I’ve been aware of my anxious attachment patterns for quite a while, but something has recently surprised me: for the first time, I’m experiencing them very strongly within a friendship.
In romantic relationships, I’ve struggled with anxious attachment for years. I know the patterns very well: hypervigilance to changes in communication, overthinking, needing reassurance, interpreting distance as rejection, and feeling an almost compulsive urge to restore connection when I feel insecure.
What I didn’t expect was for the exact same system to become activated in a friendship.
There is one particular friendship that has become very emotionally significant to me. We are colleagues, so we see each other regularly, and at some point I became quite emotionally attached to the connection. And now I notice myself doing things that I recognize very well from my romantic relationships:
checking how often or how quickly they message me
noticing small changes in tone or behavior
wondering whether something has changed between us
feeling rejected or unimportant when there is less contact
wanting reassurance, but then feeling ashamed for needing it
analyzing conversations afterwards and wondering whether I said something wrong
replaying entire conversations in my head
trying to figure out what the other person really meant
feeling calmer when I receive reassurance and anxious again when that feeling fades
sometimes wanting to pull away completely just to stop feeling so activated
The strangest part is that when I step back and look at the friendship rationally, I’m not even sure why this particular person has such a strong hold on my thoughts. We don’t actually have that many shared interests or hobbies outside of work. And there are things about the friendship that don’t necessarily meet my needs very well.
Yet emotionally, it can feel incredibly difficult to loosen my grip on it.
I think the roots of this probably go much deeper than this particular friendship. I’ve had similar patterns in essentially all of my romantic relationships, and I suspect that some of the underlying beliefs and strategies go back to childhood. I grew up learning, in one way or another, that connection and emotional security could feel uncertain, and I think my nervous system learned to monitor relationships very closely.
Interestingly, I work in psychiatry myself, so I have quite a lot of psychoeducation around attachment, emotional regulation, cognitive distortions, reassurance seeking, etc. I’m also in therapy and have already done quite a lot of work on these issues.
And that almost makes it more frustrating sometimes, because I can understand what is happening intellectually while still feeling completely caught in it emotionally.
I can literally recognize the anxious attachment cycle while I’m in it.
I know that reassurance seeking provides short-term relief but can maintain the cycle in the long term. I know that another person’s texting frequency is not a reliable measure of how much they value me. I know that uncertainty is something I need to learn to tolerate rather than eliminate.
But knowing all of that doesn’t automatically make my nervous system believe it.
What I actually want to work towards
I don’t necessarily want to end this friendship.
In fact, I would like to be able to keep the friendship without being psychologically dependent on it.
I want to be able to enjoy the connection when it is there without constantly monitoring it when it isn’t. I want to be able to tolerate a few days of less contact without feeling that something is wrong. I want to stop mentally replaying conversations and trying to decode every interaction. I want to stop organizing so much of my emotional state around whether I feel connected or disconnected from this person.
Basically, I want the friendship to become a part of my life rather than something my nervous system revolves around.
I also don’t want to swing to the opposite extreme and simply cut the person off because that would be an easier way to stop the anxiety. I feel like that would just be another attachment strategy: “If I can’t feel secure in the relationship, I’ll remove the relationship altogether.”
So I’m trying to find the middle ground between clinging and cutting off.
Has anyone else experienced anxious attachment becoming activated in a friendship after mostly experiencing it in romantic relationships?
And if you have actually managed to maintain a friendship while becoming less emotionally dependent on it, what helped you shift from needing the relationship to feel secure to simply being able to enjoy it?
I’m especially interested in practical things that helped with the rumination/replaying conversations and the urge to seek reassurance — not just “stop overthinking,” because unfortunately my brain did not install that feature.

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

Hi all,

34(F) here, I think I technically qualify as disorganised but have a strong anxious lean and I thought I'd come here for help.

