What if Self Love can Only Happen through Another?

a pointing to help you save yourself

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

I’ve had many unhealthy relationships in my life. I’ve gone long periods of time (like years and years) without commitment, but rarely ever longer than a few months without having someone (or a few someones) just a text away.

I’ve been unable to be alone.

This isn’t to say I haven’t been lonely. There is a difference. I know the experience of loneliness very, very well.

But being alone, and fully content within that state of being, has been something that never felt natural to me— never felt safe on a fundamental level of my beingness.

Why? Why not?

Why can some people feel perfectly secure being alone (as in, not having any current love interests for lengthy periods of time) and others cannot?

Why can some people easily have happy, healthy relationships and others cycle through toxic after toxic relationship?

Why do some people seem to be naturally, effortlessly secure and confident and others of us seem to be plagued with never ending cycles of depression and anxiety?

And what about addiction? How does that play into all this?

Buckle up friends, we’re going for a ride.

Cue Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory is a social science theory developed in the 60s that helps explain how humans form and experience closeness with others and how we experience our environments. If you want to listen to a super awesome podcast getting into the nitty gritty of Attachment Style (+ authenticity + addiction), listen here.

Long story short, there was an experiment done with toddlers, mothers, and strangers. It went something like this: mom and baby go into a new, strange room (that the toddler had never been in before) that has some toys laying around and a stranger sitting in a chair. Eventually mom leaves the toddler in the room alone with the stranger and the toys. Then mom comes back into the room.

The purpose of the experiment was to observe the different ways the toddlers reacted to mom leaving and returning.

The scientists found three different, very distinct ways the toddlers behaved:

1. Secure- the toddler got a little upset when mom left, but it was brief. Then the toddler got curious about the space, started exploring, played with some toys. When mom came back, toddler was happy to see mom.

2. Anxious (or it’s sometimes called Ambivalent)- the toddler freaked the eff out when mom left. Screaming, crying, inconsolable. The toddler did not calm down, did not get curious about the environment or room, and freaked the eff out even more when/if the stranger tried to console them. When mom came back, the toddler was very angry and emotional but eventually was soothed when once again, mom was there caring for them.

3. Avoidant- the toddler didn’t give a fuck. Mom left and the toddler barely noticed or cared. The toddler was not curious about the room and didn’t play with the toys. When mom came back, toddler was indifferent.

*Note: later on other scientists found/labeled a 4th style, called disorganized attachment, which is a combination of anxious and avoidant, and is super super rare.

Through much more research, social science has been able to link these three different styles of relating to how we form and experience relationships as adults.

As you might guess, whatever attachment style you develop as a baby, you end up having as an adult. These styles of relating are quite literally programmed and conditioned into our nervous systems. They are unconscious, but hold these underlying core beliefs:

1. Secure attachment- there are people in my life I can depend on to meet my needs, physically and emotionally. I am cared for and loved just as I am. I can be my authentic self and someone will love me and care for me.

2. Anxious attachment- I can sometimes depend on people, but not always. And I don’t know when I can so I have to always be on the lookout. Sometimes, if I make myself loud and big enough, the people who are supposed to care for me will hear me and meet my needs. I am cared for and loved only sometimes and I have to be/behave a certain way to get that care and love.

3. Avoidant attachment- I cannot depend on others to meet my needs, so I have to do it myself, or try to just not have needs. It’s safer for me to not try to depend on anyone. No matter what I do, I am not cared for and loved, so I push everyone away and choose to be alone.

It’s important to note here that one person can have different attachment styles across different types of relationships. This attachment style test is one of the best out there (it’s free!) and shows you your different styles in your relationships with parents/caregivers, friends, romantic partners, and overall in general.

I, for example, look like this: with my parents I have an avoidant style, with my friends I am secure, with romantic partners I am anxious.

How can that be? How can I be secure with friends and anxious with boyfriends?

As adults, our attachment styles become most salient, or show themselves the most, in our romantic/sexual relationships. Whether this is because of biology or overculture, we tend to put more value on romantic partnerships than we do on other types of relationships in our lives, like friendships or professional relationships.

In romantic relationships, we create dependency (whether that’s codependency or interdependency) more than we do in other relationships. So, as far as attachment goes, it is within our romantic relationships that we are more likely to form attachment bonds. These are the people we most want to depend on to be there for us, to meet our emotional needs, to love us as our authentic selves.

