**Attachment Styles And The Drama Triangle (Part 2) — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/attachment-styles-drama-triangle-part-2/

Heidi Priebe explores how anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant attachment styles get stuck in the drama triangle's victim, persecutor, and rescuer roles.

## Key Takeaways

- Attachment styles are adaptive strategies that become maladaptive in adult relationships.
- Anxious individuals typically enter the drama triangle as victims seeking rescue from a partner.
- Avoidant individuals' emotional suppression can trigger anxious partners' pursuit and escalation.
- Fearful-avoidant people cycle between roles and need strategies from both anxious and avoidant healing paths.
- Stepping out of the drama triangle requires self-regulation, boundary setting, and accepting others' autonomy.

## What the video covers

- Part two of a series on attachment styles and the drama triangle, following an introduction in part one.
- All attachment strategies developed because they once worked as adaptations to early caregiving.
- Anxiously attached people typically start in the victim role, having learned to get attention by showing vulnerability and escalating needs.
- Anxious people lack self-regulation skills and unconsciously seek a parent-like partner to complete them.
- Pop culture romanticizes soulmate and 'other half' narratives, which reinforces anxious patterns.
- Avoidant people suppress their needs and appear emotionally self-sufficient, which anxious people read as a parent figure.
- Anxious-avoidant pairings create a push-pull dynamic where the anxious partner pursues and the avoidant partner withdraws.
- Anxious people often try to control their partner's feelings and reduce the partner's autonomy, not only through overt abuse.
- Fearful-avoidant (disorganized) attachment combines both patterns and tends to cycle through all three drama triangle roles.
- Healing requires accepting powerlessness over others, taking responsibility for one's own needs, and building self-sufficiency and emotional awareness.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and recap of the drama triangle
2. 02:30 Anxious attachment and the victim role
3. 08:00 Avoidant attachment and the parent-figure dynamic
4. 16:00 Anxious-avoidant push-pull in conflict
5. 23:00 Controlling patterns and idealization in anxious relationships
6. 31:00 Fearful-avoidant cycling through roles
7. 38:00 Healing paths and stepping out of the drama triangle
8. 41:00 Boundaries and closing remarks

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why does the anxiously attached person typically start in the victim role?

Early on, anxious children learned that expressing vulnerability and distress brought caregiver attention and comfort, but caregivers were inconsistently available. As adults they continue using that strategy, playing the victim to get their partner's attention and co-regulation. They never fully developed self-regulation skills.

How do avoidant and anxious partners create a push-pull dynamic?

Avoidant partners suppress needs and appear self-sufficient, which signals to anxious partners that they've found a parent figure. The anxious partner escalates their needs to get attention, which crosses the avoidant's boundaries and drives them further away, prompting more anxious pursuit.

What is the healing path for fearful-avoidant attachment?

Fearful-avoidant individuals need strategies from both other styles: they must become comfortable alone and self-regulating like the avoidant style, while also building emotional awareness and healthier engagement with others. They also need to address their critical view of both self and others.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

hey guys heidi preeb here today we are doing part two of a video that i released the first part of last week it's called attachment styles and the drama triangle part one uh introduction to the drama triangle something along those lines

00:12

Speaker A

and today we're going to be talking about what it looks like when each of the three insecurely attached types are stuck in the drama triangle so that's anxious avoidant and fearful avoidant which is a term that's interchangeable with

00:22

Speaker A

anxious avoidant or disorganized attachment it's not technically interchangeable but in terms of pop culture words that you might hear floating around it's like interchangeable enough that it works here so before we get started i want to reiterate or maybe just iterate because

00:36

Speaker A

i don't know if i've said this before that all of these attachment strategies exist because they worked at one time so the anxiously attached person's starting gate role in the drama triangle is usually the victim role and this is a role that actually makes a

00:49

Speaker A

lot of sense for this style because very early on in life people who are anxiously attached learned that their caregivers could co-regulate with them so what that means is that when they were upset when they needed something because they were quite

01:00

Speaker A

literally a dependent human being that's what babies are um and they cried and showed their vulnerability and got their parents attention their parent would always or to the best of their abilities give them love and nurturance and whatever

01:12

Speaker A

they needed however their parent was not always available so what this child learned was that i have to try and try and try to get my parents attention but when i do get it i will be given love and co-regulation

01:24

Speaker A

and i will feel okay again but the problem is that the anxiously attached child did not learn self-regulation so what that means is that they really have trouble understanding that they can give themselves that same sense of peace

01:36

Speaker A

and love and regulation they think that they need someone else to help them get there so the anxiously attached person perpetually feels a little bit like half of a hole in their lives so they tend to get really attracted to and

01:48

Speaker A

drawn into um stories about like finding your other half and finding your soulmate and feeling complete at last through a partner and this isn't something that they choose to do it's just a virtue of their psyche that developed around this