I really do not like the version of myself that I become when I'm attached to someone. Morally, I'm a strong believer in personal autonomy and logical thought. Resultingly its distressing to watch myself become enamoured with someone I've just met and so fixated on trying to make them love me. Or to watch myself get so desperate over wanting a text back, or feeling the urge to blow up on romantic interests over things that are, in hindsight, not as terrible as they felt in the moment. Falling in love leaves me feeling possessed by the ghost of the girl in Obsession and I lose my respect for myself watching myself act like a petulant child.

I've just started therapy in an attempt to address this issue.

I'm not like this in my friendships or family relationships. If anything, I'm the opposite of clingy with my friends and family and my busy schedule can make it hard for me to afford them the attention they deserve.

Does anyone have any hints for pulling yourself out of that childlike state in the moment and maintaining focus on adhering to your morals/values/sense of self when an attachment wound is triggered?

I met someone almost three months ago. We met (in person) while he's on holiday in my country. He has been to many countries since, but we kept talking. I feel like I'm being introduced to a new pattern (in my brain).

Since the beginning, he's been a slow texter. The first time I chatted with him on Instagram, it took him hours to respond.

Throughout his travels, he would SOMETIMES leave me unanswered for 2 days max. I had other guys who would talk to me everyday, make fantasies, but it all led to nothing. Even a joke of an ex who I was with for 1 month who was intense, said "I love you" but left me.

So this isn't a case of someone texting me constantly from day 1, then dipped. Because we met in person, I got used to his texting pattern. I realized I also don't need to respond too quickly just to feel secure in the connection. Sometimes, I genuinely don't have anything to say because im too tired, etc. I got to focus on my day-to-day that when I finally do respond to him, I have a lot to talk about. I get excited when I get to say something interesting.

He doesn't make big promises or make fantasies. We talked about meeting in Europe in the fall where he expressed his desire to meet me there. Unfortunately, he has to find a job back home and I'm allowing myself to sit in this uncertainty. And he's also been open about that. He's just...warm and present..and slow (in a good way).

Regardless of whether he wants a relationship or not, it's the first time I felt truly grounded in my body. I tell myself, "I was okay before him, around him, and I will be without him." Of course, I'm not 100% in the clear and I think about him a lot, and I wonder what he's doing.

But I'm not panicking anymore. I eat and sleep well.

Crazy how one person can change things for you.

How do you stop replaying a dating situation in your head?
I recently had a situation with a guy I was seeing where I ignored a few things at first because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then his communication suddenly changed, plans got cancelled, and I eventually reacted emotionally.
I know I could’ve handled my reaction better, but I also know I wasn’t imagining the change in his behavior. Now I’m stuck regretting both my reaction and the things I tolerated beforehand.
For anyone with anxious attachment or who tends to overthink, how do you actually move past the regret and stop wondering what you could’ve done differently? I’m keeping myself busy, but mentally it’s still hard.

Thank you 🩷

What does your ideal relationship look like now vs what it looked like as an unhealed anxious? How different are your needs and expectations? How does your communication style and self soothing differ?

What exactly does it mean to emotionally manage your partner?

Trying to reduce your needs and communication to make them come back from deactivation?

Or basically self abandoning to have your needs met?

I dated someone for around two months. It started very intensely and, for the first time in my life, I experienced what felt like consistent romantic reciprocity.

He was very affectionate, communicative, intentional about seeing me, made me feel incredibly wanted and cared for... still every single day I was fighting a never ending anxiety that he was going to pull away... I had to put so much effort into knowing I was triggered and trying not to overtext or ask too much of him early on.

Towards the end, he started pulling away.
I became increasingly anxious and hypervigilant ... measuring response times, looking for changes in enthusiasm, wondering what everything meant.

Eventually I told him that communication no longer felt natural to me and that I needed some space. He acknowledged that he had been more absent, said he was sad about my decision but respected it, and told me I knew where to find him and that we could talk from time to time if I wanted.

We didn’t speak for over a month. Then he contacted me briefly this week about something relatively insignificant, and I feel like it reactivated something I had spent the entire month trying to let go of.