This isn’t to say attachment bonds cannot be formed between friends. They certainly can. But, why can I form secure attachment with friends but not with romantic partners? Because of the value I place on these relationships. And also because of biology. Needless to say, our attachment system is always evolving.

These styles are not fixed.

Think of them as being on a spectrum. Every single social experience you have influences your style. Our brains are not static. They are adaptive and are constantly changing and evolving. In fact, the only thing that is fixed about this, is the constant change.

And the fact that we all actually have attachment needs. For the avoidant in particular, it’s easy for this style to convince themself they do not have attachment needs (because they were programmed to silence those needs). But y’all, we’re all human beings.

We are social creatures. Literally, we would die without each other. Our brains develop through social interaction. We are dependent on connection to be well. Don’t believe me? Check out this Harvard Study. It’s the longest study every conducted (85+ years) on human happiness. You know what the strongest predictor of human health and happiness is? You guessed it, relationships.

We need relationships. We need connection. We need to have people in our lives we can depend on to meet our emotional needs.

But— can we have this if we do not first love ourselves?

If we lack self love, can we have happy and healthy relationships with others?

Have you ever heard anyone say something akin to the following:

• You have to love yourself before you love another.

• I can’t be in a relationship until I love myself.

• I can’t love you if you don’t love yourself.

• You’re hard to love because you don’t love yourself.

• You need to have self love for anyone else to love you.

You get the jist. The dominant, intrusive, and misleading idea here is that self love is a prerequisite for true love with another. And worse, that self love is isolated and contained to, well, the self. It’s something you do alone— by your self. It’s fully your responsibility. It’s up to you to create self love within yourself.

I call bullshit.

Let’s go back to Attachment Theory. The anxious and avoidant toddlers grow up to be for all intents and purposes, dysfunctional. They are not able to have healthy relationships. This also means that generally speaking, they are less healthy than those lucky toddlers who had parents who consistently met their needs and infused them with a secure nervous/attachment system. Us anxious and avoidant folk— we grow up to be less physically healthy, more likely to be addicted, less professionally successful, and just generally a lot less happier than our secure counterparts.

Both anxious and avoidant styles experience insecurity in their relationships and their environments. And let me pause for a moment here with a mini soap box spill about the word/concept of “insecurity.”

Insecure means emotionally unsafe. Let me say it louder for those in the back:

FEELING INSECURE MEANS YOU FEEL EMOTIONALLY UNSAFE.

This word, ‘insecure’ is often used as an insult; thrown as a dagger. It’s used to blame someone for their lack or their unwillingness to do the “self work“ necessary to become secure, confident, and full of self-esteem.

No. This mindset is not only wrong, it’s harmful.

The word ‘insecure’ comes from the Medieval Latin word ‘insecurus,’ which means unsafe. To be insecure is to be emotionally unsafe. To be emotionally unsafe is to be someone who has experienced internal nervous system dysregulation as a result of trauma or unsafe experiences others inflicted on them. People who are “insecure” need compassion; they need safe people and safe experiences.

People who are ‘insecure’ are people who 1) do not believe they can be authentic (and really probably don’t fully know how to) and have their emotional needs met and 2) have nervous systems/bodies that behave in accordance with this false core belief.

We probably all know by now that our bodies keep the score. You can logically know something is wrong/not good for you (like texting the person 10 times in a row when they don’t respond to you), but feel a sense of powerlessness over the behavior.

You can be in freeze or fight mode (like being defense and insulting someone who you genuinely want connection with but you have an avoidant attachment system so it’s safer to push everyone away) and a small part of your brain is going, “it’s okay, calm down” but your body is freaking out and cannot center itself.

So, what’s the remedy then? Self love?

Is it hot baths, long walks, and nutritious meals? Maybe it’s self help books/podcasts, therapy, and journaling?

In part, yes. But only in small part.

What if self love means having a secure (read: emotionally safe) attachment/nervous system?

What if loving myself means doing things that rewire my brain to move along the spectrum from insecure to secure ways of being in relationships and in the world?

What if the things to do to achieve this are not solo acts of self care, but are instead, all relational?

What if self love is simply securely relating?

What if self love is allowing another to love you?

Read that again.