02:01

Speaker A

because they never learned self-regulation so they didn't really learn i can make myself feel okay i can meet my own needs i can meet my own wants on my own without the help of another human being so what that looks like in adulthood is

02:13

Speaker A

that the anxiously attached person is kind of going around unconsciously looking for a parent figure not a partner and this is actually not that different from how we look at love and relationships through the lens of the media right there's this like romantic

02:26

Speaker A

notion that we'll meet someone who loves all of our flaws away and who helps us finally see life differently for the first time and there aren't a lot of stories about people just learning to do that for themselves and people learning to

02:37

Speaker A

complete their own lives um they're not as sexy and they're not as exciting because they don't push on attachment wounds um and the problem is that if you're anxiously attached you take all of those stories quite literally because there is an

02:50

Speaker A

unconscious desire inside of you already to find that other half so anxiously attached people are unconsciously always going around looking for someone who's like a parent figure and who looks like a parent figure avoidant personalities why avoidantly attached people

03:05

Speaker A

don't emote their needs or wants so they have a lot of needs and wants they have a lot of internal issues just like the anxiously attached person they have approximately as many internal wounds okay and that is a lot that is

03:17

Speaker A

not a small amount of internal wounds however the avoidance strategy is to pretend that they don't have anything going on and to minimize and to neglect those needs so what this looks like is kind of a parent figure because the

03:30

Speaker A

avoidant is constantly giving off this aura of everything's fine nothing to see here i have no problems or challenges even much more so than securely attached person who actually is working in real time through their challenges and problems

03:42

Speaker A

and solving them the avoidant because they're suppressing them looks on the surface like they have everything 100 together and to the anxiously attached person that looks like a parent figure because parents when they have a small child if they're doing it right don't

03:56

Speaker A

burden the small child with their problems they act like things are okay that's a normal part of parenthood however it's not a normal part of being a healthy adult in a relationship but to the anxiously attached person an

04:08

Speaker A

avoidant person who does act like this it sends off that alarm bell in their brain okay here's the parent figure i've been looking for right so we get a lot of anxious people chasing avoidant types now the problem is that the avoidant is

04:19

Speaker A

not a real parent figure they're not interested in endlessly responding to emotional needs but the anxiously attached person unconsciously assumes now it's time to start my normal activation strategies when i want the attention of my partner the same way i used to get

04:31

Speaker A

the attention of my parent by playing the victim and showing my vulnerabilities and this isn't a conscious choice okay so the anxiously attached person is not going i will take this victimized stance and i will make my situation

04:42

Speaker A

a thousand times more dramatic than it actually is sometimes they are but more often than not they just believe that if i press hard on the bruise of whatever hurts my parent figure will come running to me so when they go into

04:54

Speaker A

conflict they tend to take this position of i'm so hurt i'm so in need of help they will over inflate and over exaggerate the things in their life that they need help with because they learned early on that was the way that you get

05:06

Speaker A

the attention of the person who you're attached to and the problem is that as an adult that's more likely to push someone like the avoidant partner away because the avoidant partner really fears their boundaries being crossed and the anxiously attached person is

05:19

Speaker A

unconsciously trying to cross their boundaries to get what they need from them because they feel kind of like they will die without it and again all of this is operating deep under the surface the main thing that the anxiously attached person will feel

05:31

Speaker A

in conflict is just stress and wanting to be close and wanting to connect and wanting to feel like okay even if i have to give up something or i have to compromise my own boundaries i just want to feel close to this person

05:40

Speaker A

and that's because unconsciously they believe that that person is going to meet all of their needs so in conflict the unconscious mantra that's always happening for the anxiously attached style is i will only be happy once you meet my

05:52

Speaker A

needs which sounds exactly like the victim role in the drama triangle now something that's really interesting is that in pop culture i feel like the anxious attachment is kind of idealized a little bit like they're kind of looked at as oh

06:03

Speaker A

these poor people who didn't get the proper love and now they need their other half but when you read actual attachment literature they talk a lot about the controlling nature and the controlling patterns of the anxious style so the anxious style might not be

06:14

Speaker A

controlling in the way that you stereotypically think of let's say an abuser in a relationship they might be they might they very well might be um but they are always trying to control the way that their partner feels about

06:26

Speaker A

them so they don't want to give their partner an autonomous experience of living where their partner gets to decide for themselves what they like and don't like and where their own boundaries are the anxiously attached person really really feels the need on a deep level to

06:38

Speaker A

make sure that their partner is always feeling extremely um connected to them aligned with them on the same page as them because again otherwise they won't be able to get that co-regulation and they don't know how to self-regulate

06:49

Speaker A

so if they don't get that co-regulation they feel like they're gonna die so a lot of the behavior that they're engaging in really is quite controlling and it's quite manipulative of their partner and all of the insecure attachment styles

07:00

Speaker A

have a form of manipulation that they rely on to get their needs met in relationship this isn't exclusive to the anxious style but this overt form of wanting to emotionally control the other person is fairly prevalent in the anxious style

