Thais Gibson

That's the biggest wound we found from the new attachment theory perspective is like always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always waiting to be on high alert.

Like, is somebody going to hurt me?

And what happens to fearful avoidance is they get into relationships and love feels like a very bittersweet experience.

And I'll speak for myself because I was a fearful avoidant.

And I remember before doing a lot of deep inner work, my early serious relationships when I was much younger, feeling like I would fall in love and feeling like I loved the feeling of being in love and connecting and really wanted that depth and connection.

But it was also very bittersweet because the more I loved...

the more I was like, oh, you're for sure going to hurt me that much more.

Like this is going to be a really bad ending.

And there was this sort of belief that everything was going to inevitably be really bad and really painful.

So love feels so good, but it also feels like a threat and it's scary.

And it causes you in a relationship to be like, come get close, come get close.

Somebody gets closer, like get back.

I changed my mind.

And so you see this and you see it like clockwork.

I've seen this with tons of thousands of clients.

I've worked with the same themes, the same patterns.

And I remember having one woman and she said to me,

I could tell by the way my mom got home from work.

I would be upstairs in my room and I could tell by the way my mom closed the door on her way in if I should close my door quickly or not.

And it's like fearful avoidance learn to be very hypervigilant.