Attachment Styles 101

Have you ever found yourself ghosting someone you actually like? 

Or maybe you’re the opposite—planning your wedding after three dates, texting 24/7, and mentally naming your kids after the second cuddle. 

Whichever side of the spectrum you’re on, you might be meeting your attachment style in the wild.

Attachment styles are the sneaky little patterns of behaviour and emotional response we developed as kids trying to survive our caregivers. 

And now? 

They’re running the show in our adult relationships without us even knowing it. 

This is a gentle introduction to attachment styles to give you a grounding in the terminology and behavioural patterns.

You’ve gotta know the rules before you can break them…and then have enjoyable relationships. 

Key Takeaways

• There are four main attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant (aka disorganised).
• The theory reckons that attachment styles form in childhood but appear loudly in adult relationships.
• Understanding your attachment style can help you stop repeating painful patterns.
• You can shift your attachment style with awareness, therapy, and healthy relationships.
• No, you’re not broken—just a human with a history. Welcome to the club.
  

Four Attachment Styles

From the start, it’s essential to understand that these labels refer to patterns of behaviour, not types of people.

Attachment styles can be fluid if we know what we’re working with and how to work with them. That’s for another day.

1. Secure Attachment

“I’m OK and you’re OK”

Traits:

• Comfortable with closeness and independence.
• Sets, upholds and respects boundaries.
• Healthy communication.
• Emotional regulation that doesn’t involve chucking your phone at a wall.

Secure attachment allows you to be comfortable with intimacy, easily set boundaries, and not spiral when your partner takes an hour to reply. 

People with a secure attachment style are grounded in relationships. They derive their self-worth from…well..themselves, and don’t anchor their self-esteem in relationships. 

 And yeah, we’re all kind of jealous.

It’s often thought that those with secure attachments can easily and calmly deal with everything life throws at them—this isn’t true.  

Like all of us, people with a secure attachment style feel stuff, and they feel it deeply. They get upset if they get fired or go through a breakup. 

The difference? 

They’ll take a minute to feel every inch of their emotional response, because they aren’t afraid of what it means about who they are. 

(Lucky bastards) 

2. Anxious Attachment (aka anxious-preoccupied or anxious-ambivalent)

“I’m not OK, you’re OK”

Traits:

• Craves closeness, fears abandonment.
• Not so good at setting and upholding boundaries.
• Hyperaware of partner’s cues.
• Often people-pleasing, sometimes seen as needy.

Anxious attachment drives you to seek closeness from a partner, at all costs. 

Up to and including costs related to your boundaries, identity, and mental health.

People with anxious attachments are fantastic relationship chameleons. They will bend, break, bow, and buckle to ensure their partner is OK and happy in the relationship. 

They spend a lot of time preoccupied with the health of a relationship, and believe it’s their job to fix it…often when it isn’t even broken. 

Anxious attachment causes pain when you detect a partner's distancing. You feel a compulsion to “fix” and bring back closeness. 

Trouble is, anxious attachment screws with your relationship compass. 

A late reply = you hate me!

A cancelled date = you’ve moved to Peru and changed your name. 

More often than not, the anxious attachment need for closeness becomes too much for a partner to meet, and the relationship ends. 

To be clear, if you identify with anxious attachment, it doesn’t mean that YOU are too much. 

It likely means you’ve been looking in the wrong direction to get your needs met. 

Forget them, love yourself, yo! 

(Easier said than done, I know). 

3. Avoidant Attachment (aka Dissmissive Avoidant)

“I’m OK; you’re not OK”

Traits:

• Struggles with vulnerability.
• Boundaries are walls to keep people out. 
• Keeps emotional distance.
• Often seems so chill it’s actually alarming.

Avoidant attachment gives you a cool, “I-don’t-give-a-shit” shell that helps you maintain a fierce independence. 

When a partner wants to get closer, an avoidant attachment style suddenly reminds you about that very important solo hiking trip coming up…that you just planned. 

People with an avoidant attachment style see independence as their survival mechanism. 

They often feel let down by other people’s incompetence, inconsistency and willingness to share their feelings. 

“Gross!” says the avoidant attachment wound. 

Again, there’s a perception issue here. 

Avoidant attachment messes with how you interpret other people’s actions and intentions in the opposite way to an anxious attachment. 

I love you = I want to tie you down forever so you can’t live like a normal human. 

Wanna move in together? = I want to destroy the identity you’ve built for yourself.