07:12

Speaker A

even though you would be very hard-pressed to find an anxious person who will admit to that because again it runs so deep that they don't necessarily notice that that's what they're doing they think that this is a normal way to

07:22

Speaker A

behave in partnerships usually so when an anxiously attached person goes into conflict they are over inflating their needs over inflating what's going on over inflating what their partner needs to fix for them and the only way to get out of

07:34

Speaker A

this is to switch into the role in the empowering dynamic that mirrors the victim role which is the creator role so when you're in creation mode you look at not just which options are available to you interpersonally but

07:44

Speaker A

which options are available to you independently so being a creator means looking at everything that you have the choice to engage with and figuring out what's healthiest for yourself and when you're in creator mode you inherently understand that you do not

07:57

Speaker A

have control over other people okay you don't get to pick how your partner feels about you you don't get to pick how your partner responds to you you don't get to pick what kind of interaction you have with your partner

08:06

Speaker A

you can only control your side of things and if it doesn't go well you have other options so being in creator mode as an anxiously attached person means you have to change your vantage point from how do i get my partner to

08:19

Speaker A

meet my needs to how do i get my own needs met even if my partner can't or won't or just isn't interested in meeting them so step one is often just figuring out what is my deep need here so not the surface level

08:30

Speaker A

need which is i need my partner to behave a certain way right take your partner out of the picture and ask yourself what am i feeling let's say i'm feeling emotionally neglected okay go deeper than that what does

08:41

Speaker A

emotional neglect mean well it means that i feel pretty bad about myself because i feel like i'm not getting love okay well what does that mean it means that if i am not in some way validated i will feel like i

08:52

Speaker A

am an inherently unlovable person okay there's your real feeling right i am unlovable so who's not giving you the love that you need oldest cliche in the book but it's you you will forever forever as an anxiously attached person

09:08

Speaker A

or any other style feel like your heart is a bucket that has a hole in the bottom if you do not learn how to deeply love and care for yourself when you're alone so if you 100 feel like you need your

09:21

Speaker A

partner or other people to validate you and give you what you need in order to feel loved you are always always always going to be stuck in the drama triangle right the drama triangle is when you're feeling like i will only

09:32

Speaker A

be happy once you change and that you can be your partner it can be your parent it can be your best friend it can be society it can be an entire range of things but as long as you're feeling that way that

09:43

Speaker A

you need something outside of yourself to feel okay you're in the drama triangle so the anxiously attached person needs to learn on a really really deep level and this takes work it really does how to show up for

09:56

Speaker A

themselves and build a relationship with themselves the way that they usually focus on building relationships with other people and the beginning of your healing as an anxiously attached person will really be to think of the relationship you have with yourself the

10:08

Speaker A

way that you think of the relationships you build with other people so if you really wanted to date someone would you show up on time to your first date would you keep your commitments would you buy them little gifts and write them

10:19

Speaker A

little love letters and think constantly about ways that you could show them that you care about them are you doing those things for yourself do you show up for yourself when you really want to get something done even if you're tired or exhausted or

10:31

Speaker A

feeling emotional and don't really want to do you buy yourself little gifts do you speak kindly to yourself do you spend quality time with yourself are you deeply aware of your own needs and what you need to do in order to

10:43

Speaker A

fulfill them the way that you're aware of other people's needs and if the answer is no you're probably stuck in the drama triangle and you really need to take some time to cultivate that relationship with yourself because it doesn't just happen overnight

10:56

Speaker A

if you have been neglecting yourself your entire life you can't just say a couple of mantras and then expect your relationship with yourself to be healed you have to do the hard work of getting to know yourself getting to know your

11:06

Speaker A

wants and needs doing some trial and error around how to fulfill those wants and needs understanding yourself on a deep emotional level what motivates you what are your passions what are your goals what are your dreams in life

11:17

Speaker A

literally date yourself the way you would date another person and put all of the care and attention into yourself that you would put into someone else and just imagine what a world of difference that would make because if you have this strong

11:31

Speaker A

self-sufficient relationship with yourself when you're in conflict with someone else you can stay calm and you can stay regulated because you understand that their choices are their choices and if they're not interested in meeting your needs or your wants

11:45

Speaker A

that's okay because you know how to do that for yourself and if you need to you can remove yourself from the situation and you can either be alone for a period of time or you can find a different partner

11:54

Speaker A

who's more aligned with what you want but there won't be this undying desperation to get the other person to see your point of view and to fix your needs for you and what this means is unconsciously taking yourself

12:06

Speaker A

out of the fantasy that you're going to meet your soulmate who's going to be able to anticipate every one of your needs understand you in a way that no one else has ever understood you and suddenly make you feel really excited to live

12:15

Speaker A

your life again okay partners don't do that that's not the role of a partner it just feels like it is because of your unconscious programming and once you learn what a healthy partnership is which is two people who

