How To Be Good At Dating When You Have An Anxious Attachment Style
Your anxiety is the cost you have to bear every time you get out there and take a chance on someone. Not everyone is worth this cost.
I used to have severe anxiety when it came to dating. Meeting new people, waiting for text messages, confirming plans, not knowing where the relationship is going could hurt me physically.
Dating wasn’t fun. Dating was a constant battle of fighting all my ugly thoughts about myself, all my doubts about whether I was worthy of love, all my childhood memories of feeling left out and unloved, imprinted on every molecule of my body.
When the person I was dating showed signs of pulling away, I tensed up, I freaked out, I held on tighter, which only pushed them away further and, damn, did that hurt. Sometimes it hurt like my life depended on it. I shrunk into a needy little lost child, paralysed in fear and loneliness.
Dating stopped being about finding a healthy relationship with someone compatible; it became an addiction, a way to punish myself while desperately hoping that the punishment would stop and, somehow, I would be saved.
Make no mistakes — These dating situations didn’t just happen. These guys didn’t just…
