When Love Feels Unsafe: Understanding Anxious Attachment

There's a particular kind of confusion that happens when someone gets close and their entire system starts screaming danger. Not because the person has done anything wrong, but because intimacy itself feels threatening.

Many people want connection. They crave it. But the moment someone starts to really see them, really care about them, really get close, they panic. They pull away. They create conflict. They find reasons why this person isn't right for them. They sabotage something that could be good because their nervous system has learned that closeness equals pain.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. And more importantly, you're not broken. You're experiencing what happens when early experiences taught your system that love isn't safe.

The Three-Way Crisis

When someone struggles with anxious attachment, they're not just struggling with romantic relationships. They're experiencing a three-way crisis in how they relate:

How they relate to others. The push-pull dynamic, the fear of abandonment, the constant need for reassurance, or the urge to create distance before getting hurt.

How they relate to themselves. The harsh self-criticism, the difficulty trusting their own feelings, the constant questioning of whether they're too much or not enough.

How they relate to the world. The underlying belief that safety is temporary, that good things don't last, that people will eventually leave.

Here's what I've noticed in my practice: the closer people get to someone with anxious attachment, the more they begin to treat them the same way they treat themselves. If they're harsh with themselves, they create harshness with others. If they don't trust their own feelings, they become suspicious of others' feelings. If they create distance from their own needs, they push people away when they get too close.

The pattern isn't just external it's how they've learned to relate, period.

Where This Honestly Comes From

Attachment researcher John Bowlby said something crucial: "When children feel pervasively angry or guilty or are chronically frightened about being abandoned, they have come by such feelings honestly; that is because of experience."

These feelings aren't made up. They're not character flaws. They're honest responses to what was actually experienced.

If early experiences of closeness involved pain, neglect, inconsistency, or abuse, then the nervous system learns that intimacy equals danger. This isn't a conscious decision, it's a survival adaptation that made perfect sense given what someone was navigating.

Bowlby also noted that "What cannot be communicated to the [m]other cannot be communicated to the self." When early caregivers couldn't hold space for a child's full emotional experience, that person learned to disconnect from those parts of themselves. And what can't be communicated to oneself certainly can't be communicated to others.

The Questions That Keep People Up

Many people struggling with anxious attachment carry questions they're afraid to ask out loud:

"Am I making this up? Maybe my childhood wasn't that bad. Maybe I'm just being dramatic."

"Am I betraying my family by acknowledging that something was missing or harmful in my upbringing?"

"What if I'm wrong about my feelings? What if I'm the problem in all my relationships?"

These questions make sense. If someone learned early on that their perceptions couldn't be trusted, that their feelings were too much or invalid, then of course they question their own reality now. Questioning whether feelings are real is often itself a sign of anxious attachment.

How This Shows Up

The patterns of anxious attachment show up in concrete, often painful ways:

In relationships: Constantly checking if a partner still cares, needing excessive reassurance, or creating tests to see if they'll stay. Alternatively, pushing people away the moment they get close, ending things before being abandoned.

With themselves: Harsh self-talk they'd never direct at a friend. Struggling to trust their own feelings or needs. Feeling guilty for wanting connection or angry at themselves for needing people.

In conflict: Small disagreements feel like threats to the relationship's survival. They become intensely anxious during normal friction, or shut down completely, unable to stay present.

The cruel irony: The closer someone gets, the more these patterns intensify. The people who could provide the corrective experience of safe love are the ones who trigger the deepest defensive responses.

The Mirror Between Internal and External

The way someone treats themselves internally is almost always mirrored in how they eventually treat the people closest to them.

If they're harshly critical of themselves, they'll eventually become critical of their partner, often about the exact things they judge in themselves. If they don't give themselves space to have needs, they'll resent their partner for having needs, or become clingy because they can't self-regulate.

This isn't about blame, it's about understanding that people can't offer others what they can't offer themselves. If someone hasn't learned how to relate to themselves with kindness and safety, they simply don't have that available to give in relationships.

The Path Forward

Many people approach anxious attachment like it's a problem to solve. They read self-help books, try to logic their way out of their feelings, or attempt to will themselves into being different. But you can't think your way out of an attachment wound.

As I often tell clients: you can't do what you want if you don't know what you're doing. This is where self-exploration becomes essential. Not the kind of self-help that tells you to "just communicate better," but the deeper work of understanding how you learned to relate in the first place.

