Pamela J. Keys, MSW, MDIV, & LCSW, Author at Sensitive Refuge

How to Know Your Attachment Style as a Highly Sensitive Person — And Learn From It

Pamela J. Keys, MSW, MDIV, & LCSW — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Does understanding your attachment style give you a “master key” for the relationships in your life?

Adulting is hard: Whether you’re 18 or 78, single or partnered, a parent or child-free, employed or unemployed. As 2021 continues to steamroll its way into our lives, we are forced to adapt and navigate our way around this new world order. This may mean creating healthier habits, accepting where you’re at, embracing self-compassion, and figuring out better ways to relate to yourself and others. And for us highly sensitive types, all the new stimuli coming at us can be even more intense.

No matter what, one of the most important relationships that we will have is with ourselves. Yep, the person in the mirror who is looking back at us every day. How we treat and interact with our inner being will profoundly influence every relationship we have. Through the lens of knowing our attachment style, we can begin to understand how — and why — we relate to people the way we do. Such knowledge will equip us to improve our internal and external relational dynamics.

Your attachment style is based on how you are raised and bond with (or not) your first primary caregiver. This profoundly impacts your arousal response and trust capabilities, and whether you’ll have a secure (or insecure) base. Your attachment style then continues on into adulthood and impacts how you find, maintain, and end relationships.

In Dr. Elaine N. Aron’s The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You, she states:

“Being a secure or insecure type has nothing to do with being an HSP or not; about the same percentage of HSPs and non-HSPs are secure. Our experience of our caretakers, not our temperament, gives us our working model of the kind of help we can count on when we explore our world and encounter danger. But our attachment style impacts us more because we are HSPs.”

However, in her research, Dr. Aron did find that adult HSPs tend to rate slightly higher in developing insecure attachments in comparison to non-HSPs. In her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, she noted that, as sensitive children, it’s easier for one to observe and pick up the slightest “relationship cues” from their caregiver(s) and family. In other words, your environmental circumstances inform your attachment.

Here are the four types of attachment styles adults most frequently fall into.

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4 Common Types of Attachment Styles

1. Secure Attachment: You feel safe to explore the world around you without fear that someone will abandon you.

Secure adults often feel connected, loved, and seen in their relationships. As a child, this group felt they could trust their parents to provide for their emotional, mental, physical, and practical day-to-day needs. They felt safe to explore the world around them without fear of reprimand from their parents. This sense of exploration cultivated a sense of independence that they are their own person who can return to their parents to receive love and care.

Research shows that, in adulthood, securely attached individuals emulate this behavior with loved ones, friends, and coworkers. They allow others the freedom to “play” and seek their own path, without fear that the person will abandon them, because a secure base has been formed.

In relationships, secure adults will comfortably offer support to a friend or lover when they are suffering — this empathic quality comes naturally to HSPs — while feeling safe enough to seek help when they are distressed. They spend time making investments in their relationships, often with other securely attached adults. These relationships are not codependent; rather, they are sheltered by vulnerability, trust, mutual respect, honesty, and deep love. Secure adults feel safe in creating boundaries with others while not carrying the weight of other’s disdain with their boundary. They seek peace and harmony in their relationships and are simultaneously assertive enough to articulate their needs when they feel unseen or disrespected.

2. Anxious Preoccupied Attachment: You don’t feel a sense of security within your relationships; instead, there is a sense of emotional deprivation.

Anxiously attached adults feel a deep need to create a fast connection with others. They don’t feel a sense of security within their relationships; rather, there is a sense of emotional deprivation.

In relationships, they will continually seek out validation to affirm their worth and safety. This can come across as needy, clingy, jealous, and mentally consumed by their fear of distance in their relationships. If a friend or partner seeks independence in the dynamic, the anxious individual will deem this act as a slight and a disregard toward them personally. Relationships can become enmeshed, as boundaries are amiss. If you are an HSP, you may already have a tendency to be codependent and look to others for validation. So if you have an anxious preoccupied attachment style, it’s helpful to be cognizant of codependency patterns and boundary-setting.

Often, due to the forms of insecurity above, it’s usually a matter of time in which interpersonal relationships will dissolve, as others will feel exhausted by the rollercoaster of emotions. Anxious individuals will utilize this as proof to validate their deep-rooted fear of abandonment and concern for not feeling loved by others. Ultimately, anxiously attached individuals don’t truly love themselves.

