In Love Letter #1, we looked at how the anxious attachers’ loss-prevention strategies are often the very things that *cause* the loss they’re so afraid of. We looked at it under an electron microscope, so you could see every psychological mechanism (and its impact on others) with excruciating clarity.
In Love Letter #2, we looked at how to do things differently, taking a sober look at how to manage the inevitable intoxication of the falling-in-love drugs, so that you can build a real foundation for your relationship that could last your whole life long.
And in Love Letter #3, we’re going to be looking through the electron microscope once again at just one small piece of the anxious attachment puzzle: our relationship to our own desires and needs.
Let’s jump in…
When we’re really young, we have SO many needs — my god, so many needs. In a “good enough” environment, those needs are mostly met, most of the time, and it’s fine. We don’t need perfection in order to be okay — great, even. But for most of us, there was one thing or another that we really needed, that our environment couldn’t consistently provide (eg. unconditional love, safety, attunement, encouragement, etc.), or there was some part of the environment that was fundamentally broken (eg. family, home, money, sexuality, etc.).
We’ve all heard the part where I say something about how this makes us feel bad about ourselves: shameful, unworthy, unloveable, worthless, hopeless, and all the rest. And all of that is true: we have a very strong tendency in childhood to decide how much we’re worth by the way that others treat us. And it can be a very long road to get back to the inherent worth and value that we all have, that is not at all dependent upon (or even connected to) what other people do or fail to do.
But another dynamic that is often also at play is this: rather than get angry at or turn against the people we’re bonded to, who are currently failing us and breaking our hearts (also the people upon whom our survival depends), we turn against the part of ourselves that has the desire or the need in the first place.
This is a completely non-conscious and instinctive psychological self-protection mechanism; akin to any reflexive, physical self-protection mechanism, like pulling one’s hand back from the proverbial hot stove. It’s called dissociation, and it’s where we break off a part of ourselves (in this case, the part that wants the thing that’s not there) and we fling it into the outer space of the unconscious, where it could float forever in those frozen, eternal depths.
Sometimes we can do this so completely that we literally stop feeling the sensations of wanting, desire, longing, and need for that particular thing. Because if you don’t want (much less need) something, you can’t be disappointed from not having it, you can’t be hurt by being denied it. When the dissociation is this complete, it often winds up looking more like avoidant attachment in adulthood.
Other times, we can do it only partially. This part of ourselves is still splintered off and exiled, so most of the time, we’re not feeling it and unaware of it; but certain people and situations can reactivate it — powerfully. When it bursts back into consciousness, causing a great ruckus, our psychological immune system will respond to it as though it’s a pathogen or contaminant. It will try to eradicate it, and if it can’t, it will try to hide it. At very least, it will feel terribly dreadful and apologetic about it all. This pattern tends to look more like anxious attachment in adulthood.
When this fragmented part bursts back into consciousness, it has a way of actually looking quite like the pathogen or contaminant it seems to be. This is because it has basically been isolated, starved, and exiled for its whole life; it has gotten a little depraved and looks more than a little disheveled. So what started out as a very pure, innocent, and healthy need has been twisted and warped into something rather frightful. This is really sad.
So now we’re in a pickle. The need is real, whatever it is, so the psyche will find one way or another to reach for it, usually subconsciously. And this puts the more conscious parts of us in the awkward position of kind of reaching for something while totally pretending that we’re not, and that we don’t want or need that thing at all.
And there’s SO much stuff in the personal growth space that supports this. You have to love yourself first. Neediness isn’t attractive. You can’t depend on someone else for your happiness and wellbeing. Blah blah blah. There’s some truth there, but the point of those teachings is most definitely not to get you to further dissociate from yourself.
So many of us need to reconnect with the part of ourselves that simply wants and needs that thing, whether it’s love, safety, attention, family, home, or anything else. We need to call it back from outer space, help it thaw out, and give it some food, water, and cuddles (and a bath/haircut) so that it can begin to return to its original, totally good, pure, and innocent form.
And then, even more difficult, we have to be open and honest about this desire and need in relationship with others, which actually is mostly something we do without even saying a word (though you can if you want to, of course).
Thing is, when the self is opposed to itself, we give off tiny, subtle, completely involuntary signals that betray this inner aggression and inner violence. These are the kinds of cues that professional poker players have trained themselves to read, but that most of us simply absorb and react to with complete obliviousness. When we absorb signals like that, we tend to say things like, “I just wasn’t feeling it.” Or, “The chemistry wasn’t there.”
But when we re-associate with this part of ourselves, calling it home and beginning to take care of it properly, then we give off the teeny tiny vibes of acceptance, safety, love, and care. Those feel SO much better to be around. Turns out what we think is the “inner world,” is actually pretty transparent to everyone. Our unconscious minds are having conversations with each-other all the time, and we usually know nothing about it (and they’re usually a lot more honest and straightforward than we are).
So what I’m trying to say is that you have to let it be okay *within yourself* that you want and need this thing; you have to be the one to grant yourself that permission. When you do this, the desire and need you feel is going to show: it will be visible in the things you say, in your non-verbal communication, body language, and so on. It will be perceive-able in one way or another.
And to someone who has been rejecting this part of themselves for their whole life, that idea that this need or desire might be visible to others is horrifying and awful. The vulnerability of that is just too much and too painful.
But the grand irony, and perhaps the symmetry, in all of this is that if you can be in an accepting, loving stance towards that part of yourself, odds are very good that others will simply follow suit like it’s just the most obvious and natural thing to do.
Because the way that you relate to yourself is basically a set of instructions that you give other people about how they should relate to you.
So for anyone who needed to hear this today: your need and desire for love, acceptance, attention, safety, family, support, home, affirmation, or whatever it might be for you, it’s okay and it’s good. It’s not going to hurt anyone, it’s not going to cost you anything, it doesn’t make you weak or broken — rather, it’s part of your wholeness and your humanness.
Healing, growth, development, evolution… whatever you want to call it, I think it’s largely about this process of reclaiming lost shards of the self, rehabilitating them, and giving them a permanent home in your heart. I think this is what the, “you have to love yourself first” teaching is trying to say: no partner can do that reclaiming and rehabilitating work for you. No amount of love from them is going to make you whole again.
May we all be more accepting of all the parts of ourselves. I can’t help but wonder what would happen in the outer world if, in the inner world, we learned how to be less opposed to ourselves.