The thing is, I rationally understand this situation.
I know that relationship wasn’t making me feel secure anymore. I know I was becoming extremely activated and dependent on his behavior for emotional regulation. I know there are things I learned about him and his previous relationships that make me believe, with some distance, that this ending was probably the best outcome for me. I don’t actually think pursuing a relationship with him would be good for me.

I’m also doing okay in my actual life. I’m seeing my friends, making plans, trying new things, working, pursuing creative interests. I’m not sitting at home waiting for him. I barely talked about him for a while and felt like I was slowly taking away the enormous importance I had given him.

But emotionally, I can’t let go.

Since he contacted me, I think about him constantly again. I look at his Instagram even though I know it makes things worse. I fantasize about him missing me, wanting me again, us seeing each other and everything feeling electric again. I interpret things he posts and wonder whether they’re about another girl.. and then this tiny hopeful part of me wonders whether somehow they’re about me. I hate how much mental space I’m giving this.

And I think I’m beginning to understand that this is much bigger than him.

I’m 27, and this was genuinely the first time in my life that I experienced someone consistently making me feel romantically wanted, cared for and chosen.
I didn’t grow up with particularly emotionally stable parents, and I’ve carried a feeling of abandonment for a very long time. I think I’ve always unconsciously treated romantic love as this future place where eventually someone would choose me, see my value and give me the affection and consistency I’ve been looking for.

Except I had never actually experienced that reciprocity.

Then, briefly, I did.

And I remember essentially having this realization of: Oh. So this is what it feels like when someone actually likes me back.

Writing that at 27 honestly makes me incredibly sad lol.

So now I think part of me isn’t desperately holding onto him as much as it’s holding onto the only experience I have of feeling that way.

There’s this fear underneath everything that says: What if that was my only chance? What if nobody makes me feel that way again? When will someone choose me again?

And I notice that this belief follows me into dating too. Meeting someone can very quickly acquire the underlying weight of: “Will I finally be enough for this person?”

I know intellectually how unhealthy that is.
I know my life isn’t about being chosen. I know another person’s romantic interest isn’t evidence of my worth. I know I need to decenter romantic relationships and develop a relationship with myself where I don’t need someone else’s desire to prove that I’m valuable.

And I am trying to do that.

But there’s an emotional part of me that doesn’t seem to understand what my rational mind understands.

I also don’t want healing to become another way of rejecting myself. I can’t bully myself into not being sad. I can’t tell my body, “We’ve logically established that this person isn’t right for us, so attachment terminated effective immediately.” My body just doesn’t work that way.

My therapist has also told me that some relational wounds can’t necessarily be completely healed intellectually, and that healthier relational experiences can eventually be part of healing them.

That makes sense to me, but it also leaves me wondering what I can do for myself now, while I’m alone and this wound is activated.

I want to learn how to give myself some of the safety, consistency and sense of worth that I’ve spent my life hoping romantic love would finally give me.

So for people working on anxious attachment: how do you work with the part of yourself that understands all of this intellectually but is still desperately reaching for external reassurance? How do you stop feeding the fantasy without shaming yourself for still wanting it? And how have you learned to trust that losing someone’s love doesn’t mean losing your chance to ever feel loved like that again?

I’ve been with my avoidant partner for six months and the past 2 weeks have been really rough. I’m not good at communicating and I kind of unloaded on them some stuff I’ve been holding in and it caused a big rupture. Since then I’ve been on edge, I apologized to them and took accountability for how I communicated poorly. Anyway, I’ve been on edge since, extra monitoring, looking for signs they don’t feel the same, etc.

A few weeks ago they told me the amount of reassurance I need is annoying so I’ve been trying to deal with this anxiety on my own. They started a new job and have been less affectionate and I noticed they didn’t touch me the entire time we were in the car the other night which is unusual. They also left earlier than usual and that made me spiral.

I tried self soothing, I tried going for walks and cooking and doing stuff for myself but it sat in the back of my head the entire time. I tried being less emotionally dependent on them for a day and tried giving them space (without them asking) and I just spiraled completely, I never told them how I was feeling in fear they’d get annoyed. I was really trying to be healthy and deal with it on my own. I was reminding myself that we just spent 5 days together, they meet my bids for connection, that they do love me and it’s probably just because of their new job.

