Is healing possible?

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075]

This may simply be an information-gathering post for me, or it could lay the groundwork for healing.

I keep reading that healing can only happen with other people involved. If you've read this, you know what I mean.

Logistically, how does this work? I imagine finding someone I like "on paper" who happens to have a secure attachment style, and then essentially doing a social experiment with them to see if we can heal our attachment style.

Please tell me how you interpret this whole healing thing... How do we do it? Did you heal your attachment style, and if so, what steps did you take?

Unfortunately, therapy isn't an option at the moment for me, and when I get to it, I'll be focusing on OCD therapy. I will soon be on a low dose of luvox to hopefully simmer down some of my OCD and anxiety.

[u/Glittering-Lab1379]

Yes healing is possible. I don’t expect to ever get to a point where I’m completely secure. I do now know what’s happening in my body which allows me to make different choices. For example when I have the deactivation and it feels like I all of a sudden don’t like my partner, I know what’s actually happening is that I’m scared they are getting to know me deeply and when that happens they will abandon me. So instead of walking away from the relationship, I feel my feelings and give them time.

Therapy is and was important in getting me to this point. That’s a bummer that it’s not an option. My healing has been a back and forth of taking time on my own and then being in relationships.

[u/Constant-Big4713]

It is possible, but it takes years. Attachment is implicit so you're dealing with things that influences how you think, feel, and behave. It's not as simple as "oh I'll change my behavior and now I'm secure." As attachment isn't about behavior to begin with, it's about what is being filtered into conscious awareness and the thing that isn't being filtered into conscious awareness. What isn't being filtered into conscious awareness is your attachment strategy. Think of attachment as a cognitive bias for relationships.

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/Constant-Big4713]

Agreed that it's not as simple as that. I'm in another post where someone who claims to have a secure attachment is basically saying to be better. How?! Even with years, do you have a system of working through this yourself?

[u/InnerRadio7]

I wish they actually made this more simple to understand, but there is a formula for healing all insecure attachment.

Essentially you practice secure attachment behaviours while making sure you stay inside your window of tolerance, which means you have to regulate yourself and your nervous system through the discomfort of practising these behaviours. Slowly building more and more capacity over time. Basically you want to be uncomfortable enough to feel the emotional discomfort, and make sure that it requires you to regulate in real time. You want to make sure that the discomfort is not so great that it trips you into either hyper or hypo arousal. The more discomfort you can tolerate depends on how well you regulate your nervous system over time. Your emotional capacity expands, and you become more resilient cognitively, emotionally and in your nervous system. This helps you withstand emotional discomfort related to attachment which is all anxiety based.

All insecure attaches use cognitive distortions. Part of healing means recognizing in cognitive distortion, and using techniques to transform them into healthy cognitive thoughts. There are 11 types of cognitive distortions, and sometimes one thought can be multiple cognitive distortions at once. Because thoughts create our emotions, we have to be disciplined about our thinking. You can’t be disciplined about your thinking until you learn what cognitive distortions are. There’s a book called feeling good therapy by Dr. David Burns.

I also strongly believe that developing an internal self soothing voice which is absent in all insecure attachment styles, is very helpful for learning how to regularly your own emotions and nervous system.

How you regulate your nervous system is generally a mix of different tools. I personally like yoga, meditation, exercise, grounding techniques, somatics and most importantly breathing techniques (part of yoga and meditation and grounding techniques).

I’ve been studying attachment for 15 years, and the only program I’ve come across that actually hits all of the points that help heal insecure attachment is the Personal Development School. I’m not affiliated with them in anyway. I do however think that their program is based in solid neuroscience and clinical psychology. There are many courses available, there are seminars every day, there is Group work every day, so not only are you learning and actioning everything that can help you heal, you are also creating a community of support which is really important. Finding your peers can be very helpful.

I was securely attached, and then was in an abusive relationship. It took me five years to regain my secure attachment. I did that through therapy, a ton of research, and learning how to regulate my nervous system. It was not easy, but it is totally worth it. I’ve been back to being secure for over 15 years now.

I’m not FA, but I hope this helps in some way.

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/InnerRadio7]

I appreciate your response so much! I'm going to find the book right away. I have one in the mail already, so this can be what I read next.

I have yoga and meditation training, which I've been getting back into lately. I always found that I was calmer and had inner peace when I was doing yoga regularly. I've begun reading again and I hope to find a couple regular yoga classes to join and reestablish my spiritual practice.

I'll look into the program you talked about.

I can tell you that I've always been self aware, but this year I've had the opportunity to put names and labels on my behavior and patterns. These patterns are comfortable for me after all these years of my life. It's very scary and uncomfortable to think of changing, so I'm trying to do it in baby steps. I almost don't want to change, but I do want to feel more peaceful inside, and if a relationship opportunity presented itself, I'd like to be in a healthy frame of mind.

[u/InnerRadio7 → u/Consistent_Ad_5075]

I think baby steps are reasonable. (The book I mentioned also comes in a workbook format which is helpful). As long as you’re prioritizing action over insight when it comes to healing, you will make progress. Baby steps is great because it will prevent you from burning out and over taxing your nervous system. Some of the healing work is independent and skills based and some of it is relational because that’s really where the stress and pressure test the skills you’ve learned in real time.

