Anxious Loops of Love

Alright. Let's talk about anxious attachment pattern today. How it feels to stand on either side of them in a relationship. I want to dig a little deeper, to see where in my own life this pattern might have taken root. And perhaps, as I write, I’ll try to figure out what it takes to move past the pain they bring or at least find a way to live gently alongside it.

Do you know where the lack of love and attention that you get or should get while growing up can leave a girl? Even after becoming an adult, it ends in an insatiable desire for love and attention. I remember being in grade six or seven, keeping a small diary where I listed the names of everyone I was close to. Beneath each name, I wrote how much I loved them, followed by the quiet ache that they could never love me back in the same way. I always felt like I wasn’t their priority, even though I made them mine. Strangely enough, the names on that list weren’t just friends, but also my father, my uncle, and my grandparents.

Maybe back then itself, I learnt I shouldn’t pass this kind of pain on to the people I love. Looking back, that must be why I try to make myself as available as possible to those around me, to those I care for deeply. Yet, beneath that effort lies a quiet persistent fear: that the people I love might leave me, or worse, never truly see me at all. What wounds me more than being left is the feeling of not being seen. And what cuts even deeper is the silence, when they stop communicating with me. The conversations that once came so naturally, the gentle words, the pauses, the small touches, the soft and lingering glances... even the slightest absence of these is enough to make me feel nervous.

I am afraid. Afraid that their silence is somehow my fault. Afraid that I had done or said something that hurt them. Afraid that instead of sitting down and talking to me, they might choose to leave. The fear that if we don't talk for a long long time like this, I'll become a nobody to them. All of this might just be something I am overthinking. I know that. Most of the times, what someone else is going through may have nothing to do with me. Yet my very first thought is always that I am the one responsible for all of their problems. Otherwise, why would they behave so indifferently towards me?

But does the realization actually help me in any way? No. I will hardly be ready to address or confront them about this. Once again, I will be tormented by the fear not just that I’m not seen, but that I am becoming a burden to the other person by demanding and expecting too much from them. I withdraw as much as I can. Knowing that suffocating love can be poisonous, I stay away quietly, without words, without protest. I tell myself that if the love is meant for me, it will return in its own time. But still, I never, not even once, do find peace of mind. I stand there, consumed and crushed, wondering what mistake I made in this relationship, why the person is treating me like this, restless over how things might return to how they once were, sinking deeper from one loss to the next. And all the while, the person beside me may not even know any of this.

Are you wondering why I’m saying all this now? Because that is where I am now. It’s amusing. I had spent so much time teaching myself that I don’t have to be responsible for someone else’s problems. And even if I were, unless they choose to tell me, there’s nothing I can do about it. Slowly, slowly, the self-doubt inside me had begun to fade. I’ve taught myself that nobody who loves you will abandon you like that and leave.

It is good, of course, to make space for those who are learning to prepare themselves for the better. That much I know. But what I still wonder is, why do I keep falling in love, again and again, with people who carry avoidant patterns? Hahaha…….😄😄😄