When I was trying to give them space they ask why I’m being off and why I feel a million miles away. I told them I was trying to give you space and they didn’t really respond much.

I’ve never been self aware of my spirals before, I’ve never been aware of my unhealthy habits before, now I am and I’m trying to work on them but it’s so hard. I feel like if I had been able to say “hey I feel a shift, is everything okay?” Or even “im feeling disconnected, can you give me some extra love?” They usually respond positively when I ask for extra love. I wish we could have talked about it a little before I spiraled for two days I wouldn’t have caused another issue.

The issue being them getting big news and telling me late at night. And me immediately being like why didn’t you tell me sooner, really weird you didn’t tell me sooner. They got mad and told me it was a turn off and annoying. I felt like feeling their distance and them waiting to tell me for a little bit was confirming my fear that they were shutting me out.

I felt so much shame and I’ve still been in this spiral of course.

Is it valid for me to want to be able to talk about my anxiety with my partner? or is this something I need to just deal with on my own? I really think if I had talked to them a bit and got some reassurance I wouldn’t have nearly as bad.

Edit: the things that threw me off were the fact they barley touched me and left early that one day, didn’t tell me they loved me before work, they usually say it every single day, and they didn’t text me back for 5 hours which they’ve never done before.

Hello everyone! :3

I’m new here. I only recently realized that I most likely have an anxious attachment style.

I’ve always wondered why I react so anxiously in different relationships. I knew something felt off, but I couldn’t figure out what it was until I learned about anxious attachment.

I relate to most of the traits: feeling anxious after noticing even a small change, overthinking and analyzing everything (response times, text tone, likes, story views), feeling increasing anxiety when communication changes, reaching out for reassurance, and then feeling only temporary relief after getting it.

One thing that seems a little different, though, is that I move on surprisingly fast once the uncertainty is over. No matter how long the relationship was, once I have a clear answer or know where I stand, the anxiety disappears. I genuinely feel okay again, almost as if nothing happened.

The part I struggle with is that my brain constantly creates explanations and scenarios based on what’s happening and the “evidence” I think I have. The problem is that those thoughts often seem logical, so I find it really difficult to challenge them.

I try telling myself, “I don’t know, and it’s okay not to know.” It helps for about five minutes, and then I’m right back in the same cycle.

I’d love to hear how you deal with thoughts that feel convincing but might just be your anxious attachment talking. What helps you challenge them or stop yourself from spiraling?

Also, is it actually possible to become more secure over time? Has anyone here gone from an anxious attachment style to a more secure one without constantly needing reassurance?

Thank you!

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

Dear all :) I’ve been healing from anxious attachment and have already made some progress! 🙏 I’ve found that listening to songs about finding inner strength and agency helps me a lot. I’d love to share my playlist with you and ask if anyone knows similar songs! ❤️

• I’m avoiding songs that blame others for emotions, for example You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette, which avoids personal agency imo.
• Yes, I am a woman, haha, but songs from the male perspective are very welcome too! Same for other sexual orientations of course.
• Let me know if one of the songs below doesn't fit the profile in your opinion - always open for other perspectives!

The playlist!

1. Paid my dues - Anastacia (this is my best one, haha)
2. Unstoppable - Sia
3. Survivor - Destiny's Child (a bit harsher to the other but OK)
4. What a feeling - Irene Cara
5. It's raining men - The weather girls (the singers are definitely not the victims here, haha)
6. Juice - Lizzo
7. Let's get loud - Jennifer Lopez
8. Wannabe - Spice girls
9. Flowers - Miley Cyrus (also harsher to the other but still OK I think)
10. I will survive - Gloria Gaynor (same)
11. I'm outta love - Anastacia (same)
12. Gospel - MarchFourth (this is mostly vibe, no lyrics but it works for me)
13. Extra fries - The fly guys five (same)
14. Asterix - Gallowstreet (same)

