How Anxious Attachment Affects Your Relationship With Yourself
How Anxious Attachment Affects Your Relationship with Yourself
Anxious attachment makes it hard to feel safe and secure in relationships. Maybe it shows up when you:
Wonder “Are you mad at me?” when someone’s tone shifts, even slightly.
Overthink every worst-case scenario because your best friend left your text on read.
Feel your stomach drop when your boss says, “I need to talk to you.”
Notice things have been going well for a while, but you can’t shake the feeling that something bad must be coming.
We talk a lot about how anxious attachment impacts relationships with others. But let’s be real here… it reshapes the relationship you have with yourself.
Anxious Attachment and Self-Abandonment
Anxious attachment doesn’t just make you afraid of losing people—it makes you afraid of yourself.
Because at its core, anxious attachment isn’t just about a fear of abandonment. It’s about a fear of who you are when no one else is there to reflect you back.
Somewhere along the way, you learned that love had conditions. That you had to earn care, connection, and belonging by being easy, agreeable, and accommodating. That love wasn’t something given to you, but something you had to prove yourself worthy of.
And so, without realizing it, you start to abandon yourself in the hopes that others won’t abandon you.
You ignore your gut feelings because you don’t want to seem difficult.
You apologize for things that aren’t your fault just to smooth things over.
You suppress your needs because asking for too much feels like a risk.
You shrink yourself down to be more digestible, more likable, more safe.
You laugh up “jokes” or freeze up, because it feels easier.
And then, when the anxiety inevitably creeps back in, you turn on yourself.
“I’m just being sensitive/dramatic.”
“I need to stop overthinking.”
“Why can’t I just be normal?”
It’s not just that you struggle to trust others. You struggle to trust yourself.
How Anxious Attachment Warps Your Self-Perception
Here’s an example that might feel familiar:
You have a great night out. You’re feeling good, present, happy. Then someone makes an offhand comment about your frizzy hair, your outfit, your laugh—something small. You don’t say anything in the moment, but later, it starts eating at you.
“Did they mean that in a bad way?”
“Should I have laughed? Defended myself? Acted differently?”
“Are they secretly annoyed by me?”
Before you know it, the night isn’t about the fun you had—it’s about trying to fix a problem that might not even exist.
On the surface, this looks like a fear of how others perceive you. But underneath? It’s about something deeper:
A fundamental distrust in your own reality.
Anxious attachment wires you to seek external confirmation before you believe anything—whether that’s “Did they actually enjoy spending time with me?” or even “Was I actually happy tonight, or did I miss something?”
And over time, this erodes your ability to feel solid in yourself. It makes you second-guess your memories, your emotions, your own experience of life.
So, did the person mean harm when they made a comment about you? Maybe, maybe not.
Rebuilding a Secure Relationship with Yourself
Healing anxious attachment isn’t just about learning to trust others. It’s about learning to trust yourself.
To believe your emotions are valid even if no one else confirms them.
To listen to your needs instead of suppressing them to keep the peace.
To know you don’t have to perform to be worthy of love.
To recognize that your reality—your feelings, your experiences—matter, even if no one else sees them.
The relationship you have with yourself it the one you’ll always come home to. And it deserves to feel like a safe place.
Curious about EMDR?
Ready to start healing? Book a FREE consult for therapy here (FL, SC, & TN residents)
👋 Follow @holistictherapywithsabrina to learn more about EMDR and healing your inner child, from a therapist who truly gets it.
About the author: Sabrina Cruz, LCSW, RYT-200 is a psychotherapist and yoga teacher who truly values holistic care. She supports women to break free from people-pleasing and unapologetically embody their light. HHWS specializes in people pleasing, anxiety, and childhood wounds to help you heal from trauma, reparent your inner child, and embrace your authentic self.
This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for mental health or medical advice.