12:26

Speaker A

can take care of their own needs the same way they would if they were single but then they go to each other to share an experience of life and show support for each other as they move through challenges

12:35

Speaker A

then you can start having an actual healthy adult relationship and this is hard and it's something you're probably gonna have to remind yourself of over and over and over again i still do that for myself in partnerships when i feel a sense of

12:47

Speaker A

need or desperation to get my needs seen and met i ask myself if i were single what would i do about this need i'd probably find a way to make myself feel better maybe through taking a day for self-care and giving myself

12:58

Speaker A

quality time or i'd phone a friend and talk about it or i would do some work to try to self-regulate and if you're not able to do that you're probably not ready to be in a relationship in the first place because

13:08

Speaker A

your partner meeting your needs should always be an option not a necessity okay your wants they can meet the point of a relationship is two people coming together and choosing to want each other and to want to make each other's lives better

13:21

Speaker A

if the relationship is based on a fundamental need for one another you are going to be trapped in the drama triangle the entire way through unless and until you start healing these wounds and a really great resource that

13:31

Speaker A

i actually recommend for people who are struggling with anxious attachment or to overcoming shit's attachment is codependence anonymous it's a 12-step program so it's a branch off of aa and i've historically been very skeptical about 12-step programs but i have read the code of handbook and

13:46

Speaker A

i have to say it's an awesome awesome resource for people who are struggling with anxious tendencies whether that's the anxiously attached style or the fearful avoidance style and i'm gonna mention this again when we talk about fearful avoidance

13:58

Speaker A

because the first step the premise of the program that you have to accept is we are powerless over others and if you can accept that premise on a deep level as an anxiously attached spectrum type so that's anxious or

14:11

Speaker A

fearful avoidant it will completely and totally and irrefutably change the way that you approach relationships every single time you go into an argument and you want to play the victim or you want to show the other person how

14:23

Speaker A

much you're hurting remind yourself i am powerless over others and if that were true if that were true and you were truly powerless to manipulate in any way what someone else thinks or feels towards you how would you behave how would you take

14:39

Speaker A

yourself out of that situation how would you care for yourself because when you're thinking about it from that lens all of a sudden more options become available to you you realize if this person is going to behave this way and i'm powerless

14:50

Speaker A

to change their behavior their thoughts or their emotions maybe i need to reevaluate whether or not this is the right person for me to be dating whether this is an emotionally safe situation for me to continuously put myself in

15:01

Speaker A

and what a better option for myself might be and when you have that relationship with yourself and you have self-trust because you've built it you no longer want to put yourself in situations where people are not taking your

15:11

Speaker A

feelings or your desires seriously it is not your partner's job to make sure that your relationship is an emotionally safe place it is your job as an autonomous human being to make sure that you are refusing to put yourself

15:24

Speaker A

in unsafe situations and we'll talk about this in future videos but there is a lot of re-parenting work you might have to do a lot of visualization you could do where you literally ask yourself if i had a young child in this situation

15:36

Speaker A

would i subject them to this situation or would i get them out and if you can start looking at yourself as someone who has a little kid inside of them that needs that safety and needs those emotional boundaries

15:47

Speaker A

you're going to be able to start treating the relationship differently there's this quote by sherry argov i don't know who that is but um it goes truly powerful people don't explain why they want respect they simply don't engage with people who

16:04

Speaker A

don't give it to them and that is the mantra of the secure style right you don't have secure people going and begging other people to respect them and to pay attention to them and to care about their needs when they

16:16

Speaker A

meet a person who doesn't want to do that they just go oh that person's got something funny going on they aren't very emotionally available so i'm gonna get out and find someone who is because they don't have that soulmate fantasy

16:26

Speaker A

that someone's gonna fix all their needs right and any of the insecurely attached styles can learn that mindset is the beauty of this so this isn't a death sentence if you are anxiously attached you can get better and the first thing

16:39

Speaker A

you have to do is accept that you are powerless over people you are responsible for meeting your own needs and that you are responsible for putting yourself in situations where you're able and capable of taking care of yourself

16:52

Speaker A

a lot of the time that means taking yourself out of situations where you're dysregulated but that's all going to come through trial and error as you heal your style and as you start to learn where your healthy boundaries

17:02

Speaker A

are all right let's talk avoidance so avoidance tend to like to think that they are never in the drama triangle they think that they are completely self-sufficient they meet all of their own needs they don't have a broken attachment

17:15

Speaker A

style most avoidance self-identify is secure because they are so not looking at their issues and they are so minimizing their own wants needs and feelings that they have convinced themselves they don't have those things or that they only have good and healthy

17:27

Speaker A

wants needs and feelings but what the avoidant has is a positive view of self negative view of others so they believe i'm okay everyone else is not okay and they're gonna cross my boundaries so the avoidant lives behind this

17:40

Speaker A

barricade of walls where they believe as long as i'm alone as long as i don't have to form close relationships or close attachments i will be okay and the way that they keep themselves behind this wall is by