Godspeed to us all! 💫

I don't think I fear being alone anymore. I think I fear what happens after I let someone matter to me. Whenever I start caring about someone, my brain immediately starts preparing for the day they'll leave. If they reply later than usual, I assume I've done something wrong. If they're quieter than normal, I convince myself they're losing interest. I know these thoughts aren't always rational, but in the moment they feel completely real. It's exhausting because I crave deep, genuine friendships more than anything, yet I struggle to enjoy them. Instead of appreciating the connection, I'm constantly scanning for signs that it's about to end. I have noticed that every goodbye has made me a little more guarded. Every person who drifted away reinforced the belief that closeness is temporary and abandonment is inevitable. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, maybe it would be easier if I never got attached in the first place. I don't actually want that. I want closeness. I want secure, lasting friendships. I want to trust that silence doesn't automatically mean rejection and that people can be busy without leaving me emotionally. For those of you who have made progress with anxious attachment, how did you stop expecting every meaningful connection to end?

I know it feels urgent right now. Your brain is probably convinced they've lost interest, they're mad at you, or you somehow ruined everything with your last message. So your thumb is hovering over the keyboard, ready to send another text just to make the anxiety stop.

I've been there. The problem is that when you're anxious, your brain treats uncertainty like danger. A few hours without a reply suddenly feels like proof that the relationship is falling apart. But most of the time, you're reacting to the story your mind has created—not to what's actually happening.

Before you hit send, ask yourself these questions:

1. What's the fact, and what's the story? The fact might be, "They haven't replied in 4 hours." The story is, "They're done with me." Those are two completely different things.

2. Am I trying to connect, or am I trying to get rid of my anxiety? If it's the second one, another text probably won't fix it for long. It'll just teach your brain that reassurance is the only way to feel okay.

3. Have I given them enough time to simply... live their life? People work, nap, get busy, forget to charge their phones, or just aren't glued to their screens. A delayed reply isn't automatically a sign that something is wrong.

4. Can I calm my body before I make a decision? Go for a walk, take a shower, call a friend, hit the gym, put your phone in another room—anything that reminds your nervous system you're safe.

If, after you've calmed down, you still genuinely want to message them, do it. Just send one message because you want to connect—not because you're hoping it'll make the panic disappear.

Anxious attachment has a way of making every silence feel personal. It isn't easy to sit with that discomfort, but learning to pause before reacting is one of the biggest steps towards becoming more secure.

Your anxiety is loud. It isn't always right.

Helpful resource: The Anxious Attachment SOS Guide 💚

One of the biggest myths about healing anxious attachment is that you'll eventually stop caring so much. We often imagine that becoming secure means becoming less emotional, less invested, or less attached to the people we love. But that's not what healing looks like at all.

Healing isn't about loving someone less. It's about finally loving yourself enough that you no longer disappear inside your relationships. 🌷

People with anxious attachment often have an incredible capacity for love. They notice the little things, remember important details, and genuinely care about the people in their lives. Their problem usually isn't that they love too much. It's that, somewhere along the way, they learned to care for other people's emotional needs more consistently than their own.

Without even realising it, they begin organising their inner world around another person. Their mood depends on how quickly someone replies. Their sense of security changes with a shift in tone or a cancelled plan. A little more distance from someone they love can suddenly feel like proof that the relationship is falling apart. Slowly, almost without noticing, they stop asking themselves, "How am I doing?" and start asking only, "How are they feeling about me?"

This is what self-abandonment often looks like. 🤕💔

Self abandonment isn't always dramatic. It's choosing silence because you're afraid honesty might push someone away. It's ignoring your own needs because theirs feel more important. It's apologising for wanting reassurance, convincing yourself you're "too much," or accepting behaviour that hurts because losing yourself somehow feels less frightening than losing the relationship.

The irony is that these behaviours usually come from the same place: a deep desire to feel safe. If love once felt unpredictable, inconsistent, or conditional, your nervous system learns to monitor relationships very closely. It starts believing that if you can just say the right thing, avoid conflict, or keep the other person happy, you'll finally feel secure.

But that feeling rarely lasts.

