes, but the effect on you as a child was that you learned to survive by adapting. This can be done in a variety of ways. In this blog, we will look at an anxious attachment style. You unconsciously tried to find ways to still get the attention and love you so desperately needed.

In any case, you decided, consciously or unconsciously, that by being empathetic, sweet, neat or quiet, or by trying very hard, you wanted to avoid problems and thus perhaps also get more attention and love and approval. Because of these (often unconscious) reactions, you developed an anxious attachment style.

Also an 'avoidant attachment style'/flight behavior or apathy is an unsafe attachment style but more on that in another article.

The impact: how does it translate into adulthood?

The way you adapted as a child often leaves traces in your adult life. Perhaps you recognize the following in yourself:

• You are empathetic: you are quick to sense others, perhaps even hypersensitive, and you can put yourself in others' shoes enormously well.
• You are a pleaser. You always put other people's needs before your own, often without realizing it. 'If they are happy, so am I,' is a belief deeply rooted in you.
• You have a strong need for affirmation. Whether it is from your partner, friends or colleagues, you constantly look for signs that you matter and are appreciated.
• You work extremely hard and go beyond your limits. Over-performing has become your second nature. You want to do well and be appreciated, but that can come at the expense of your energy and health. This increases the risk of burnout.
• You are enormously demanding on yourself or regularly self-blame, or you are a perfectionist, or enormously focused on (your) appearance, or perhaps even very demanding of others.
• You struggle with your identity. Because you were always focused on others, you don't really know who you are and what you really want. What makes you happy? What values are important to you?
• Your body is sounding the alarm. Prolonged stress and suppression of emotions can manifest physically in symptoms such as chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia (read more about fibromyalgia here) or you have a disrupted immune system or prolonged fatigue after a viral infection (such as Covid).

Hypersensitivity as both strength and pitfall

First of all, '(over)sensitivity' gives you the gift of assessing things well and quickly. This is not only a handicap but also a superpower of yours! In your relationships and at work, you are probably someone who very quickly senses what is behind words, how someone else is feeling and whether extra words, time or space are needed.

This is why we often see good therapists and coaches who are struggling with insecure attachment or have just learned how to change their pattern. They want to help others do so, which is a risk, however: it can cause transference and unconsciously perpetuate the pattern. Yet their own experience allows them to deeply understand what it means to live with such a pattern and how to break it.

The road to change: how do you break these patterns?

The great thing is: you can break these patterns. But that requires awareness and action. The first step is to recognize where your behavior is coming from. Once you know that, you can actively work to change it. Some things that can help you:

• Awareness of your patterns. Why do you do what you do? And how does it feel when you're not pleasing or overperforming for a while?
• Therapy and/or coaching. Sometimes you need someone to help you release deep-seated beliefs. EMDR, body work and coaching can help tremendously with processing and behavior change (more on this: read this blog on breaking attachment style).
• Increase your own self-awareness. What do you want? What are your values and boundaries? This process helps you to be more assertive and not always absorbed by the other person (more about self-awareness: read the pages on self-awareness).
• Learning to set boundaries. This is perhaps the biggest challenge. But by saying “no” more often and feeling better about what you need, you will create healthy relationships in which you can be yourself.
• The essential step: consciously choosing other behavior. It is possible that even with insights gained and even after trauma processing, a short extra step is still needed: to see through a primary pattern, thought or behavior and consciously choose other learned behavior. There where pleasing and not being able to set limits play a role, it can help to give your own self-awareness (who am I, how do I function) and your identity (what are my norms and values, which people and lifestyle make me happy) active attention. For this it is never too late - you cannot change the past, but today is the first day of the rest of your life!

What changes when you break these patterns?

A lot! But for your own "good"! When you work on your attachment patterns, your environment is likely to change with you. Some people will disappear from your life because they were used to you always meeting their needs. At the same time, new, healthier relationships will emerge in which you can be yourself. This applies not only to friendships and love relationships, but also in your work. You may discover that your current job doesn't really suit you at all or that you finally find the courage to move in a different direction.

Love begins with yourself

In the end, everything is about self-love. You may be loved, seen and heard, not because you have to work extremely hard to do so, but simply because you are there. This realization is the key to change.

Consider what you need and give yourself room to grow. You may love yourself and be loved for who you are and what you do and feel. Trusting that can create inner peace. And remember: change is a process, but you are worth walking that road. As Stevie Wonder beautifully put it in his song As, “Did you know that true love asks for nothing?” And that's just the way it is. (listen to the song here)