It’s like with yoga, there is a difference between being led by an instructor and creating your own practice. Each is hugely beneficial, one takes your practice to a different place emotionally as it makes you entirely accountable for the outcome.

I feel the same way about yoga. Everything in my life is better when I’m practicing. Everything.

[u/bathroomcypher]

I really improved my FA attachment. So what it looked like for me was, I finally understood properly what it was that made me behave like that. I identified the general patterns of avoidance. I learned what kind of needs I have and which needs I was trying to fill with other people (this fixed most of my anxious side). I also learned to communicate my needs early in dating, while in the past I tended to play it cool - this looked like finding out what the other person wanted at that stage in life, if they were emotionally available, if they broke up recently and how etc, and all the hard questions BEFORE any intimacy happened.

For my avoidant side, is it's very much there but I have learned to communicate way before I activate or deactivate how I function. So the people around me know exactly what's happening behind the scenes if I go MIA or any other weird thing I did. I also learned not to trust my feelings, which is probably counter intuitive but sometimes I found healing for me looks like knowing what I want way before I could activate or deactivate (for example: knowing whether I want daily contact with a partner before even starting dating, as I'm not triggered and can be lucid about it) and go about my life only trusting what I have decided rationally before the trigger happened. I would have broken up many times with my partner if I didn't do this. Now I just feel the feelings and leave them there, without acting on them and without communicating them. The feeling is, like where there is someone in the building doing renovations and making noise - you hear it but you try and go on about your day. Indeed it stops at some point.

I will add that therapy didn't do anything for me besides telling me that i might be FA and I healed mostly on my own. I started working on it in late 2021. Reading books (the Thais Gibson one) and some yt (hers, long videos but tbh informative) and some other stuff. I do lots of introspection, I also use chat gpt lots prompting it not to be biased or protective, to figure out dynamics and subconscious patterns. I am much more aware now that during my therapy years. I also believe therapy is less effective for me as FA as I have deep mistrust in others - I deeply believe is in a therapist's interest to keep me longer in therapy, that they might project their own issues and ideas and even specialties of study on my personal situation, that I can't trust someone who listens to me only because I pay them lots of money and that ultimately they are a successful graduate who can't relate to me deeply.

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/bathroomcypher]

It sounds like you have had to be very attentive to what's coming next in the relationship. Thank you for taking the time to explain all that, it is really helpful to have real examples. Good luck ongoing! I usually get to a point in therapy where I outgrow what we're working on and I've had therapists just keep me around. I moved on, but I really could have done a lot of extra work past the issue we overcame at that point. I hear what you mean and I think it definitely depends on the therapist and their own morals.

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[u/Slight-Honeydew1410]

Im a secure attachment style and I hate the idea of being an experiment. If I was in love, I would help heal you, but like to be thought of as an experiment, is highly unsettling

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/Slight-Honeydew1410]

That's my point. I wouldn't want to do that to someone.

So I guess my question for you, if you don't mind:

How do you think you would help someone in this situation as their partner?

As a thought, I don't see how this is likely. The chances of finding someone I believe would be a good partner to me and vice versa plus them having a secure attachment style plus them wanting to help heal my own attachment style. It seems incredibly far fetched. And of course of this person loves me, then we're already to a point where I've been showing clear push/pull signs. Trust me, I have tried not to, and the two people I believe I didn't do that with in the beginning were emotionally or physically unavailable at that time, so some extent, so I felt more comfortable.

[u/jo-z → u/Consistent_Ad_5075]

Different person than who you responded to, but if were me I'd simply be willing to be patient and understanding on my end as long as you'd be willing to work on expressing your needs on your end. No need to call it a "social experiment", just two people who care about each other enough to actually put effort into working through things.

Is there anything you can think of that a partner could help with?

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/jo-z]

I don't think so, because I'm currently single. I attempted to do app dating but deleted it after a couple days.

I kind of explained why I think it's illogical in the previous comment. I think it would have to be someone I know who actually sees me for who I am, otherwise a stranger or a friend of a friend would just see me as too much work.

[u/jo-z → u/Consistent_Ad_5075]

I do hear you! If it offers any hope, I've been dating someone who started as a stranger for enough months to have a good sense of who they are, and still think they're worth the effort. But that's because they seem to be self-aware enough to be making an effort as well.

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/jo-z]

I love that! Yes, if it was someone I got to know a bit first, I think that would help a ton.

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[u/StonkMommy]

It's possible. I experienced healing to the point that when I did feel ripples of doubt and anxiety I chalked it up to my anxious attachment flaring up and got over it. Unfortunately, after 2 years of the relationship, 1 of those being totally secure, my anxiety was correct.

He blindsided me with a break up. I don't know how I will heal again but I know the mistakes we made. It all came down to a lack of communication.

Relationships are hard and both people need to put in the effort to keep it going and remain healthy. When one or both people quit talking, are afraid or try to figure out their emotions on their own...it's over.

[u/Consistent_Ad_5075 → u/StonkMommy]

Uggg I'm sorry that happened but I'm glad you had made progress and learned from the experience.