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3. Dismissive Avoidant Attachment: The closer people attempt to get to you, the further you’ll run.

Avoidant adults are the opposite of the anxious adult. Individuals in this camp are those who are emotionally unavailable: distant in a relationship. They often have a charisma about them, are enjoyable in social situations, fun to be around, and appear to be independent… yet have a sense of rigidity when it comes to their routines. And when you attempt to get closer or dig deeper into who they are at their core, they will flee via not returning calls or texts, or not wanting to hang out. The closer you attempt to get to them, the further they’ll run.

It isn’t uncommon to see relationships in which one person is anxious and the other is avoidant. The anxious type will chase the avoidant, causing the avoidant to flee even more and, consequently, causing significant anxiety for both individuals, as neither of their core needs of safety are being addressed.

Upon further exploration, the avoidant is petrified of being vulnerable and is often detached from their emotional center. They’ve not learned how to connect with their emotions and will be emotionally stunted as adults. They may desire connectivity and come off as “together.” But without making the investment in being vulnerable with others, they will remain emotionally aloof and distant. Although HSPs generally have an overload of emotions, they can still have a dismissive avoidant attachment style.

4. Fearful Avoidant Attachment: Your emotions are on a seesaw; you fluctuate between wanting closeness and distance at the same time.

The fearful avoidant type is not as common; this style wasn’t included in the basic three styles, which have been around longer. An individual with this style fluctuates between wanting closeness and distance at the same time. Their emotions are on a seesaw in which they never truly find inner balance.

If overwhelmed by a flood of emotions — which is common among HSPs, too — they can spiral into a dark void of depression and/or anxiety. Individuals in this style are cognizant that others can meet their needs while also not trusting those others in full; there is an unwavering concern that others are not fully reliable. This split creates deep inner and external conflict, as they don’t know how to respond to, or act toward, this self-perceived double standard in relationships.

In adulthood, this style swings from one extreme to the other in relationships, as the individual is hypervigilant regarding rejection. In one moment, they will hold onto their relationships dearly; a split second later, they’ll feel a strong desire to run away, due to feeling suffocated. They will unknowingly look for “clues” that their friends, family, or partners are attempting to abandon them. Such a strain will cause fatigue and inaccurate interpretations of a loved one’s behaviors. Like other insecure attachment styles, eventually, others will create a safe distance from this person or discontinue the relationship.

According to Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love:

just over 50 percent of the population is secure
20 percent is anxious
25 percent is avoidant
5 percent is fearful

Do any of these attachment styles resonate with you? Or are you unsure which most describes you? That’s OK! You can take this attachment style quiz to find out, as well as speak to a therapist to figure out how to best proceed regarding your interpersonal relationships.

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Why Do So Many HSPs Have Insecure Attachment?

Pamela J. Keys, MSW, MDIV, & LCSW — Fri, 31 May 2024 11:25:08 +0000

Do you find yourself repeating the same unhealthy patterns in your relationships? You might have an insecure attachment style. Here’s how to tell — and what to do about it.

As we navigate life, we form a variety of relationships along the way with our friends, coworkers, neighbors, romantic partners, and biological or chosen family. Sometimes those relationships are blissful and comforting, while others are ripe with chaos.

Have you ever wondered why some relationships flow effortlessly while others seem doomed from the beginning, despite all your effort? Does tension and conflict often appear as a common and unwelcomed theme?

Repeating the same relationship pattern over and over again can be frustrating, hurtful, exhausting, and confusing, comparable to pouring salt in a wound. And if you’re a highly sensitive person (HSP), your emotions will likely be even more magnified since we feel things on a deeper level than non-HSPs.

If you find yourself repeatedly in the same type of negative relationship, it’s worth exploring if an insecure attachment style is the root cause.

What Is Attachment?

We collect and store information regarding our relationships in our unconscious mind (also known as our piggy bank of past experiences). These memories are like a shadow that follows us without our awareness. It’s not until we intentionally look back that we see the shadow and confront our past.

During our first 2-3 years of life, our relationship style — specifically, how we relate to others — is formed based on our relationships with our primary caregiver. Dr. John Bowlby, a British psychologist, first studied attachment patterns and believed we have a “biological” drive to be in relationships.

Developmental psychologist Dr. Mary Ainsworth further expanded on Bowlby’s work by studying how babies form attachments with their parents. It is from Ainsworth’s work that the insecure styles emerged: insecure anxious and insecure avoidant. The secure attachment pattern is a part of the attachment triad, too.

