Insecure

Navigating how growing up with insecure attachment is affecting me in adulthood.

I grew up with insecure attachment. Through hours and hours of conversation with my psychologist, we have reached a point where we believe this to be true. It’s no one’s fault. It just is.

I was an undiagnosed, neurodiverse kid in a frantically busy household, so it makes sense.

For the most part, my childhood was great. I had all the things I needed and most of what I wanted. My two siblings and I played sports all year round. Football in winter, cricket in summer, swimming lessons, Tae Kwon Do, and even after-school educational assistance programs. Even though my mum was a shift worker, I don’t think we ever missed a game, training session or appointment.

Combine that with my parents managing their work commitments, cooking, cleaning and washing clothes for three snot-nosed kids, and it’s no wonder we were always in a rush.

Now, as a father to a singular, relatively easy-to-manage 15-month-old boy, I’m genuinely blown away by how they managed to fit it all in. But they were, and are, fucking great parents and even better people who just wanted to provide their kids with as much opportunity as they could.

You can’t have everything, though. What I didn’t realise at the time was that if we wanted to do all of these things, it would chew into the time we had to spend with our parents. Being the precious little specky that I am meant that, at times, I didn’t get the time with my parents that I felt I needed, but at such a young age, I couldn’t even understand these thoughts or feelings, let alone articulate them. Plus, I was busier than a one-legged river dancer doing all the extracurricular activities I was fortunate enough to do.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and if I were given the option now to go back in time and swap out some of those activities for more one-on-one time with my parents, I would, but that’s not an option. What is an option, though, is for me to try to understand my insecure attachment and prevent my son from experiencing the same thing. In the same way, our parents didn’t want us to go without, as they had.

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I’ve always had a pretty good idea of what someone’s insecurity looks like. The old saying “What Susie says of Sally says more about Susie than Sally” rings true. If someone were to be overly critical of the way someone else looks, to me, that suggests that they are insecure about the way they look. Bringing someone down about how they look makes them feel better about their appearance. If they’re good enough to rope a friend into the same behaviour, it reinforces the point they are trying to convince themselves of.

Whenever I saw something like this take place, I would think, “Oh, that’s just their own insecurities speaking”. Not to excuse the behaviour, but rather to understand why they would do such a thing in the first place, as I don’t believe anyone genuinely enjoys being an arsehole. I think that when someone says or does something intentionally hurtful, it’s usually a reflection of something broken or damaged within themselves, and these days, I feel sorry for people who need to behave that way to feel better about themselves.

I now understand what insecure attachment can do to a developing brain and how it can form certain neural pathways that we carry into adult life. Still, until recently, I’d never really thought about how it continues to affect me in my adult life. I think it’s essential to understand how it affects me if I want to have any hope of rectifying any of the issues associated with it.

This could be a little challenging for me to articulate, so please bear with me.

I’ve always felt alone, even in company, not like a loner, a loser, or someone who has no choice but to be by themselves. Instead, it was best for everyone if I was more seen and less heard.

I felt, and still feel sometimes, like I am a less important team/group/family member, as though my absence would go largely unnoticed. It wouldn’t or doesn’t matter to others whether you are there or not. This a scary thought, given this is often the mindset of people struggling with suicidal ideation.

Logically, I know this is not true, but emotionally, a part of me still believes it. It’s not all bad, though. Feeling alone has forced me to learn to handle things on my own. I know that no matter what happens in my life, I will always find a way to be okay, on my own or otherwise. It might be uncomfortable, and I might not want to do it or enjoy it, but I know I can.

As an adult, I don’t feel secure in the knowledge that everything I have and everything I have done is permanent. A part of my brain tells me I won’t be in my son’s life forever. That I will fuck up somewhere along the way and lose the privilege of being his dad. It’s a fucking horrible feeling and one I wish I could never have again.

The same goes for my partner. A part of me tells me that one day, she will wake up to herself and leave. She will realise that I’m the imposter I so often feel like I am and move on to something better or something she’s more deserving of. I want to stress that nothing she has done makes me feel this way either; it’s just how my brain is.

I even feel like this about the house we live in and the other house we own. I don’t feel like we will have them forever. Instead, I feel like something dreadful will happen one day, and everything we own will be stripped from us, and it will undoubtedly be my fault.

Sometimes, I feel like I won’t live a long life. Not that I will have a hand in deciding my fate; something outside of my control will happen to me. For some reason, I think I’m destined to have my life cut short somehow.

