Dear Kay:

I suppose you do fit the anxious avoidant attachment style, but then.. most people do. And any one person’s attachment style is not permanent throughout a person’s lifetime. You definitely did a lot of avoiding: no relationship with a boy/ man before you were 29.

It is not that you are the only person anxious in regard to relationships and most everyone else is secure, and it just happens that you “always choose people that are not available or not good for (you)”- what it is, is that most people are not available or good for you!

A harsh reality, because the great majority of people, men and women are anxious in general and specifically in relationships.

It takes you knowing yourself more and more and when you meet a man, getting to know him more and more and figuring out if a match is a good idea, that is, if the two of you, anxious people, can help each other and build a healthy, loving relationship together.

The reason people are “craving for a relationship but scared at the same time” (some more than others), is because people got hurt in the context of their early life relationships, those with their parents. Every child is attached to her parent or parents and in that context can get very hurt. That hurt is carried on through life, and the now adult still craves a relationship but is afraid to get hurt yet again.

You wrote that you have “the belief that everyone eventually is going to abandon me“. January of this year, you wrote about your mother: “Some other times she just stopped talking to me, or just threaten us with abandon us“- when your mother threatened to abandon you, she created in you the fear of being abandoned.

When she stopped talking to  you, that was a form of abandonment, right there. When she “got physical with her anger”- that was a form of abandonment: gone was the warm, gentle, loving mother that she was (temporarily) at times and you could never count on a persistent warm, gentle and loving mother ever again.

“I was so  afraid to be alone with her”, you wrote. When you got a job offer abroad 4 years ago, you “accepted it without hesitation.. trying to escape from.. my mother. I wanted to be free”- escaping her is avoiding her- and that is the avoidant in the anxious avoidant attachment style. You wanted to be free of the emotional pain involved in living with your mother.

Key in life, as you proceed, is to avoid abusive people and not avoid people who treat you well.

Regarding the therapist you mentioned- if she was overwhelmed, it is because she wasn’t ready to be a therapist when you saw her. Maybe she is still not ready- there are plenty who aren’t. You wrote: “she said she did not know how she could help me”- did she try to help you, and if she did, how did she try to help you?

anita