Insecure anxious: Having an insecure anxious style means we need consistent and tangible reassurance that we are loved and cared for. If we don’t feel that assurance, we can become utterly consumed and frightened when someone we care about pulls away.

Insecure avoidant: If we are insecure avoidant, we are the opposite of anxious. At the first sign of affection, we run in the opposite direction. It’s hard for us to embrace vulnerability, feelings, and intimacy in adulthood.

At the heart of each insecure type is a deep-rooted fear of abandonment. Now that we know the basics, here is what happens when an HSP grows up with insecure attachment.

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How an Insecure Attachment Style Affects HSPs

1. Insecure attachments are developed over time.

Being an HSP is considered a genetic trait which is independent of the type of attachment style one might develop as they grow older. In her research findings, Dr. Elaine N. Aron explains that adult HSPs tend to rate slightly higher in developing insecure attachments in comparison to non-HSPs. In her book, she suggests that, as sensitive children, it’s easier to observe and pick up the slightest “relationship cues” from our caregiver(s) and family. So, our environmental circumstances inform our attachment.

It’s important to note, however, that despite recognizing those external cues, as children we were unable to understand the meaning behind the messaging of our caregivers. Growing up, we might have had caregivers who were emotionally unavailable, depressed, stressed, abusive, and/or not healed from their own childhood trauma.

This lack of access to our caregivers in childhood creates a latent belief that others can’t meet our needs of safety and love as adults. So overstimulated and unattended HSP children learn to depend on themselves and implement coping mechanisms to self-soothe, which carries into adulthood. For instance, coping as children will manifest as withdrawal, staying quiet, and even becoming agitated.

2. We repeat insecure relationships, like familiar patterns from childhood.

Children who didn’t feel safe often repeat the same relationships as adults. Rarely do we realize that we are enacting the same relationship behaviors that we observed in our families, as it’s all unconscious.

The trauma of our childhood can manifest in the most unexpected times and places as adults. We may overreact to a comment from a coworker, lash out at a loved one, have a shift in mood for no apparent reason, and practice perfectionistic tendencies. Our reactions to these scenarios can trigger our abandonment wound.

Ironically, when we operate from our internal wounds, we simultaneously self-sabotage ourselves from building caring and loving relationships. How? Though we may deeply desire loving and secure relationships, we don’t know how — we haven’t learned how to regulate and rewire our emotions. And HSPs may really be affected by this since our emotions are already in overdrive.

Further, we might observe that our family, friends, and coworkers may limit their exposure to us in order to avoid conflict. Until we unlearn familial patterns, sometimes we will seek unhealthy outlets to mask our internal void for love. Such outlets can be in the form of addictions, emotional eating, and/or being split off from ourselves.

3. We have repressed feelings — if we don’t feel safe, we may subdue our emotions.

As children, we were often unable to be our authentic selves because our behavior and feelings were viewed as “problematic,” “peculiar,” or “difficult.” So if we didn’t have a safe ability to express our emotions, we typically subdued them, keeping our insights and observations bottled up.

In adulthood, this translates to feeling invisible, a lower sense of self-worth, the need for validation, and being distrustful of others’ intentions. Our trust in people fluctuates in what Dr. Aron calls the “never again” response — in order to avoid wrestling with our deeply buried pain. Practically speaking, this sense of otherness projected onto you as a child can make you feel like an imposter in the workforce, with partners, and within certain social circles.

According to Dr. Aron, if feelings remain unattended to as adult HSPs, we have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and shyness in comparison to HSPs who had a non-traumatic upbringing.

4. We struggle with identity — should we follow our parent’s lead or follow our gut?

As HSPs, we have uncanny intuition that signals danger or calm in our day-to-day lives. While intuition is a marvelous attribute, if we didn’t embrace it as a child, confusion develops towards our caregiver’s spoken or unspoken expectations of us, Dr. Aron talks about in her book. For example, in our youth, we might have struggled in knowing if we should follow our parent’s lead or follow our gut. They are family, yet something feels off and you may feel scared.

This feeling of ambiguity transfers into adulthood and cultivates a partially formed identity. We never had the opportunity to parcel out our own voice, needs, and desires. Rather, we ingested the identity of our caregivers.

Dr. Aron suggested that, as children, we needed to survive, so we conformed when needed and went with the flow without questions. As a result, in adulthood, we might find ourselves constantly questioning ourselves and our decisions, coupled with questioning those in our inner circle. This second-guessing can create conflict in our relationships, as we might misinterpret input, become angry, stressed, anxious, or withdrawn — despite having intuition and intellect as our guide.