17:52

Speaker A

finding fault in absolutely everybody else all of the time so they have what we can refer to as an outer critic so instead of the inner critic that the anxious and fearful avoidant types have where they're constantly finding fault with themselves

18:04

Speaker A

the avoidant person is always finding fault with others and using little flaws and perceived inadequacies in other people as an excuse to not get close to not share their own needs to not share their own emotions and to make themselves continue to feel

18:16

Speaker A

justified in not getting close to others so the avoidant personality might think they're never in the drama triangle but they're actually consistently in the persecutor role they just do it quietly inside of their own minds let's say they're in an argument with

18:28

Speaker A

their partner they might say nothing they might leave the room they might refuse to have the interaction in the first place but what's happening inside of their minds is they are minimizing their partner's experience minimizing their own experience

18:40

Speaker A

and telling themselves this is stupid this doesn't matter i'm not even going to engage with this this is beneath me i don't need this in my life they're activating all of these avoidance strategies that keep them from taking other people's or their own

18:53

Speaker A

emotions seriously so they do tend to inherently believe in their relationship this relationship will be good and healthy and healed once my partner changes and that is probably 50 true because again the anxious and the avoidant partner tend to gravitate towards each other

19:11

Speaker A

and both of them have attachment wounds they need to work on right the anxious style needs to work on self-sufficiency but the avoidant style needs to work on emotional awareness both their own and other people's and taking themselves and others

19:22

Speaker A

seriously so if you're avoiding you have an anxious partner yes things would get better for them if they healed but it would not mean that suddenly you have a good relationship for you to have a good relationship you still have to show up you still have

19:34

Speaker A

to do the work you still have to make yourself aware of and deeply sensitive to your own needs your own wants your own vulnerabilities you have to learn to bring those to the table you have to learn to share yourself

19:47

Speaker A

honestly and you need to learn to set boundaries i'm going to do a whole video on this but avoidance tend to think that they have really strong boundaries because they're really good at detaching and what they don't intuitively understand

20:03

Speaker A

is that detaching and having boundaries are not the same thing detaching is a trauma response boundary setting means being clear about your needs being clear about your feelings explaining what the boundaries about and then living healthily within those

20:18

Speaker A

bounds boundaries help you live interdependently avoidance helps you live counter-dependently so what that means is living in a way that ensures you will never in any way rely on another person feel like another person's actions affect you and what the avoidant person

20:33

Speaker A

does not intuitively understand is that the secure person who does attend to their own wants needs and feelings and who does engage in healthy relationships is actually a lot less vulnerable than the avoidant they are less vulnerable to hurt because they

20:47

Speaker A

have communities and people who can help them heal from it they are less vulnerable to betrayal because they can engage in honest relationships with other honest people who are showing up to the table authentically they are less likely to

20:59

Speaker A

get rejected because they don't live their life in a very neurotic and strange way they are able to have authentic communication with other people where other people can see their nuanced whole instead of the avoidant who doesn't really show themselves to

21:12

Speaker A

anyone and then gets confused when they're not having the healthiest relationships so like the anxious style the avoidant tends to live in the middle of the drama triangle they are in constant persecution mode thinking everyone else is trying to cross my boundaries all the

21:23

Speaker A

time if only everyone else would get their together this would be fine and the only way to remove themselves from this narrative is to move into the challenger role when you're in the challenger position you intuitively accept that your

21:36

Speaker A

situation is changing you that you are dynamically energetically intertwined with every person that you talk to every situation you engage with every new challenge you take on the world affects you and you affect the world and when you're

21:50

Speaker A

in challenger mode you take that as a given and you make choices according to that so you cannot tell yourself in a challenger position this is entirely someone else's fault you cannot tell yourself in a challenger position if my partner would only x y or

22:04

Speaker A

z this would no longer be a problem in a challenger role you have to accept i am choosing to be here i'm choosing to engage in this relationship i'm choosing to engage in this dynamic and i'm choosing to learn and grow from

22:17

Speaker A

it and be changed and challenged by it instead of just deciding that it doesn't matter because it does matter everything you are doing in your life every person you speak to every situation you enter into it does change you you can deny that as an

22:32

Speaker A

avoidant and you can pretend that you're completely invulnerable you are already vulnerable if you are watching this and you have any relationship with another human being you might feel like you've completely closed yourself off no you still have feelings about that

22:44

Speaker A

they're just coming out unconsciously in weird neurotic ways and if you want to step into the challenger position it means accepting that you are going to have relationships with imperfect people okay so just like the anxiously attached type has this vision in their

22:58

Speaker A

head of a soulmate who's gonna magically take away all of their anxieties and problems and challenges in life the avoidant has a soulmate fantasy of someone they're gonna meet who somehow can have a normal relationship with them while also

23:10

Speaker A

staying perfectly regulated never being unreasonable never asking for something that the avoidant doesn't want to give naturally and who intuitively understands them in a way that means they don't have to communicate or state each other's needs to just get