Self love cannot happen in isolation. Now, do not get confused: self care (the baths, walks, meals, books, journaling, meditating, hobbies, etc) can and should happen by your self— and these are all things that will help regulate your nervous system and are useful tools to have in your toolbox. But they are not self love. And they are not the solution to creating self love in your life. They will not bring you any closer to self love.

The only thing that will bring you closer to self love, is healthy, safe love with another.

This idea that healing nervous system havoc that was caused with/by another can only be healed by/with another is becoming a more and more popular paradigm in the mental health world. I keep coming back to this interview as an example of this concept.

But how can this be? How can self love be about another?

The anxious and avoidant folks (you securely attached do not suffer from lack of self love, so be on your merry way)- we become insecure through our earliest and most formative relationships— those with our caregivers.

Our internal systems, our neurology, our nervous systems, formed in a way that told us and others: love is not safe, secure, or dependable.

We, quite literally, developed without self love, because we developed without secure, safe, dependable love from others.

To heal this, we have to return to relationships. We are social creatures. We have social brains. We depend on connection, and love/relationships, for our health and happiness— for our very survival.

The only way to reprogram our insecure attachment systems is with secure connection.

We have to relearn. We have to re-relate. We have to learn our styles (take that quiz!), understand how it shows up in our behaviors, and then we have to choose to have relationships anyway.

Vulnerability is necessary here. Our truth is that we don’t love ourselves because no one has ever loved us unconditionally, just as we were/are in our authentic selves as humans who have basic survival needs for connection, love, and security. We have to be vulnerable in holding that truth— in showing it to another.

But the others we choose to show this truth to matter; they matter a lot. Who you choose to share this vulnerability with can make the difference between your core insecurity getting deeper, or new, secure pathways in your brain forming. We must choose safe people. People who won’t judge us. People who won’t say “you’re too needy or too insecure” to be with. But instead, people who will be with us and let us be who we are, and still love us, still care for us by simply being present with us in that experience.

Self love is about allowance. I will love myself by allowing another to see my vulnerabilities and fears. I will love myself by allowing another to help me learn what true, unconditional love is, and in doing so, care for me in the way my primary caregivers were never able to when I was a child.

I will love myself by allowing another to love me just as I am.

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I want to share a final few thoughts, because it’s something I came across a lot in my own journey of understanding attachment styles, self love, and how to heal all of this, and I feel like it’s very very important.

Let’s talk about the difference between addiction and insecure attachment.

If you’ve been following my writing for very long, you know I am an addict (of substance use) in recovery. In learning about attachment styles, especially my own style of anxious attachment, I have read and seen A LOT about the concept of “love addiction.”

I’ve seen the two terms used interchangably, as if it is the same thing. I’ve seen a lot of addiction language used to explain the experience of anxious attachment feelings and behaviors. In fact, in a relationship I was in where my anxious attachment system was fully activated and I was engaging in protest behaviors (imagine the inconsolable toddler), I’ve been directly told, “you’re using me like a drug.” I’ve had other people tell me I am a love addict. And, I get it.

The two look a lot alike.

They are a lot alike. Secure connection = oxytocin, the love hormone. It feels good. It soothes us. And, it’s not unhealthy or harmful to want/reach for experiences that release this chemical in our brain. On the contrary, it’s actually unhealthy and harmful to not reach for it. But the how you reach, of course, matters, and I believe it’s where the mix up between addiction versus an activated attachment system happens.

Addiction does not create addiction. Trauma creates addiction. A wrecked nervous system that’s a result of trauma creates addiction.

The behaviors of an anxiously attached person who is experiencing separation from their attachment person looks a lot like a drug addict in withdraw. Think of the inconsolable toddler freaking the fuck out when mom leaves the room. In a grown up romantic relationship, the “freaking the fuck out” often looks like what’s called “protest behaviors”: nonstop attempts at contact, manipulation, anger.

These are all ways of getting louder or bigger in an attempt to be seen/heard/have the need met. And yes, they definitely look like someone desperately trying to get a fix. And in a way, that’s true. This person with an anxious attachment system that’s activated in that moment is trying to get a fix— they are trying to fix the problem of not having their attachment needs met. They are trying to fix their dysregulated nervous system by having a basic human need met: safe, secure connection.

