hello, everyone! thanks for joining my campfire. so here's the thing: i know i have an anxious preoccupied attachement style and try to be more conscious about its effects. i'd love to know if you have tips to help coping with stuff like feeling super sad when the person i'm seeing leaves.

Feeling sad about someone I try to frame in my mind as a good thing. It's a great indicator. That's how I try to think about these uncomfortable things that can cause me to spiral.

A friend's dad told me once while I was getting over a really bad break up, this big burly Egyptian man. He said, it's ok to feel sad, but if you're going to be sad, be really sad and so you can understand the depths of that when you come back to being happy.

This is a challenging one. Having what I now realise is a narcissist for a mother has resulted in me developing an anxious attachment style that has impacted many of my relationships over the years and the things I did to help deal with that included

1) Therapy - this was key to help recognise the traits in myself and when I was exhibiting this more and recognising what the triggers were

2) Communication - the more my communication improved in my relationships the better I was able to deal with these challenges when I faced them. It also meant verbalising my concerns when I had them with my partner and working out how we could address them together, recognising that If I ignored them, these thoughts when left in my head would spiral out of control

3) Journalling - this was a key one to note down good days and bad days and discover the patterns in my behaviour and thoughts to learnt to recognise when my thought patterns were changing

4) Mindfulness & meditation - this was something I employed when I knew I was “spiralling” and would help me “rebalance” myself4) Reprioritising personal time - my anxious attachment style often resulted in intense relationships where I’d want to spend a lot of time with that person so I learned to force myself to carve out some “me” time and get used to being on my own and in turn gave me a chance to encourage my partner(s) to have time for themselves and ultimately strengthen our relationship

I’ll share what’s been working for me.

I tend to date avoidant types (love me a techie introvert, swoon) and my leaning is towards anxious (adhd entrepreneur). It works when it’s all more balanced so we both end up a bit more in the middle.I need contact. I explain I do and nudge and they don’t tend to mind. Additionally it’s a bit mildly psycho but sharing locations grounds me, I rarely look but just knowing I could feels solid to me. I don’t know why but they don’t overthink it and don’t mind so it’s a non issue.

It’s a boring thing but communication is key. Explaining the whys from my side and even if they don’t make sense to the other person them accepting it. It used to drive me mad when an ex would reply to a long message from me with “OK”. It sounds mad to even write it down here about how much it upset me, ha, but subsequent partners I’ve explained that if I’m writing a lot I’m excited about something and I’d love them to engage or ask questions. The OK or similar shuts down interaction and feels very hurtful to me.