23:22

Speaker A

each other and live in happy harmony and just like the anxious person's soulmate fantasy is completely and totally bogus so is the avoidance if you want to be in a partnership as an avoidant with absolutely no exceptions you must

23:35

Speaker A

accept that you will be in a partnership with an imperfect person who does things wrong who is irrational sometimes who asks for things that it's not necessarily fair to ask for and you have to learn how to set clear

23:48

Speaker A

boundaries how to understand what your own emotions and needs are how to bring those to the table and how to engage with the person who is imperfect in a way that is still loving and fair and respectful to both

24:00

Speaker A

of you there is not someone out there who is 100 compatible for you and this is a trap the avoidant type gets stuck in thinking a lot of the time they think okay my partner's doing x y or z so they just

24:11

Speaker A

must not be the one someone is out there for me who's better and more self-sufficient and more self-reliable and you have to let go of the idea that that person is out there before you can build a healthy relationship with

24:23

Speaker A

anybody you will not find someone who's 100 compatible with you but the people you're dating are probably like 20 compatible with you because you refuse to go for people who you're truly compatible with and instead you just kind of sit back

24:36

Speaker A

and let people come to you and who comes to you anxiously attach people who cannot take care of their own needs you could meet someone who's like 80 percent compatible with you which is a crazy high compatibility score if you're not

24:48

Speaker A

expecting perfection but to meet that person you have to start showing up as a human being who can be authentic and form real relationships with people okay so if you want to get out of this cycle of feeling like you're dating people who

25:00

Speaker A

can't take care of themselves and need you you have to start being someone who is able to take relationships seriously and then you'll start meeting people who are self-sufficient and can take care of most of their own wants and

25:12

Speaker A

needs and who probably have a lot in common with you because you'll start being attracted to and know how to form relationships with secure people unconsciously avoidance are so afraid of rejection that they will almost never pursue the

25:25

Speaker A

people they're actually interested in unless they're very clear that they just want to hook up with that person and they don't take it too seriously but when they meet someone who they actually want to be with more often than

25:35

Speaker A

not avoidance will either refuse to go for that person or they will be too afraid to go for that person or they will try to pursue that person and have it not work out because they don't have the

25:44

Speaker A

proper attaching strategies to make a relationship feel normal and non-neurotic but if you learn to take yourself your needs and other people's needs seriously you could have those healthy relationships and that would be a complete and total game changer

25:57

Speaker A

for the avoidant type once they've learned to step into that challenger role and accept that they are already vulnerable anytime they're in relationship so you might as well choose a vulnerability that matters and that gets you somewhere you want to be

26:10

Speaker A

okay fearful avoidance the first thing to note about this style is that it's going to use a range of both strategies that we just talked about so what that means is that sometimes a fearful avoidant is going to go into their

26:21

Speaker A

activation or anxious strategies and they're going to try some of that more controlling behavior to try to draw their partner in closer other times they're going to deactivate and they're going to get really critical about their partner inside of their

26:31

Speaker A

minds and they're going to look for reasons or excuses to leave a relationship to not have to deal with a problem to minimize their own feelings and other people's feelings so that the problem just kind of goes away without it having

26:41

Speaker A

to be dealt with and what that means is that to heal the fearful avoidance needs to use strategies from both the anxious and avoidant type so they need to learn to become comfortable with themselves and comfortable alone but they also need

26:52

Speaker A

to learn how to show up for themselves take their own emotions seriously take other people's emotions seriously and what they really have to watch out for in this process is not ricocheting too far in one direction or the other so

27:03

Speaker A

because the fearful avoidance type does have both of these strategies there can be this tendency for fearful avoidance to get into a relationship and have all of their anxious strategies activated so for years at a time they could become

27:16

Speaker A

completely enmeshed have few to no boundaries in relationships um feel very very fearful of the relationship ending or their partner leaving especially if they're with a partner who's a bit more avoidant than they are but then get out of a relationship and

27:29

Speaker A

just go to town on their avoidance strategies so they might spend years alone and feel super happy and super comfortable as a general rule fearful avoidance tend to feel more comfortable out of relationships than they do in relationships

27:41

Speaker A

because they are able to self-regulate once their anxious strategies are not activated so they'll kind of get out of something that might have been very chaotic and full on and intense and they might feel like okay i'm doing the work

27:52

Speaker A

on myself i'm figuring out how to be alone and then when i go back into a partnership i'll be healthier but what they're actually doing is just going to town with their avoidance strategies and they are minimizing their own

28:01

Speaker A

emotions minimizing others emotions telling themselves they don't need a partner they don't need closeness they don't need intimacy and then the first second that something happens maybe they get rejected maybe something gets triggered that makes them really want comfort and

28:13

Speaker A

warmth and closeness and intimacy and because they didn't develop true self-soothing strategies they only developed avoidance strategies which don't help you when real hard emotions come along they'll turn right back to what they know which is a codependent enmeshed