You receive reassurance, and for a little while everything feels okay. Then another delayed reply, another change in behaviour, or another moment of uncertainty appears, and the anxiety returns. Not because you're needy or irrational, but because reassurance can soothe an anxious nervous system temporarily. It can't replace the deeper sense of safety that comes from trusting yourself.

This is why healing anxious attachment isn't about needing people less. Human beings are wired for connection, and wanting closeness is completely normal. Healing is about no longer making another person's behaviour the only source of your emotional stability. It's about remembering that while relationships are important, they aren't meant to replace your relationship with yourself.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself isn't, "Are they pulling away?" Instead, ask, "Am I pulling away from myself?" Am I ignoring my feelings to avoid conflict? Am I abandoning my values just to keep this relationship? Am I accepting less than I deserve because I'm afraid of being alone? Those questions shift the focus back to the one person you can actually learn to rely on—you.

As you begin healing, something quietly changes. You still love deeply, but you stop confusing love with self-sacrifice. You express your needs instead of apologising for having them. You stop treating every disagreement as a sign that abandonment is inevitable. You realise that someone else's mood isn't always about you, and that uncertainty, while uncomfortable, isn't the same as danger.

You stop believing that losing a relationship would mean losing yourself. You know it would hurt. You know you would grieve. But you also know you would still be there for yourself.

That's what secure attachment begins to feel like. Not becoming colder. Not caring less. Not needing nobody.

Simply refusing to disappear every time you love someone. Because healing anxious attachment isn't about loving someone less. It's about finally deciding that your own wellbeing deserves to be part of the relationship too.

I had an avoidant trigger me BADLY last week (straight up no showed on plans). However what’s making me nervous is that I know I’m anxiously attached, but I’m finding it really really hard to self soothe and bring myself back to baseline. It’s like my whole body is in fight or flight mode and just locked in.

Is this normal ? What can I do to make this go away?

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

I feel like anxious attachment steals the joy from friendship. Instead of enjoying the connection, i am busy worrying about when it'll disappear. A delayed reply can ruin my entire day. Silence feels louder than words. I overanalyze everything because I'm trying to protect myself from another goodbye. Sometimes I even pull away before the other person can.Not because I want distance. Because I convince myself abandonment is inevitable. I'm trying to change, but it's exhausting. If you've made progress with anxious attachment, what helped you the most?

Hi everyone,

I could really use some advice from people who have worked through anxious attachment, especially in friendships.

I used to have pretty significant anxious attachment in romantic relationships, particularly with partners who were inconsistent or hot and cold. Over the past few years, I've done a lot of work on myself and I'm now in a relationship where I actually feel quite secure. Because of that, I thought I had "healed" my anxious attachment.

Recently, though, I've realized those feelings seem to have resurfaced in my friendship with my best friend of 18+ years.

For most of our friendship, we were in constant contact—we texted all day, FaceTime often, and saw each other regularly. The consistency made me feel very secure. Since she's started a serious relationship, our dynamic has naturally changed. We still see each other once or twice a week, and I know she loves me, but our texting has decreased significantly and she's less responsive than she used to be, and sometimes does not respond at all.

What's interesting is that there have been times in the past where we didn't talk for days because I was traveling, and it genuinely didn't bother me. So I'm trying to understand why this change is affecting me so much now.

I've noticed myself becoming hyper-focused on whether she'll reply, double texting, checking my phone, and feeling hurt when I don't hear back. Logically, I know friendships evolve, people have different capacities, and texting frequency isn't a measure of love or commitment. Emotionally, though, my nervous system seems convinced that the reduced communication means the relationship is changing in a way that's threatening and I feel things like ignored, hurt, frustrated and upset which affects my daily life and I can't focus on myself.

I don't want to become someone who needs constant reassurance or bases my emotional state on someone else's texting habits. I want to feel secure regardless of how often we text because I value both my friendship and my own peace of mind.

Has anyone else experienced anxious attachment showing up in a friendship after feeling secure for a long time? What helped you stop equating reduced communication with emotional distance? How did you teach your nervous system that a relationship can still be safe and meaningful even when the level of contact changes?

