Maybe You're Not Anxiously Attached

Find someone who doesn’t make you feel unwell

Screenshot: TikTok, @manduhwilliyums.

Lately it feels as if everything depends on me figuring out my attachment style. If I want professional success I need to recognise my childhood patterns and reparent myself. If I want to maintain friendships I first have to heal my inner child. And for any chance of a successful relationship I need to prioritise processing my trauma and assessing our attachment styles.

Attachment theory is very popular among Gen Z. The theory dates back to the 1950s, based on research by psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Ainsworth identified three main attachment styles: secure, anxious and avoidant, after assessing children’s responses to separation and reunion with their caregivers. Generally, those with anxious attachment tend to be needy and seek reassurance, avoidants are more distant and independent, while secures are confident and comfortable.

Since then it’s become popular to apply attachment theory to adult relationships—especially online. There’s the #attachmenttheory TikToks with over 300 million views. There’s every kind of attachment quiz you could conceive of (“Your Attachment Style Is Based On Harry Potter Characters”!) As well as attachment therapists, attachment podcasts, dating apps based on attachment styles, even Little Miss Anxious Attachment T-shirts. But most concerning to me are the online forums. Forums filling up with what seems like mostly young women ruminating about their relationships and analysing how anxious they are.

The more popular this gets, the more I’m starting to see problems with it. My main worry is that we might be deceiving ourselves. That attachment theory can sometimes mask real problems and, like much else in modern life, encourage women to go inwards too much and obsessively self-scrutinise.

I’m not saying it’s never useful. I think it can be. At least it seems very obvious to me that your childhood attachments play out in future relationships, and it helps to have an understanding of that. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a danger developing here—a danger of over-relying on these theories, of distracting yourself from reality, of potentially refusing to accept that you are in the wrong relationship. Maybe you’ve got a bad gut feeling about someone. Maybe you aren’t being treated right. But you’re being told by trauma-informed therapists on TikTok and Reddit forums where everyone ends up ruminating together that the problem is you.

I mean, look at the language we use now. It’s not his lack of commitment; it’s your anxious attachment. It’s not that he criticises you constantly; it’s your rejection sensitivity dysphoria. It’s not that he’s distant with you; it’s your dependent personality disorder. Oh he’s hurting you over and over? Have you considered you’re just a “Highly Sensitive Person”? There’s something tragic about seeing so many young women refracting their relationships through this kind of therapy-speak and losing the language of hurt and disappointment. Listing out terrible things their partners have done and then diagnosing themselves.

This is a common reflex in modern life—convincing ourselves that we are sick instead of reacting to something. It’s not your diet or lack of exercise; it’s depression. It’s not trauma from sexual assault; it’s BPD. It’s not the insane intensity of modern life; it’s ADHD. Honestly it’s bizarre how many of these are you anxiously attached? quizzes and assessments don’t ask at all about the quality of your relationship. Surely that’s question number one? No they ask about you, your problems, your past. Maybe you have an abusive partner but you’re being encouraged to churn up childhood memories and blame your parents.

I can see why this is popular. Relationships are complicated. Sometimes people act in ways that seem senseless and hurt us and that we can’t solve. These theories can help, but also create an illusion of control. Sadly it’s easier to accept that you’re anxiously attached or he’s just avoidant than admit someone doesn’t care about you. Seems to me that so much of Gen Z’s obsession with labels and categories comes from this need for control. We assume Gen Z feel too much, but I think the truth is we don’t feel anything anymore; we immediately identify and categorise and diagnose every emotion. We need to feel more! And get back to our gut feelings and instinct and intuition! It’s heart-breaking how muddled some of these young women are getting, trying desperately to diagnose their hurt and disappointment.

Which worries me because there are a lot of young women on these forums realising after their relationships ended that their anxiety “actually made sense”, or they were using it to excuse their partner for everything. Many found new partners and never felt that way again. After all the crying and sleepless nights and panic attacks, turns out they weren’t anxiously attached. They were with the wrong person.

