On anxiety and meanness

A personal cautionary tale

The internet is forever, but I’m going to risk deep exposure in case somebody needs to hear this. I can’t rightfully talk about other Messy Humans if I can’t expose my own dark side sometimes. Jung would be proud.

I had my emotional ass handed to me this weekend. Without making this an excruciating confessional, I want to tell you about it both to help myself process and maybe, if I’m lucky, to help someone else do better than I did.

Bonus: You’re going to learn something about relationship psychology.

Let’s set the stage

The stories we tell ourselves are hugely powerful. This weekend, I learned that a story I had been telling myself was keeping me from seeing the true impact of my behaviors. I was in profound denial. As soon as it was clearly pointed out, I saw it. But up until that point, I had pushed reality into my peripheral vision.

Ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself about why I’m acting this way? What reality is that story hiding from me?”

Psychologists talk at length about the profound power of defense mechanisms, the king of which is denial.¹ Denial involves avoiding or refusing to accept reality to avoid difficult emotions or uncomfortable truths. It can be helpful in the short term, but it can also prevent people from dealing with important issues and have harmful consequences. Do not underestimate it’s insidious power.

Some examples of denial include: ignoring health symptoms, refusing to acknowledge a substance abuse problem, not accepting a loved one's death, avoiding conflicts in a relationship, ignoring the consequences of one’s behavior on others, and denying that a business is failing. 

Messy Human Truth #74:
It’s one thing to understand intellectually. It’s entirely another to live it.

The foundation of my denial was based in some decent relationship psychology. I have been telling myself stories for years about a relationship concept called Adult Attachment Styles. In particular, I was exploring the anxious-avoidant attachment dynamic, casting myself as someone with some aspects of anxious attachment. This was a great way to explain why my relationship history has been painful and spotty.

If you spend time on social media, you’ve probably seen the attachment styles pop-psych trend *everywhere.* The bible of the movement is a book called Attached, which I read cover-to-cover. The basic gist is that about half the population is “securely attached,” while the other half experiences some amount of avoidant or anxious attachment, generally well-earned. These are normal variations. People with avoidant attachment pull away when fearful in relationships, and people with anxious attachment cling and grasp, each because of crappy childhood reasons or other experiences that taught them they couldn’t depend on others.

People who are anxiously attached may be melodramatic and emotional when they feel someone withdrawing. They’re hypervigilant about potential abandonment and they panic, which in turn leads to behaving like the cliché “needy” person. People with avoidant attachment, while also anxious underneath, generally fear losing their independence and close down or distance themselves so that they can avoid the anxious feelings. In extreme cases, they can withdraw to such an extent that they break trust and connection in the relationship.

My personal goal has been to openly own my anxious attachment so that I can make it better. My therapist tells me that I can only accomplish this while in a relationship.

This rings true to me because in most other parts of my life, people are surprised when I mention anxiety. I’m regularly told that I’m soothing, trustworthy, sincere, and that I make it easy for people to talk real. Even when I’m stressed and have some strong feelings to deal with, I tend to reset quickly, and I typically can repair things with anyone I’m crossways with. So, if I’m not in a relationship, there are few opportunities for my anxious-attachment behaviors to be triggered. How can I learn a new way of being if I can’t practice?

When practice does not make perfect