A more recent one has been this irrational fear around my son getting some horrible illness. I know that all parents worry about this and hope it never happens, but sometimes I am convinced it will happen and if and when it does, it will be the universe punishing me for something I have done in my life. Of course, nothing I have done would justify being punished by something as painful as watching your child slowly die, but this is the kind of shit I convince myself of.

At times, I feel like I’m a terrible father, even though our son is thriving, and I’ve made it my mission to be the best dad I can be. I can’t help but feel like somehow, in some way, I’m letting him down or setting him up for some catastrophic failure.

I feel like I am an ordinary partner, even though I do all I can to take the load of my partner around the house and try to make sure that we always have everything that we need and have put measures in place to proactively work on our relationship even when things are good.

Since being diagnosed and medicated for ADHD eight years ago, I have done really well at work. I remember before this, I felt like I was underachieving, and I would get down on myself because I felt like I wasn’t coming close to reaching my potential. Since then, I have been promoted five times, and now that I’m in a role that challenges me and a position where what I do impacts the health of the business, sometimes I feel like I have no fucking clue what I am doing and have just fluked my way into this position. Classic imposter syndrome.

It’s also hindered my ability to help others. Sometimes, I can turn my back up when other people ask me for help, which I hate. I want to help people. But this bitter part of me thinks, “Why should I help anyone? no one has ever helped me.” I get sad when I think about all the appointments I have been to on my own, but then I remember that even when people have offered to come with me, I shut them out and tell them I don’t need their help because I don’t want to be a hindrance to them.

I know that feeling this way contributed to my drug and alcohol use. When I drank and used drugs, these thoughts would subside, and it was such an amazing relief that I didn’t want to get sober because I knew this self-loathing would only come back, oftentimes stronger than beforehand. As soon as I was sober, I would feel how I did before, only worse because I would feel the shame of all the poor decisions and mistakes I had made whilst under the influence.

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The most frustrating thing about all of this for me is that I know that, logically, it’s all irrational and just plain bullshit. In fact, I would prefer it if I didn’t know that it was irrational and just plain bullshit because sometimes the internal conflict is the hardest part. The internal conflict is the bit that thinks you’re losing your fucking mind.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not a constant state of mind for me, but rather just thoughts that make their way through my head at times, but that doesn’t make them any more comfortable. The most confronting part about having them is how true they feel at the time. It’s like my brain believes them to be facts, and it takes a lot of mental energy to convince myself otherwise.

I think I am so insecure that I can’t believe anything I do is any good, even when it is. It’s like everything that has ever happened that is bad is the result of my actions, and anything that is good that has happened in my life is by pure dumb luck, regardless of how hard I worked to attain it.

It fuckin’ sucks. It’s hard and exhausting, and I don’t know how to fix it. But as I said at the top, I think the first step to any resolution is understanding how I feel. Getting to the bottom of why I think these things about myself and then trying to undo it.

I guess that’s why I sought help from my psychologist. Just because I don’t know how to fix it on my own doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. As someone who has always felt like it’s my responsibility to fix things for myself, it’s not easy to allow someone to try to help me. It feels unnatural for me. There have been times when I have thought that these appointments aren’t actually helping me, that I’m wasting my money, and there have been even more times when I’ve felt defeated and thought that maybe this is just how my life will be.

Again, though, I know this is not the truth. I know it is not fact. This is just the bad wolf, the devil, the black dog, whatever metaphor works for you, trying to have its way with me, and I have too much at stake to let it win.

I’m glad I wrote this. I know it’s been pretty dark, and maybe that’s just where I am at the moment after the recent suicide and accompanying funeral of an old friend. I think it’s helped me untangle some thoughts in my mind and will help me get more out of my future sessions with my psychologist.

I’m also glad I wrote this because I know I am not unique. I know that if I can have thoughts like these, it’s also possible for anyone else to. I hope that someone reads this and feels a little bit of comfort in knowing that they are not the only people with these internal conflicts and emotional struggles from time to time.

Anyway, I’m tired now, and it’s time for me to cheer the fuck up and go and enjoy the weekend with my family.

I hope you guys do, too.

Cheers wankers.

X.

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If anyone is struggling in any way, make someone aware of it. Speak to a friend, family, loved one, stranger, postman, Uber Eats driver, or me; talk to someone.

Lifeline Ph: 13 11 14

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