Anxious Attachments

I have been convinced that in order to have a closeness and connection with my friends that I needed to put them first and allow their needs and feelings to prioritise my own, even if it made me feel unhappy and as a result my anxiety would escalate, at times to something that I could not control, if anything they had the control.

It was like there was no boundaries set in place, I was emotionally taken advantage of and at times they sure as hell knew it, all for what? 

The “what” was to protect myself from confrontation, keeping the peace and what I thought at the time, helping my anxiety and wellbeing, when in fact I had absolutely no control of the outcome or the duration, I could be emotionally and physically drained by those I thought were my friends.

I stopped looking at the good times we shared and started to build resentment because as friends was it not that give and take came from both sides?

I became hypervigilant and my brain would fill in the gaps, catastrophising normal situations, that it wasn’t until I became very ill from it and that I felt worthless and wanted to end my life, it was only then that I started to realise that I needed to heal myself but in order to do so I had to start somethings and stop others, I needed to stop acting on the things that were created in my head, stop being around toxic people and start putting myself first, advocating my own feelings and needs, doing things I always wanted to do but couldn’t because I put others first, start pushing people away that hurt me in the past.

Since your brain is not wired in your best interests but instead in just keeping you safe I had to understand this first before I could act on it.  Now if I get an intrusive thought I need to acknowledge it, thank my brain for attempting to help me and then telling my brain that this thought is not helpful, if you don’t do this your brain just keeps on throwing this thought at you time and time again and not in a good way, it goes from an alert to an alarm to whaling siren.

Now I am starting to understand this I am also starting to heal.