There’s an important distinction here. If you’re overthinking every relationship you have, even if it’s healthy, and it’s disrupting your life, please find support. But if one relationship is causing you constant grief, if casual sex is making you feel confused and insecure, then maybe you’re not anxiously attached. Maybe you’re having a valid response to someone. Maybe you’re having a valid response to the world now, where we gave up our moral guardrails, where people aren’t called to something higher, where love has less to do with serving somebody and more to do with meeting our own needs, where expecting commitment or even decent conduct from someone seems demanding and almost oppressive, where it feels like you have to be some kind of soulless cyborg to get through it, and if you’re a sensitive young woman it can honestly be hell.

Just think of all the reasons we have to be anxiously attached now! Confusing situationships. Constant talk online about how modern men and women can’t be trusted. Endless ways to monitor your partner on social media. Instant access to online porn. Infinite choice on dating apps. Loss of faith in monogamy. Adultery apps. AI sexbots. My guess is that’s what’s making young women feel anxious. And why there’s been a rise in insecure-attachment in general. I think it’s telling that what a lot of these women are worried about are very modern things—their partner not texting back, or watching online porn, or following girls on Instagram. As well as thinking they need to accept situationships or even open relationships (Concerned about your partner sleeping with other people? Sounds like anxious attachment style…practice becoming polysecure!)

What I’m trying to say is don’t be so hard on yourself. Or immediately think it’s you that needs fixing. I’m repeating myself endlessly at this point but of course there’s all kinds of medications and courses and stuff to buy to heal your anxious attachment. Try an SSRI and numb all that! Numb the paranoia and insecurity and while you’re at it numb the love too because that’s weird and painful and too human. Take this course for $1000 and “Unlock SECURE ATTACHMENT!” Talk to a therapist; download this attachment app; buy all these self-help books; chat to an AI bot! Again: my worry is for the women doing this in the wrong relationships. Because as well as buying products and services, very often advice for fixing anxious attachment seems to involve tolerating bad behaviour or accepting something casual. Let’s just say it makes me uneasy reading stories from women online saying that they fixed themselves by taking their “entire focus off” of what their partner was doing, or by letting go of the idea that anyone owes them commitment.

I want to add, quickly: it’s not a bad thing to be attached. Of course there’s such thing as being too dependent on someone and incapable of being alone, but I feel as if therapy culture is now convincing us that any kind of dependency on or deep connection with someone is a pathology, and to punish ourselves for wanting it. You’re not needy or clingy for wanting something real! It’s okay to want consistency from someone! It’s okay to “crave connection and intimacy”! And if you think of someone as your shelter, your refuge, your home, your world, I think that’s called love.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of this delusion in modern life that a psychologically healthy and adjusted person doesn’t feel any pain or jealousy or need for anyone; they stay a moderate amount of attached to people, just enough that they can detach at any moment, and feel perfectly fine and stay friends because nobody owes them anything. They set healthy boundaries and talk to their partners like HR representatives and protect themselves by never feeling anything deeply. That isn’t love! That isn’t healthy! That isn’t human. No wonder normal, thinking, feeling girls don’t feel cut out for it.

As for advice, all I’ve got is this: there’s no point keeping an emotions journal if you aren’t assertive about who you date. There’s no point repeating those positive affirmations if you aren’t ruthless about what you will and will not accept, and willing to walk away. Get help if you are really struggling. But for most young women my advice is get away from forums and TikToks filling your head with terms like fearful-avoidant and anxious-preoccupied and get back in touch with your gut feelings. You don’t need another Buzzfeed quiz. You need a better sense of how that person makes you feel.

I’m not saying be risk-averse. Be brave and love someone! But don’t compromise on your core values. Or think you’re broken for wanting something more meaningful. Instead of withdrawing inwards be rigorous with your standards. Instead of researching your attachment style and reading online forums, stand up for yourself. Less analysing; more action. Self-respect before self-diagnosis. Don’t accept something casual if you want something serious. Don’t waste time on people who have made it clear they don’t care. Don’t sit ruminating about what’s wrong with you. Sometimes you need to get out. And find someone who doesn’t make you feel unwell.