Awareness of our needs and wounds : some thoughts on anxious attachment

I started to read up on avoidant and anxious attachment last night.  I haven’t shared my latest news but I connected with someone on a dating site and its been becoming quiet intense and old feelings from my last relationship are coming up as we did not know how to negotiate conflict and as  person with anxious attachment I did not realise I need a very securely attached partner in order to thrive and get my needs met.  I am thankful for coming across the book Attached : The New Science of Adult Attraction and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love.  Even writing out that title is hard as I feel love has to come from within first, out of good and deep self knowledge love and acceptance.  Those of us with insecure attachment pasts are not bad or wrong for carrying lots of fears and insecurities into relationships and we often have a pattern of settling for less as we didnt get a lot of emotional needs met as children we may tend to attract avoidant partners who function best by keeping us at arms length or dissing our reactions.  I relate a little to avoidant attachment as well (and we can have both styles alternating) the book very clearly explains how reacting out of these old patterns only functions to keep love, intimacy and deep connection away.

Anyway I got very fearful yesterday afternoon reading up on internet scammers as I have been scammed twice before and althought this connection seemed real it had some dodgy elements to it which I am not at liberty to share here, and when I confronted the person they got very hurt and upset at my lack of trust, which I later thought showed a lack of ability to empathise where I am at and if what they have told me is true their own heart was broken before but you just never know on dating sites.   We are corresponding every day via another messaging system and we cannot meet as he does not yet live in Australia but is planning to move back, which is also something some scammers promise to do to reading up on it last night.

Anyway we got through the discusssion last night with him asking me to trust him and put my ‘negative’ thoughts away.  That didn’t sit well and so after reading up some chatpers in the book by Amir Levine and Racheal Heller I just spoke my truth and told him i have insecurities and I cannot really be with a partner who will not understand that but I will do my best not to bring them into the relationships too much but if I do I need a partner who is secure and loving as last night he had a bit of a dummy spit about it.   I also apologised if my lack of trust had caused him pain.    This was late at night and I finally got back to sleep and this morning he sent a message apologising and said he understood.

The whole incident has made clear to me how important it is to understand ourselves and our hearts and attachment wounds and feeling reactions well.  Feeling vulnerable can and does make us lash out if we dont have a good inner connection with wounded areas and sensitivities and how they may be retriggered in the now.   Mars Pluto also came to mind as that aspect is now passing out of exact conjunction and Mars has to do with how we assert ourselves and fight for our needs and Pluto has to do with looking int the Underworld or Unconscious and seeing what is going on in order to transform old worn out reaction patterns that cause us harm and are related to vulnerabilities.

I have the inconjunt Mars Pluto aspect and I watched a great You Tube video on it last night said how hard it is for me to fight for my own desires and feel I have a right to them.  I buckle under far too easily and surrender myself to bigger stronger wills and that has been a bad pattern for me in the past.   With the North Node in Leo in the 12th house now I also have to work on strengthening my own inner Lion’s roar in a good way.  My Dad never stood up to Mum when she was in a Mars Pluto whirlwind but just pulled away (avoidant attachment) so I never saw her stopped and he didnt fight for me.  So I did not learn to fight for myself and neither did my sister who is now in hospital.  Learning what our needs are, asking for them to be met is important work.  Its part of recovering from codependency and old patterns of self abnegation.   We cannot force our will on others but we can ask for our needs to be respected and we extend that same respect to others, learning to say no to things that dont sit comfortably with us.

I am still going to exercise a lot of caution though.  I know I have to be realistic as people can say and do all kinds of things over the internet that may or may not be true, the only way to know a person well is to meet in person and go through experiences together and for that if we have insecure or avoidant attachment issues we need a lot of insight to help us through.  For now I’ll do all I can to keep myself safe.