From Insecure to Secure Attachment

While having an insecure attachment sounds daunting, it’s not the end of the story. Rather, it can be a new beginning. The reality is, trauma preceded the insecure attachment. While we can’t undo our past, we have the ability to amend our present and future selves, albeit with significant work. This is where finding a good therapist comes into play. Dr. Aron, too, suggests that long-term therapy can be beneficial, as the relationship can model a secure and validating environment for us as adults.

If we don’t do this work, the relationship with ourselves and others will remain fraught with significant internal and interpersonal conflict. We will feel “stuck” and repeat the behavioral patterns we learned in our youth. In addition, as Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., says in his book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, our adult bodies store trauma through physical symptoms, such as increased cortisol levels (also known as the stress hormone), headaches, disrupted sleep/appetite, fatigue, and a sensitive digestive system.

There are other micro-movements that can be done, as well.

Give yourself permission to feel the emotions you were not allowed to express as a child (hurt, fear, anger, happiness, and/or joy, to name a few). This will help you get more peace in your life as an HSP.
Seek out secure, loving, and kind relationships with other securely-focused people.
Exercise self-compassion. Dr. Kristen Neff, the psychologist of the groundbreaking research on self-compassion and author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, explains that the antidote to the shame and fear of your past is engaging in self-compassionate acts. For example, speak kind and loving words to yourself — like “You are safe, you are loved, and you have value” — journal your feelings, or give yourself a hug while repeating a calming phrase during fearful moments, such as, “Right now, I am safe.”

While being a highly sensitive person with an insecure attachment style can be a challenge, luckily, there are steps you can take to better the relationship you have with yourself and others.

Fellow HSP, can you relate?

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4 Critical Things That Helped Me Finally Get Some Peace in Life as an HSP

Pamela J. Keys, MSW, MDIV, & LCSW — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 11:00:00 +0000

I yearned for internal and external calm, but was profoundly clueless as to where to begin — even as a trained therapist.

Over the last 16 years, I’ve worked as a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in various mental health venues.

As I slowly started to find myself incredibly exhausted and drained by that which I loved so much, helping people, I learned I was a highly sensitive person (HSP). I was quickly becoming overwhelmed and mentally and emotionally flooded — which can happen to any HSP — and I realized I needed to be mindful of my energy reserves. But how?

HSPs tend to absorb others’ emotions, and this can be challenging when you’re a mental health professional — you want to be there for your clients 100 percent, but must also learn how to not take the job home with you.

I yearned for internal and external calm, but was profoundly clueless as to where to begin — even as a mental health professional. This just goes to show that many of us who are HSPs can benefit from some strategies to get more peace in our lives.

Luckily, I’ve found a few ways to find that peace and “water” my HSP garden.

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4 Ways to Create Peace, Not Overwhelm, as an HSP

1. Start taking advantage of therapy and the new perspective it offers.

It wasn’t until I entered therapy eight years ago that I realized there is a space just for me in this big world. Who would’ve thought?! A place where I could literally and figuratively close the door on my outside world for 50 minutes a week and speak candidly.

As a highly sensitive person, therapy taught me that there is always the opportunity to reparent ourselves and craft a life more aligned to who we really are. That I didn’t need to be ashamed of being highly empathetic; there was nothing “wrong” with me. After all, being an HSP is not a disorder; 15 to 20 percent of the population is made up of HSPs.

Therapy profoundly awakened parts of me that I didn’t even know existed and helped me confront my intersectionality needs (which was ironic since I professionally guided others to examine themselves on a daily basis).

It’s allowed me the opportunity to learn about the inhibitions I (and others) placed on me as an African-American female. Limitations which hindered — but didn’t stop — my flourishing, an important distinction to make.

As a woman of color, I lived and operated under the “Strong Black Woman” narrative for years, delusionally believing that I can do it all on my own and suppress my true self. Lies. And therapy has helped me see that.

I’d recommend therapy to everyone, HSP or not, and many local providers offer sliding scale or low-cost fees; some are even free. Check out faith communities, too. And you can find HSP-friendly therapists here.

2. Learn to create — and stick to — the boundaries that keep you whole.

After many years of therapy, I realized my utter lack of boundaries with everyone in my life. You know the struggle, always giving but never being replenished or fully known. Not only was I a social worker in my day-to-day life, but in my off hours I still felt like the therapist/case manager for other people’s lives. (I’m sure other HSPs can relate!)

