Attachments
- Lindsey Lykins
- Jun 19, 2023
- 2 min read
Often times I find myself attached to people who have shown little interest in being a part of my life. Whether it's because I've created a narrative in my head that I'm more important than I am or I've read too far into things beyond what they were, it happens more times than I'd like to admit and took time for me to realize it wasn't my fault. Growing up with an emotionally neglectful father, I became good at imagining love where love did not exist. As a child, this was my survival tool. Through the abuse and the neglect, I continued to believe and imagine that deep down there was someone there who loved and cared about me when in reality there wasn't. As a child, this coping skill saved me a lot of trauma and heartache, but as an adult this has really skewed my perceptions of healthy relationships. The love I had was a figment of my imagination. The person I created in my mind didn't even exist in my reality, and that was a hard concept for me to understand.
If you find yourself having relationships with people who do not value you the same way and are more concerned with the power dynamic than the connection, you do not have a relationship, you have an attachment. This attachment is not a reflection of you, but a reflection of what you never received. While this is not your fault, unfortunately, it is your burden to correct.
Here are a few of my favorite reminders when it comes to relationships and attachments:
A relationship without emotional safety is not a relationship it's an attachment.
If someone shows you that they are not able to love you in the way you need, it is not an invitation for you to convince them otherwise.
The longer you hold on to people who do not serve to better your life, the longer you delay the life that's meant for you.
Sometimes we hold onto relationships not because we need them, but because we don't know who we are without them.
and last and most importantly
5. There is a HUGE difference between making a relationship work and betraying
yourself in order to make it work.
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