Understanding Avoidant Attachment: Signs, Causes, and How to Overcome It

Avoidant Attachment Style 

“You seem to be the lone wolf - you don’t ever seem to need anyone in your life.” “You don’t have a lot of friends. I guess you are best on your own.” If you hear similar words like these, or if you feel like it, chances are you have an avoidant attachment style personality.

What is an Avoidant Attachment Style?

An avoidant attachment style is a personality that roots from childhood; it has to do with our upbringing and how our needs were or weren’t met. When those needs are not met, we tend to not rely on anyone else but ourselves, and instead of opening up, we armor up and “avoid” attaching ourselves emotionally to people. This makes us overly independent of what we call the avoidant attachment style.

Their Needs aren’t Met

All children come into the world with some fundamental needs – the need to be nourished, the need to be protected, the need to be appreciated and supported, and the need to be loved. These are some of the basic necessities, among many others like the need to explore, and when children look upon their ultimate guardians for getting them accurate – their parents. When their parents fail to deliver these needs in one way or the other, or for any reason, there is a lack thereof these fundamental requirements for optimum emotional and psychological development of a child; the child is deprived.

Deprivation Turns to Lack of Trust

When there is constant deprivation, a general lack of trust begins to build in the child. The child starts to think as if there is no one they can rely on for providing themselves with their ultimate need. They no longer look up to their parents, their siblings, or to their extended family members to fulfill that need. As they continue to grow, when this need isn’t addressed in time, they stop finding it from their teachers or the peers they see in a school as well. Eventually, they create a giant shell in which they think they can rely only on themselves to fulfill that need where they can feel the safest.

They Are Left to Trust Themselves Only

It is not the case that they do it by choice, or they have a narcissist personality trait. Also, people need to understand that they do not “hate” others and only “choose” themselves every time. It is, in fact, the case that in their most sensitive years, they were conditioned to think that their needs were not significant enough and that there was no one whom they could depend on entirely. They needed to keep quiet or subtle about who they indeed were as a person, which made them restrained and ineffective in communication with other humans. As a result, they had no one else to look upon to but themselves.

When you find an individual who is highly “independent,” has an “avoidant attachment” style, and “doesn’t ask for help” – reach out, go out of your way to be there for them, the journey to independence is often not about smiles.