The path to healing follows a specific progression:

First comes safety. This is foundational. Before someone can explore their patterns or try to change them, they need an environment where it's safe to be exactly as they are. This often means working with a therapist who can provide what early relationships couldn't, consistent, attuned presence that doesn't disappear when they're struggling.

Then comes awareness. With safety established, people can begin to recognize their patterns without judgment. They start noticing: "Oh, this is what I do when someone gets close."

Then comes experiential progression. Small steps of trying something different. Not changing everything at once, but practicing new ways of relating in safe contexts.

Finally comes embodiment. The new patterns become integrated into who they are. They don't have to consciously think about staying open or trusting, it becomes their natural response.

This process can't be rushed because each stage builds on the previous one. You can't skip safety and go straight to changing behavior.

Why Professional Support Often Helps

The challenge with healing anxious attachment alone is that someone is trying to provide themselves with something they didn't receive consistent, attuned, safe relationship. They're trying to be their own secure base when they never learned what that feels like.

This is where therapeutic relationships become crucial. Not because there's something wrong that needs fixing, but because healing attachment wounds happens in relationship. People need the experience of being fully seen: including their most vulnerable, anxious parts and still being met with acceptance.

A skilled therapist can provide what Bowlby called a "secure base" a consistent presence that doesn't waver when tested, doesn't disappear when someone is struggling, and doesn't require them to be different than they are.

In my practice here in Sydney, I've seen how transformative it can be when someone finally experiences a relationship where their anxiety doesn't push the other person away. Where they can express anger without being abandoned. Where they can have needs without being shamed.

The Loyalty Bind

There's something else that often comes up when people start recognizing anxious attachment patterns: the feeling that they're betraying their caregivers by acknowledging something was missing.

"They did the best they could. Who am I to say it wasn't enough?"

Many people carry both truths simultaneously: their caregivers probably were doing their best with what they had available, and that best still might not have been what they needed. These aren't contradictory statements, they're both real.

Recognizing that early relationships didn't provide the safety or attunement needed isn't about assigning blame. It's about understanding the actual conditions that shaped the nervous system so someone can work with what is, not what they wish had been.

Wanting to heal isn't a betrayal of anyone. It's an honest acknowledgment of experience.

When Good Relationships Feel Dangerous

One of the most painful aspects of anxious attachment is that it often intensifies in healthy relationships. When someone is with a person who's unavailable or inconsistent, their anxious patterns might feel familiar and manageable. But when they're with someone genuinely available and caring, their system can panic.

This happens because consistent safety is unfamiliar. The nervous system doesn't recognize it as normal, so it feels dangerous. People might find themselves creating problems where none exist, pushing away someone good because the closeness feels overwhelming.

This is why the work isn't just about finding the "right" person. It's about being able to tolerate the unfamiliar experience of being truly safe with someone.

The Relationship With Ourselves

Ultimately, healing anxious attachment requires developing a different relationship with oneself. If someone treats themselves with the same harshness, criticism, and invalidation that they experienced early on, they'll continue to create that dynamic in their external relationships.

This means learning to:

Notice feelings without immediately trying to change them. Trust perceptions even when others might disagree. Hold space for needs without shame. Be present with vulnerability without pushing it away. Offer the same compassion to oneself that you'd offer someone you love.

This isn't about positive affirmations or forcing different thoughts. It's about slowly, experientially learning to be with yourself in a new way.

Moving Forward

If you're recognising yourself in this description of anxious attachment, please know that these patterns don't have to define your future. Yes, they make sense given what you experienced. Yes, they're deeply ingrained. And yes, they can change.

The work isn't about becoming someone different. It's about creating enough safety internally and in relationship with others that you can be fully yourself without fear. It's about learning that closeness doesn't have to equal danger. That your feelings are valid and important. That you can have needs and still be loveable.

This learning happens slowly, through experience, in relationships where you're met with consistency and care. It happens when you finally get to practice being anxious and having that be okay. When you can express anger and not be abandoned. When you can have needs and not be shamed.

You can't do what you want if you don't know what you're doing. And you can't know what you're doing without the safety to explore who you actually are underneath all the protective patterns.

If you're recognising anxious attachment patterns in yourself and feeling ready to explore what healing might look like, you don't have to navigate this alone. Creating safety first with ourselves, then in our relationships is possible with the right support and understanding. Ready to begin that exploration? Reach out to www.nextsteps.au today and let's talk about what developing secure attachment could mean for you.