Understanding the Anxious/Avoidant Attachment Dynamic in this Poem

Below is a direct line-by-line mapping of my poem to attachment theory and trauma-based nervous system responses.

The Core Framework

Primary Attachment Pattern Displayed:

Avoidant / Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment (with moments of Fearful-Avoidant traits)

Primary Trauma Responses Involved:

• Flight
• Dissociation
• Sexualized soothing (dopamine regulation)
• Emotional numbing
• Shame avoidance

Key Nervous System Theme:

Connection feels dangerous; distance feels regulating

Longing for Choice

The Anxious–Avoidant Attachment Dance

“I really wish you knew how much I love you.”

“I wish I was the kind of woman you always wanted to run to.”

Attachment Lens:

This reflects the anxious side of the attachment loop; not pathology, but proximity-seeking. When paired with an avoidant partner, love becomes effort instead of mutuality.

Trauma Education:

Survivors often mistake:

• emotional hunger → “neediness”
• longing → weakness

In reality, this is a healthy attachment system trying to attach to someone who cannot receive it.

“I wish you’d wake up.”

Attachment Lens:

Avoidant partners aren’t asleep. They’re defended.

Trauma Education:

Avoidance isn’t ignorance. It’s protection learned early:

• caregivers were inconsistent, rejecting, or unsafe
• vulnerability was punished, ignored, or exploited

“Waking up” would mean feeling pain the nervous system learned to survive by avoiding.

Comparison, Self-Abandonment, and Over-Functioning

Anxious Over-Giving vs Avoidant Under-Engaging

“Would she empty out her own cup, just to level you up?”

“Would she do it for the rest of her life, like I’m begging to do?”

Attachment Lens:

This is over-functioning attachment; trying to earn love and safety through self-sacrifice.

Trauma Education:

Many survivors learned early:

• love is conditional
• value comes from usefulness
• staying means self-erasure

This is not devotion.

It’s survival strategy disguised as loyalty.

“Do you ever ask yourself these questions? / Are you paying attention?”

Attachment Lens:

Avoidant individuals often externalize responsibility for emotional labor. Their partners carry the reflection they avoid.

Trauma Education:

Avoidance relies on distraction:

• new people
• fantasy
• validation
• stimulation

Attention is diverted away from anything that might stir grief, shame, or unmet childhood needs.

Confronting Avoidance

Flight Response + Shame Defense

“Is that ego stroke you’re getting from all that superficial attention really getting you right?”

Attachment Lens:

Avoidant attachment substitutes validation for intimacy.

Trauma Education:

Superficial attention activates dopamine without requiring:

• vulnerability
• accountability
• emotional presence

It feels good, but it doesn’t regulate the nervous system long-term.

“Can you sleep at night? / Are you alright?”

Trauma Education:

This cuts to the truth:

Unresolved trauma doesn’t disappear.

Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.

It shows up as:

• insomnia
• restlessness
• irritability
• emotional emptiness

Avoidance keeps people functional, but rarely peaceful.

The Mirror Turn

Radical Accountability + Trauma Insight

“And then I remembered. / I was once you.”

This is the most important line in the poem.

Attachment Lens:

I step out of the anxious role and into earned security, and the capacity to hold both sides without collapsing into blame or self-abandonment.

Trauma Education:

Healing doesn’t come from moral superiority.

It comes from recognition.

“I used to numb all the pain with cum too.”

“I used to push love away just to chase a little fun too.”

Trauma Education (Explicit but Accurate):

Sexual stimulation can become:

• dissociation
• emotional anesthesia
• nervous system regulation

This is common in trauma survivors whose bodies learned:

• arousal = control
• novelty = relief
• intimacy = danger

This is not promiscuity.

It’s self-soothing through the body when emotional safety was unavailable.

Reframing Love and Pain

Core Trauma Belief Deconstruction

“You’ve been running away from love believing pain comes from connection.”

Core Trauma Belief Identified:

• “If I attach, I will be hurt.”

Truth:

• Pain doesn’t come from connection.
• It comes from unhealed attachment wounds that are carried into connection.

“Imagine how it feels waking up / Only to find everybody around you don’t give a fuck.”

Trauma Outcome Education:

Chronic avoidance leads to:

• emotional isolation
• shallow bonds
• abandonment reenactment

Avoidance promises safety but delivers loneliness.

The Consequence of Running

Attachment Injury to the Partner

“The love that’s begging you to stay… / is slowly slipping away.”

Attachment Education:

Even securely leaning partners eventually shift from:

• protest → grief → detachment

This is not punishment.

It’s self-preservation.

“They’re going to run away from you.”

Trauma Reality:

People don’t leave because they stop loving.

They leave because loving starts to cost too much.

The Boundary

Earned Secure Attachment

“Just remember. / I know how to run too.”

Attachment Lens:

This is secure detachment, not avoidance.

It says:

• I can choose closeness
• I can also choose myself
• I will not abandon my healing to chase someone else’s unhealed wounds

Trauma Education:

Healing doesn’t mean staying.

Healing means choosing connection with those who can meet you there.