28:28

Speaker A

relationship and they'll get stuck in this kind of continuous cycle where they're just ricocheting between their two strategies rather than actually doing the healing work that's necessary to live in the middle ground so again fearful avoidance have the

28:39

Speaker A

world view of i'm not okay you're not okay so they're very critical about themselves and they're also very critical of other people particularly their intimate partnerships so something i've seen a lot with fearful avoidance is that they get stuck

28:50

Speaker A

in these relationships where they believe that they're tricked into being there in some way that they don't really want to be there but they don't know how to leave because they have that critical view of self so they need others to soothe the

29:01

Speaker A

view of self but they also have that same critical view of others that avoidant people do so instead of idealizing their partner and feeling like they're excited to be in their relationship the way you often see with anxious partnerships

29:12

Speaker A

with the fearful avoidant they often feel like my partner and i are in this like mutual hostage situation where we know each other's worst sides and that's why we can't leave and that's why i can't get out because i

29:22

Speaker A

don't know how to give myself the love and care that i need in this moment but i also have very very critical views of other people so my partner is someone i don't necessarily respect i don't necessarily feel excited by i

29:36

Speaker A

don't necessarily feel like i want to spend my life with and this is often true no matter which partnership they end up with because that mutual sense of intimacy is what triggers their avoidance response so as soon as they get the sense of intimacy

29:47

Speaker A

from someone that they initially desire their avoidance strategies kick in and they go into criticism mode and then they will feel like they're in this relationship where they don't understand why they're staying but they don't know how to leave

29:57

Speaker A

that's not always how it works but as a general rule that tends to be a pattern that comes up again and again with fearful avoidance that gets stuck in very dysfunctional relationships and when you look at the history of the

30:06

Speaker A

fearful avoidant it makes a lot of sense because they often grow up in a very dysregulated home environment so what that means is a family dynamic where people were not encouraged to have their own boundaries to have their own sense of

30:17

Speaker A

self there was a lot of enmeshment and any of the insecurely attached types you'll often see this with but what happened with the fearful avoidant was they learned that my needs will get taken care of only if someone else's needs are soothed

30:30

Speaker A

before mine so what that absolutely sets them up for is taking on the savior role in the drama triangle so the fearful avoidance tends to unconsciously believe that i will only have my needs met once i first save someone else from

30:42

Speaker A

something difficult or challenging that they're going through so the fearful avoidance thinks that love means being needed and that's often why they end up in these relationships that they feel very resentful about so they're not consciously walking around going okay who's the most messed

30:54

Speaker A

up partner i can find but they do have a very strong tendency to gravitate towards people who will need them in some way so people who maybe have extreme emotional regulation problems who have very bad attachment issues who have substance abuse problems

31:07

Speaker A

or something else in their life that makes them kind of a victim to their own psychology and the fearful avoidant will naturally seek these people out because they have a negative view of self okay so like the anxious attachment style fearful

31:20

Speaker A

avoidance feels like they're kind of inherently flawed or broken and they could only be loved by someone who is just as inherently flawed and broken as they are and remember the savior role in the drama triangle is not

31:32

Speaker A

true savioring it is not true help it's a creation of a codependent relationship where both people need each other to stay regulated and neither one is truly independent or truly thriving so the fearful avoidant will often feel like i'm gonna

31:44

Speaker A

help this person but what they're actually doing is creating a dynamic where that person needs them to feel okay and so the longer the relationship goes on the worse both people's mental health and independence and coping abilities tend to become rather than the better

31:56

Speaker A

now the opposite of the savior role in the drama triangle is the coach position so the coach intuitively believes i am okay other people are okay and this is the absolute opposite of what the fearful avoidant naturally believes

32:08

Speaker A

the coach believes i have the ability to self-regulate set boundaries and keep myself okay and so do other people so to step into the coach position as a fearful avoidant means letting go of this idea that your partner needs you and won't be okay

32:23

Speaker A

without you it means letting go of this idea that other people are messes and that you are a mess and that love is a mutual hostage situation relationships are not supposed to be about two people keeping each other's

32:35

Speaker A

most horrific secrets relationships are supposed to be about two people who are whole individuals coming together and choosing to support each other without enmeshment without needing each other without feeling like one will absolutely never be okay if the

32:50

Speaker A

other one leaves and if you feel like that's true about your partner as a fearful avoidant there is like a 99 chance it's true about you you think you're the one who's not gonna be okay if someone stops needing you

33:01

Speaker A

stepping into coach position means finally taking responsibility and acknowledging that you are playing a very large part in keeping your relationships codependent that when you are out of relationship you are not truly fulfilling or self-actualizing what you're doing is ignoring your own

33:16

Speaker A

emotional needs and then letting this pile of need grow and grow and grow until it overwhelms you and forces you back into what you know which is a codependent relationship and if you can take responsibility for the way that you have been

