Codependency (feels like love, enmeshment (lack of boundaries and entangled roles between parents/parent and child) helped to get approval, attention, sense of safety from unpredictable parent , gives sense of control and it’s a way to meet needs.

In order to adopt to unpredictable environment of our homes ( mood swings of our caregivers, lack of safety, emotional and mental changes in our caregiver impacted by substance or mental disease.)  we had to become hypervigilant to at best predict what’s coming next we had to organize ourselves around our caregiver/ parent in order to survive. Our nervous system was in alert mode, the better we could  tune to a parent the higher chance we will predict their behaviour the higher chance our need will be met. This survival adaptation does not go away when we grow up and then enter romantic relationship. Our attachment is based on that principal and is felt as love. But now we will see the dark side of it, all the painful consequences of this unhealthy way of bonding with another person. We will experience results of codependency such as “shame attacks”, low self esteem, lack of autonomy, unmet needs ( because codependency is a poor method to meet needs) manipulation, fear of abandonment, rejection, sense of unworthiness, intense need to control, resentment, poor communication ( “aka read my mind as I read yours “) and inauthenticity.

It is not easy to trust when we have already went through an experiences where our wellbeing, our safety, our feelings where not taken into consideration. It is hard to trust when as vulnerable and dependent child we are shamed for our needs and feelings. It is not easy to trust when promises were broken or we felt like a burden to person or people we needed the most. As a natural consequences of these experiences are doubt in people’s intentions, suspicion, jealousy, lack of trust, self-betrayal, defensiveness , questioning relationships, helplessness and beliefs like : “I will be hurt”, it is a matter of time”, “Relationships are not for me”,” Relationships are hurtful”, “It’s better to be alone”, “If I will trust it means that I am weak”

When we heal our Fearful Avoidant attachment style we will heal shame. Shame is a root of our fault finding patterns, perfectionism, feeling of being unworthy, bad and like there is something wrong with us. In my personal healing journey I have not known that I carry a lot of shame, I did not even know that this weird feeling in my chest is a feeling of shame. Until I have read the book of L.M.F.T. Darlene Lancer and start working thru Codependency and Shame. This is what other professionals  say about shame

Dr. P.Levine: “Shame is a very powerful emotion. It probably, in many ways, is the most powerful emotion because of the way it sneaks up and just takes over the person’s organism from the inside.”

Dr. Borysenko: “It’s very much like eating a poisoned plant.”

Dr. McGonigal: “We often interpret the strength of the shame as a sign about how truly bad we are, or what’s truly wrong with us.” In healing we need to get in touch with this feeling and recognize all the parts of the “shame attacks “ in order to make this feeling just a feeling/ feedback mechanism not a statement of who we are.

Resentment – Another aspect tide to our associations to needs as Fearful Avoidants is feeling of resentment and expectations toward others. When we learn to identify, honour and meet our needs as well as communicate them. Resentment and expectations will no longer be a part of our relationships dynamic. 

Abandonment wound and self betrayal – Biologically we are afraid to be abandoned because we are born dependent and abandonment means we will not survive. When our caregivers are consistent in meeting our needs, nurturing, being emotionally attuned then this fear goes away but when caregivers are inconsistent or neglectful or actually abandoned us this fear is strengthened and now any sign of potential abandonment from a person we feel attached to ( romantic partner, friend etc.) puts us in anxious state, survival mode. In the process of this inconsistent, unpredictable and neglectful behaviour of our parents we have developed coping mechanisms in order to maintain attachment and survive. One of them is self-betrayal, by being attuned to caregiver later on to romantic partner who now is our main attachment figure we need to betray ourselves in order to stay safe, connected. This comping mechanism now has to be updated because now it is no longer about our survival and our anxious attempts to stay attached are hurting us and make our romantic relationship stressful.

Build new associations to your needs from invalid, not important to normal, valid, important.

Your attachment style is based on beliefs around your needs vs other people needs. We call this beliefs wounds because our associations with our human needs are painful, we have stored in our subconscious mind limiting beliefs about our needs. Also very often our needs were neglected or invalidated. We had to repress our needs to not cause problems or stress to our parent and we felt shame around them in order to not express them. By doing that we could better focus on our caregiver’s needs, better predict their needs and better meet our caregiver’s needs so they feel happier or more content.

Fearful Avoidant attachment styles have work to do around boundaries because due to unpredictable and stressful environment the FA was growing up in ( parent’s divorce, addictions of the caregiver, disease which caused a lot of stress at home, mental illness, one parent being very loving and the other parent cold and critical etc.) build unhealthy associations to own boundaries and other people’s boundaries. Lack of boundaries (enmeshment ) was an adaptation to the home environment .This unhealthy associations to boundaries now are base of codependency, feeling unseen, misunderstood, lonely, unimportant, overwhelmed, pressured, taken advantage off , resentment, emotional buildup and then angry outbursts. Reprograming these associations and learning to honour own boundaries and respect others boundaries ends experience of life where we feel unloved and unsafe with others. It helps us to trust ourselves and feel safer to trust other people.

When we cannot emotionally process any painful experience our subconscious mind will store these emotions and associated perception and then re-project them onto present moment or future. So sometimes one small thing can cause in us quite intense emotional reaction. We need to be aware when and why we feel triggered so we can finally process our painful experiences from the past and by doing that they will no longer have power over our present moment. I call it emotional freedom, as long as you know what you feel and why you are free from feeling controlled or a victim of circumstances or people. We as Fearful-Avoidants believe in all the stories mind is telling us about us and people. We go through intense emotional reactions, we reinforce whole program which keeps us feeling unloved, unseen and alone.