For avoidants, in the world of sex and love addiction, they would be called “love/sex anorexics.” They aren’t seen as addicts to the extent that anxious attached folks are, because the avoidants are not chasing love, they are running from it.

But the key similarity here is that both types of attachment styles and their corresponding behaviors are rooted in the same thing: insecurity— i.e. emotional unsafety. Their behaviors that arise when their insecure attachment system is activated are attempts (however unhealthy and maladaptive the attempts are) for emotional safety.

When the anxious attached person protests or the avoidant attached person runs, they are doing so in direct response to their programmed nervous systems, in moments these systems get activated (for the anxious is when their partner moves away from them and for the avoidant, it’s when their partner moves towards them). Again, both types of behaviors are subconscious attempts to experience emotional safety. They are seeking out emotional regulation in quite literally the only way their bodies know how to do. Yes, these behaviors are maladaptive— they do not create true authentic emotional safety. They do not create self love.

And it’s because these behaviors are maladaptive that they can easily become confused with addiction.

But there is one key, vital difference.

Maladaptive coping behaviors triggered by an activated/dysregulated attachment system, are still attempts at emotional safety. And because emotional safety is inherently relational, these attempts are at their root, movements towards connection.

Addiction on the other hand, is about escapism. Addiction is also a maladaptive coping mechanism, often rooted in trauma. But addiction is not an attempt at creating connection. It is a move towards separateness and isolation. It is a way to cope with feeling disconnected. Addiction is a way to escape hard feelings, not move towards them.

There’s a saying in 12 step programs: connection is the opposite of addiction.

This is the difference between a person with an insecure attachment system and an addict: the former is trying to move towards connection, the latter is moving away from it.

There’s a lot more I could say about this, but to be frank, I need to chew on it more. The more I learn about Attachment Theory and the more I learn about “love addiction,” the more I am starting to believe love addiction is a false, harmful concept. (Note: this is separate from sex/porn addiction, which are very real addictions.) But love?

Can we really be addicted to love? Or is it perhaps that we simply do not know true unconditional love— do not know the experience of self love— because our very beingness was programmed in its lack? If this is the case, are we “addicted” to trying to experience true, safe, secure love? What are the ramifications of viewing it this way?

I know for me, I am an addict because I chose to use a substance over and over again at first because it felt good, then because it was like a medicine, and finally because it felt like I had to/it was a compulsion. Because I had parents who are addicts (genetics) and experienced trauma in childhood (environment), I had a high likelihood of developing addiction. Some theories might say addiction is a disease and we do not have choice in the matter. I believe it is a disease, and I believe some of us are much much much more likely to get it than others. But I believe it’s our choices (however limited they are) that create the dis-ease.

Insecure attachment, on the other hand, is not a choice. It happens to us. Our only choice in the matter is to create consciousness around it, and then heal it by allowing secure love into our worlds.

My parents did not make me an addict. They did make me (knowingly or not, most often it’s unknowingly) have an insecure attachment system, which contributed to my likelihood and choices to become an addict.

If you want to learn more about love addiction, start here. I suppose all of the “characteristics of love addicts” could be applied to insecure attachment systems. But if you view these characteristics through a lens of addiction rather than attachment theory, you might believe the “love addict” is using “love” or maladaptive behaviors around love/relationships as a way to escape hard emotions, rather than as a (failed) way to move closer to safe, secure love, as an insecurely attached person would do.

Both of these paradigms offer tools/steps/remedies to create more balanced, healthy relationships. But one happens to you and the other happens because of your choices.

Could the concept of “love addiction” be merely another western, capitalistic attempt at colonizing our bodies, our very beingness, and our relationships and behaviors, in a failed attempt at medicalization? Are we “love addicts” or do we simply have an insecure attachment system? Can we be both?

Lots to unpack there ;) I think I’ll save it for another rainy day.

For now, friends, I leave you with this: self love is relational.

You want to experience true self love in your life? Get vulnerable. Choose to allow safe people to love you in that vulnerability.

Healing is possible. But it’s your responsibility, and it’s your privilege.

No one can save you. Only you can save you. But you can only save yourself through allowing another to save you with safe love.

Hold this ^^ paradox. Let it permeate in you. Let it touch your deepest part of self and filter under your masks and infuse your heart.

You deserve love because you are alive.

Blessed be.