33:28

Speaker A

living in these extremes and creating this unbelievable chasm of need inside of you you can start healing it you have to be willing to look at other people as autonomous independent and capable of solving their own problems and for you

33:42

Speaker A

that's scary because if other people are capable of solving their own problems you kind of feel like well wait what's my role if i'm not needed how am i going to get love you're going to start giving it to yourself

33:51

Speaker A

just like the anxious style and if you didn't watch the anxious style i want you to rewind the video to the beginning and watch the advice that's given for the anxious attachment style stepping out of the drama triangle

34:01

Speaker A

you need to do the same work you need to start showing up for yourself re-parenting yourself giving yourself the love the compassion the closeness the care the intimacy that you're constantly seeking from other people and you also need to do the avoidant

34:15

Speaker A

work of learning to take your own emotions seriously take other people's emotions seriously accepting that you will be dealing with unreasonable people but that you can still choose reasonable responses in those situations so the fearful avoidance also has this

34:29

Speaker A

kind of soulmate fantasy where they believe okay my soulmate is out there but i'm not good enough for them yet so i'm going to sit here and kind of quietly develop myself into the kind of person that my soul mate would want to be with

34:40

Speaker A

that idea has to go out the window you have to do the work of making yourself feel okay and good and whole in or out of a relationship with or without your soulmate and you also have to do the work of

34:52

Speaker A

bringing your worldview to a place where you trust rely on and feel like you can be interdependent with other people without anyone having to keep anyone's deep dark secrets okay so you really have to start practicing interdependence what does

35:04

Speaker A

that mean it means showing up in friendships more honestly so that you don't feel like your intimate partners or your attachment figures are the only people who really know you or who you can really tell your true self to it means

35:16

Speaker A

starting to take terms like self-love and self-care seriously instead of laughing them off and pretending that you're above that kind of stuff it means learning to trust that other people can take care of themselves and that might mean bringing some people into your

35:31

Speaker A

social circle who are more secure who are more self-sufficient who can model for you that other people are okay when they're on their own but that that doesn't mean that people don't want close happy fulfilling relationships one of the most important pieces of work

35:45

Speaker A

the fearful avoidant will ever do is learning to set boundaries within relationships they have this tendency to minimize their own needs like the avoidant so intensely that they don't even know what they want or need out of a

35:58

Speaker A

relationship they feel extreme guilt around the fact that they have needs and then when they get into a relationship there's this deep form of enmeshment that happens because all of their boundaries go out the window in order for you to be healthy in a

36:10

Speaker A

relationship as a fearful avoidant you have to learn when i'm feeling something in a relationship it's okay for me to bring it up address it and set a boundary until you can do that you're probably not ready to be in a serious or healthy

36:22

Speaker A

relationship or if you are that's something that you're gonna really really need to put some work into and in order to set a boundary you have to operate under the belief that the other person will be okay if

36:33

Speaker A

you set a boundary that they will find a way to figure out what they need to do on their own and that they will be an autonomous human being and that that will actually be better for them in the long run than

36:42

Speaker A

you enabling them so codependence anonymous is another awesome resource for the fearful avoidant just like the anxious style you have to start operating under the assumption that you're powerless over other people all you can focus on is your own growth

36:55

Speaker A

your own development and your own relationship with yourself which will naturally radiate outward into more positive and more growing relationships with people around you so stepping into that coach position means accepting that you have endless possibilities and the people around you

37:09

Speaker A

also have endless possibilities and you can choose to co-create an incredible environment with people but it has to be both of you showing up to the table as your whole selves and if you don't yet feel like a whole

37:21

Speaker A

person that's just a sign that it's time for you to take some time focus on yourself learn to set boundaries with yourself so that you can do it with other people once you enter back into relationship now again with all of these and

37:33

Speaker A

everything we just talked about this is step one okay attachment healing is such a long road it took you decades to form these patterns of thought right so you don't change them overnight you don't change them in six months you

37:46

Speaker A

change them by doing hard intensive daily work on your own mindset that goes on for the rest of your life but it's so so possible to make really big changes along the way if you're just showing up honestly for yourself

38:00

Speaker A

and you're able to catch yourself every time you're in the drama triangle and go i'm in the drama triangle right now i can choose a different response it starts there and we'll talk a lot more about what comes next soon but that's the beginning

38:14

Speaker A

it's just being aware watching yourself move through your life and notice when am i feeling like the answer to my problem lies outside of myself and that is always always the place you need to start and of course want to remind you that if you

38:27

Speaker A

are an enfp or an infp personality type i run soul bootcamp programs on my website www.heidiprebe.com you can go there and check those out and i will see you next time for more videos on attachment style personality type or

38:39

Speaker A

whatever else you guys want to talk about here alright love you all stay regulated [Music]

Topics: attachment styles drama triangle anxious attachment avoidant attachment fearful avoidant disorganized attachment victim persecutor rescuer relationships self-regulation boundaries

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