I am always afraid that my close friends are going to leave me. I need constant reassurance that they aren't planning on ditching me. If I don't hear from them for a couple days I become utterly devastated. I feel that they hate me and want to stay away from me forever. I blame myself, start thinking that I am worthless and the time they spent with me was just charity. A friendship founded on pity, that they have grown tired of.
I can relate, although I don't think those kind of relationships are healthy either. What has caused this fear?
Well, you might find these links useful. Forming healthy relationships with an anxious attachment style | Workhealthlife blog Attached the Book | Attached, a new book by Amir Levine, M.D. and Rachel S.F. Heller, M.A. explores The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find Redeveloping Secure Adult Attachment | Therapy can help. What can also help is forming a relationship with a person with a secure attachment style (unfortunately insecure attachment styles tend to attract - preoccupied with dismissing is one of the worst combinations). One of the major things that perpetuates a person's attachment style is their tendency to act in ways that encourage others to react to them the way their parents originally did. Do you ever find yourself testing people, trying to get them to prove they care about you? That can push people away sometimes, confirming your worst fears. The best way to get someone to nurture you is to tell them how you feel, using 'I' statements, and check with them what was really going on. Something like 'I tend to worry a lot that my friends are going to stop being friends with me. When I didn't hear from you for a couple days, it brought back these worries. Can you tell me what you were doing those couple days?' Learning to self-soothe is another big thing. Can you calm yourself down without someone else's help? A lot of people with preoccupied attachment styles struggle with this. Try to figure out something you find soothing (for me it's A Slower Speed of Light - the graphics and music are very calming). I can relate - I'm still trying to figure out whether my attachment style is more preoccupied or unresolved, but whatever it is, it's not healthy.