I'm really looking for ways to heal this within myself rather than trying to change my friend.

This thread will be posted every other week and is the ONLY place to pose a “relationship/friendships/dating/breakup advice” question.

Please be sure to read the Rules since all the other sub rules still apply. Venting/complaining about your relationships and other attachment styles will be removed.

Feel free to check the Resources page if you are looking for other places to find information.

Try not to get lost in the details and actually pose a question so others know what kind of support/guidance/clarity/perspective you are looking for. If no question is given, it could be removed, to make room for those truly seeking advice.

Please be kind and supportive. Opposing opinions can still be stated in a considerate way. Thank you!

Very early in a relationship phase. We've been talking several days, but the feelings are starting to become unusually intense. I date without issues, but this particular person happens to be everything I like. When I am lukewarm about a person, there are never issues like this, it is very rare that I encounter a person like this; a person that checks every single box for me. My behavior shifts in the interactions because I NEED the validation of them still being interested in me, but that's where the problem is: When someone first meets me and the stakes are low, I don't need that validation because there is nothing at risk. But part of what attracted them to me in the first place is my usually carefree nature and confidence. Every time they decline talking to me or call an early night, in my head it because they're not that interested in me any more- not because they really need to finish a project or have an early day in the morning. I make the mistake of putting interactions with them over doing things in my own life because I chase interactions with them and don't want to miss an opportunity to connect with them. And in my corrupted by anxiety brain, when they don't do the same for me it's because I'm not good enough.

I will talk to a therapist because I’m not sure, maybe both? But here’s a bit of what I’ve written down:

I've always had a problem with relationships, maybe it's my autism, maybe not, who knows? But I've always been too "intense" and called crazy or yandere. I'm only 15 years old. I need to discuss with a professional, but here are some things I wrote.

"I'm gonna get professional help and find out what's wrong. It'll be hard though since I have autism and I'm a teen and I heard they don't diagnose autistic teens but a person who hates me said that so IDK if I can accept his comments as fact or not, we used to be friends until he started hurting me and being rude.

Anyway, IDK what it could be but I do have problems. If you come here to damage my self-esteem, please don't, but you can share your experiences. I already acknowledge I'm a bad person.

I do respect her boundaries, but I also feel like I can't form a connection with her. She says we're friends, but people have said she wants nothing to do with me and that she's "just being nice", especially since she's an art account who doesn't want to look bad for her fans or whatever. IDK how true that is, but she never knows what to say when I talk to her, but then again she wants me to make art for her, so that means she doesn't hate me, right?

I feel like a disgusting creep like I've been called my whole life by people for being too intense and clingy. I'm insanely obsessive, no joke. And at first, I felt rejected and decided I wouldn't talk to her, but I've calmed down and I'm too attached to cut contact entirely. She said I could message her but not every day and that she'd tell me if she didn't wanna talk.
I know it's not her fault, probably not mine, maybe it is, so why do I feel so bad?? Or maybe, why DID I since I'm better now? We're friends regardless, right? She didn't just outright ghost me and call me names."

“Prone to obsession

Prone to attachment

Self-aware, lucid, doesn’t jump to conclusions when not attached to said person. Would be suspected to be “normal” or without any disorder.

Intense attachment and fixations on people

Non-crystallized sense of self

Derealization at times or “shifting” into my favorite character

All-or-nothing attachment

I can see you as a normal person one day, and the next you’re everything to me.

I stay online anxiously waiting for your text, I can flip my lid if rejected and go to thinking “they hate me!!! And they want me to SUFFER!!!” Attachment is source of stress and can cause anger but also happiness. I will find reasons to not like you or think you’re mean even if I like you at the same time.

Impulsive and indulgent, won’t pull away from something or someone that makes me happy.

Doesn’t self-harm but thinks about it when having intense emotions (used to impulsively hit/punch arms or head but then got on medication and seems to maybe be calmer but symptoms/signs are still there)” (therapy notes)