The high need for independence and space is often too much for a partner to enjoy the relationship, and…you guessed it…it ends.  

An avoidant attachment says, “PHEW! That was too close,” and then, a couple of months later, it says, “Ah…shit. I’m bored and lonely now.”

To be clear, if you identify with avoidant attachment…

Sort yourself out, would ya?! 

(But also, you matter; your opinions and feelings are valid, and I know you just threw up in your mouth a little bit.)

4. Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganised) Attachment

“I’m not OK; you’re not OK…let’s call the whole thing off...

…unless…but wait…maybe if we

…but no, because…

reasons…I guess…?”

*ghosts indefinitely*

Traits:

• Hot and cold in relationships.
• What’s a “boundary”?
• Deep fear of rejection and intimacy.
• Can feel emotionally unstable in love.

God love the disorganised attachment style—it’s an absolute fucker! 

Fearful-avoidant attachment takes the greatest hits from anxious and avoidant attachment styles and slams them together in one hot, sticky mess of a rollercoaster ride. 

You don’t know whether you're coming or going with a fearful-avoidant attachment, one minute you’re ecstatic you’ve found “the one”, the next they’re dead to you…and then they’re “the one” again… and then dead…

AND SO ON AND SO FORTH, FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN!

It’s a brutal internal tug-of-war driving you to want closeness and intimacy, and once you get it you remember how absolutely terrifying it is...so...no, thank you! 

Disorganised attachment brings the motherlode of perception distortions. 

It can make you think awful things about yourself, your past, present and future, and it convinces you that your partner thinks those things too. 

Fearful-avoidant relationships come to a crashing halt, often out of nowhere, frequently instigated by the person with a fearful-avoidant attachment style. 

If you want to understand what that feels like for the partner who gets left out of the blue, read the article below:

Fearful-Avoidant Breakups: What I Learned When She Left

If the person with a fearful-avoidant attachment style doesn’t up and leave the relationship, the push-pull dynamic eventually causes too much emotional whiplash for their partner, and will likely decide to leave themselves.

Relationships struggling with disorganised attachment elements are rarely sustainable, unless the person with disorganised attachment really wants to get deep into the work. And deep it is, my friends. Deep, indeed, it fucking is.

To be clear, if you identify with disorganised attachment, you are enough, you’re not broken. It’s probably the toughest attachment style to overcome, and you have my compassion for what you go through daily. 

Where ADHD and Mental Health Fit In

People with ADHD or mood disorders can feel attachment patterns more intensely. 

Rejection sensitivity, impulsivity, emotional dysregulation—hello, anxious and fearful-avoidant behaviours.

A missed message feels like a personal attack. 

A lack of structure in a relationship might lead to overwhelming anxiety. 

Understanding this connection can offer huge relief. 

You’re not “too much” or “not enough.” 

You’re responding the way your nervous system thinks it has to, based on past data. 

But the good news? 

That data can be updated.

Can You Change Your Attachment Style?

Short answer: Yes. 

Long answer: Yes, but it takes work.

The somewhat painful irony of changing your attachment style is that it can only be fully achieved through relationships. 🤦🏼‍♂️

You can do a huge amount of work on yourself on your own, and that’s all great groundwork. The real change occurs when you put the knowledge into practice in new relationships. 

No, not the repeated patterns of yesteryear, but safe, predictable, and kind relationships. 

They might be romantic, they might be platonic. But if you’re really serious, a therapeutic relationship will knock the cobwebs off that secure attachment that’s dying to get out. 

If you’ve never experienced secure attachment before, therapy might be the first place you feel it. 

It’s like learning a new language—slow at first, but eventually, it becomes fluent.

Some tips:

• Name your patterns. Not to shame yourself, but to get curious.
• Practice nervous system regulation. Breathwork, grounding, or somatic exercises can help you not text your ex at 1 a.m.
• Set boundaries, even when it makes you sweat.
• Be honest about your needs. They’re not annoying—they’re human.
  

Conclusion

Your attachment style isn’t a personality flaw—it’s a survival strategy that’s just a bit outdated. 

You didn’t choose it, but now that you see it, you get to choose what you do with it. 

Whether you’re anxiously checking your partner’s location, avoiding commitment like it’s a contagious disease or mopping up your own vomit after going on the rollercoaster you just built, you’re not broken.

You’re just a human with a history. 

And you absolutely deserve a shot at something more enjoyable than the chaos you’re used to.