After an abundance of therapy sessions, I received a diagnosis: I had an attachment disorder.
The three main types of attachment styles are secure, anxious, and avoidant.
I remember thinking nothing in the world could shatter my life, because I had people to count on.
Priscilla Du Preez
I had love, and no matter how bad things got, love would protect me.
I never stopped being loved, I know that now.
I dont think there ever really is one thing to blame this sort of problem on.
I think like with many things, it was created through the perfect storm of unfortunate events.
I remember feeling so distant from reality, so far away from people, and so unworthy of love.
After an abundance of therapy sessions, I received a diagnosis: I had an attachment disorder.
Priscilla Du Preez
The three main types of attachment styles are secure, anxious, and avoidant.
They offer support to others, and feel comfortable trusting others to support them.
While desperately wanting to feel loved by another, they simultaneously push them away.
Avoidant attached individuals come in two subcategories: dismissive and fearful.
Those who are dismissive tend to isolate.
They distance themselves from others and feel the need to rely on no one except themselves.
However, this image of only needing themselves is but an illusion.
They are often emotionally overflowing.
Thankfully, disposition of attachment styles does not equal the final destination of ones attachment.
That is where love languages come in.
There are five identified love languages.
These are touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, and acts of service.
Often times these are developed through the way we were raised and our attachment to our parents and family.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Mom and dad loved to hug?
That becomes what we are comfortable with.
They were always building you up with encouraging words?
Then you tend to show that same love to others.
Every Saturday night was family game night?
Youre likely to carry that tradition over.
Christmas and birthdays meant being showered with gifts?
That makes you feel loved.
Your dad was always volunteering to help your mom out around the house?
Youll probably look for the same thing in your future spouse.
Or what if the language of love you grew up receiving changes drastically when your parents get divorced?
What if your future spouse loves gifts but all you want is to be told youre beautiful?
Love is a funny thing.
It is a basic human need and we all must have it to grow.
And yet, its not so easy to give or receive.
Love breaths the same air but speaks many different languages.
But despite all this, we are not without hope.
The creation of an attachment disorder is the product of a love deficiency- real or perceived.
Thankfully, although love is complex and takes on several forms, it is abundant and plentiful.
We tend to look for love in all the wrong places.
We must first look for love within.
Sometimes it feels impossible to start with loving ourselves though, and that is okay.
The love will not back down, and soon enough we will become filled with it.
Slowly but surely, we will receive the love and be able to shower others with it in return.
And life without this aching pain is real.