The most frustrating aspecting? I wasn’t obtaining full gratification in my personal relationships. People were excited by my energy and how I was able to speak to them and their needs on a deep level — a trait many of us HSPs cannot help — but I always felt like something was missing in the dynamic. Me.

The result? I started to feel angry and resentful that I poured so much into others; but due to their emotional bandwidth not matching mine, they were unable to reciprocate in kind. I felt a deep and lonely void. I knew something had to change.

So, I started saying no. I started walking away. I cared less.

I started holding people accountable for their feelings while simultaneously not feeling guilty about asserting my needs or ruminating about their reactions to my boundaries.

Hear me clearly, as HSPs, we are not responsible for people’s emotions. Yes, we absorb them — a lot — but we still have the right to say “no” to situations and relationships that don’t serve us.

I felt tremendous guilt immediately after setting boundaries and telling people no; I would feel their pain, confusion, and longing for human connection. I wanted them to have all of those things, but I couldn’t give anymore of myself to them.

When we articulate our boundaries in a respectful, yet assertive, manner, it becomes a teachable moment to either strengthen our relationships or further reveal the dysfunctionality of them. Which one sounds more peaceful? The beauty is that we get to choose because it is our life to live.

Boundary work is one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had to do. Why? My change forces others to change and evaluate their insecurities and projections. I’ve lost friends and have strained family relationships. Deconstruction and rebuilding is not an overnight process, but it remains worth it because I feel more at home within myself and among others who can truly accept me for my highly sensitive self.

3. Outfox your inner critic by starting to play more.

Within each of us is an inner child and critic who doesn’t just go away.

Remember how fun it was to play as a kid? As we become adults, many of us lose that childlike mystery, wonder, and playful sensibility. I know if I’m not exploring the world around me and catering to the fun that my inner child needs, I become a fragmented version of myself.

As I’ve grown more comfortable in my HSP skin, I began to dream, listen, and trust myself more — and would slowly act on my inclinations.

For example, I’ve always wanted to draw, so I bought a cheap sketchbook from Amazon and I’m taking an online drawing class. I. Love. It. I feel alive. Now, I’m not going to quit my day job to become an artist, but that is OK — I’m drawing for fun. Plus, HSPs tend to be creative and this allows my creative side to shine.

I’ve also missed dancing during quarantine. So I found some African Dance Classes on YouTube and, a few nights a week, I dance in all my fullness! When the world reopens, I’m going to attend classes in person.

Had I not listened to my inner child, I would’ve missed the opportunity to “play” in such meaningful ways.

I think that is one of many struggles I’ve had as an HSP. I really desire x,y, and z but in order to have x, y, and z, it requires listening to myself and my energy. If my energy feels depleted from work or from the world around me, I’ve got no desire to play. But they will continue to gnaw at me until they’re fulfilled.

When I work with my clients, I often ask, “If time, money, or commitments were not a hindrance, how would your life be different? What would give your life awe?” I ask you the same thing, but with a twist: “If energy or anxiety wasn’t an issue, how would you play?”

4. Learn to be OK with the uncertain, the unacknowledged, the unknown.

The desire to be in control and in the know about our lives can be stressful, and I find this especially true as an HSP. Many of us cherish our routines and take time to adapt to change. In a world that’s so full of change these pandemic months, it’s not easy to embrace the unknown.

Remember the Magic 8 Ball as a kid? I’ve often wished there was such a device for life where I can just ask all my existential questions and, on cue, the 8 ball will respond (preferably with answers that I like!).

Unfortunately, that is not the way life works (dannnnggg it). Since I’m able to detect patterns in people, places, and things — down to minute, HSP details — it makes me eager for what is next in my life and the world at large.

I also have an urgency to make the world a little better using my HSP disposition as the gift that it is: it’s a blessing being so empathetic toward others (as long as I make time for “me” time, too).

As I’ve grown wiser, I’m coming to terms with not needing to have it all figured out. After all, being flexible builds our emotional resilience. This vantage point has made all the difference and I’m calmer and less stressed. Of course, I still want to know what is up on some days!

But I give myself permission to be open to what surprises life will render. Some are great and some are downright crappy (real talk), but I will no longer allow my circumstances and emotions to dictate my sense of being. And you shouldn’t either.

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