Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love

narcissists make them both self-focused and lacking in empathy. Filled with shame and secretly certain they are worth nothing, they protect themselves by consciously believing they are superior to others, thus requiring constant proof of that by insisting on everyone’s adoration.

Inner Protectors were warning, “Don’t say anything! You’ll only upset him. Speaking your mind will only lead to a fight. He’ll probably leave you. It’s your job to meet his needs, not his job to meet yours. Your feelings aren’t important.” These fears were rooted in Susan’s core abandonment wound and are an example of how a person’s Inner Protector

For people with an avoidant attachment style, there has been a core wounding related to emotional neglect. In their childhoods, their emotions went unnoticed, so their brains built a wall between the part that feels that need and is in terrible pain because it is unmet

Meanwhile, our ANS is spending way too much time in sympathetic arousal, leaving us almost continually afraid of loss and abandonment. We bring this legacy into our adult relationships, tucked away in our subconscious, until it becomes activated with the prospect of intimacy. Now, everything we never learned about how to connect rises to the surfac

The busier and more distracted we are, and the more we continue to look for love outside of ourselves, the harder it will be to hear Little Me, let alone to call on the love and support of our Inner Nurturers.

they find something wrong when there is any lapse in idolizing them. This justifies them actively rejecting us.

Faced with difficult emotions, the common response is to try to fix them as quickly as possible—whether this means medicating them away (with alcohol or prescription drugs) or simply putting on a brave face and pretending that everything is okay.

she would immediately call on her controlling Protector to stop the fear from overwhelming her.

Anxious attachment stems from a deep sense of inner instability where old wounds make people anticipate that they will be abandoned again and again.