I'm weird about hugs. Always have been. So many times in my life, I have longed for easy expression of physical affection with friends, and yet, with most people, when the time comes to hug goodbye I am stiff and awkward and stressed and rushing for it to be as brief as possible. The thing is, I would never have characterized this to myself as me not wanting to hug. Because internally I felt such a strong longing for that type of closeness. And, I ewanted it to be easy and chill and not a big deal. Often I would find that people who are usually huggers would stop trying to hug me, or people would point out that it seems like I'm not into hugs. This was always so frustrating and confusing to me because it seemed like I was giving off signals that were the exact opposite of what I really wanted. It would also add to this sense that I'm somehow different from other people, that there is something wrong with me. This would increase my stress and my shame and make hugging people even harder.
I prefer the name 'disorganized attachment' to the name 'fearful avoidant attachment'. The reason for this is that disorganized attachment is characterized by intense longing for connection along with intense repulsion in response to attachment. It is not exclusively or even necessarily primarily an avoidant style, and characterizing it as a type of avoidance means that people who disorganized but have strong anxious traits often take a long time to realize they are disorganized. This happened to me. I have a pattern of being strongly anxious preoccupied with one person and strongly avoidant with everyone else. This sucks in general and especially sucks in the context of polyamory. I also see myself as someone who deeply values and desires connections, so I really didn't think of myself as avoidant. It's also truth that in general, anxious feelings and behaviours are more noticeable than avoidant ones, to the person who has them anyway. Like, it's a fact that in a dynamic between an anxious person and an avoidant person it is far more likely that it will be the anxious person who is desperately trying to figure out what's wrong, and will be the first to find and champion attachment theory. All the while the avoidant will be avoiding the whole thing. The same is true within one person. Because anxious traits are so loud, a disorganized person with anxious traits will be more likely to notice and identify with them, and will avoid noticing or dealing with their avoidant traits.
Finally realizing that I'm disorganized is like having the lights turned on in a room that used to be in total darkness except for a single spotlight. I was so focused on looking at what was in the spotlight, my anxious behaviours and feelings which can be so loud and so all consuming, that I did not notice they were taking place in a context of almost total avoidance. And, in fact, the two things play into each other. The fact that I am so avoidant in the majority of my relationships means that I can't get my needs for closeness and connection met in the majority of my relationships. Despite my stated desire, I always run up against the wall of my own internal pulling away. So, I am starved for connection and profoundly lonely even as I attempt to nurture my various relationships with friends and dates. But there is one place where I can get my needs for closeness and connection met, and that is in the relationship where I am not avoidant. So, I am obsessed with that relationship, will protect it at all costs (or so I think lol but in classic anxious style these attempts are often wacky af and blow up in my face), and I am less interested in pursuing the relationships where I'm avoidant because it feels so much harder, more stressful, and less fun.
Put all of this in a context of polyamory and it can be very stressful. So often the narrative about polyamory is that it's great because you can get your needs met by multiple people. But what if you literally can't? What if your attempts at dating feel forced, and stalled, and stressful? And one of your relationships feels fulfilling and good but you are jealous and preoccupied? You can easily see how anyone could wonder if maybe they are really just actually monogamous if this is the case. And if this person (aka me and probably other poly people with disorganized attachment) tries to talk about this with people they will hear over and over again that maybe they should just be monogamous. It sounds easier and maybe even more natural for a person like this. And hearing this often enough it's hard not to wonder if it's true.
But here's the thing. I have been monogamous and the exact same dynamic plays out. In a monogamous context I am anxious preoccupied with my partner and avoidant with my friends, roommates, and in all my other relationships. In a polyamorous context I am anxious preoccupied with one partner and avoidant with my friends, roommates, dates, and in all my other relationships. So it's actually not that different. And the main reason it seems really different is because of the way we are encouraged to see romantic and sexual connections as profoundly more important and different from other connections. But the reality is, all people need multiple attachment relationships in their lives. None of us can depend solely on one person, whether we are monogamous or not.
The main differences in these two scenarios are: In the polyamorous scenario the disorganized person's anxious preoccupied traits will likely be heightened due to the experience of navigating their partner having romantic and sexual relationships with other people, so it will be harder to 'coast' and will necessitate working on the anxious traits. In the polyamorous scenario the disorganized person will also have more pressures to notice and work on their avoidant traits because they will be seeking more intimacy with more people. And finally, as I mentioned in a previous article, it may be the context of polyamory itself that allows the disorganized person to feel safe enough to seek close connection with thew partner they are anxiously attached to, since the threat on enmeshment is largely removed through polyamory (though, choosing an avoidant partner can serve the same function in a monogamous context).
All of this is to say that, I seem to have secretly created the perfect conditions for me to tackle both my anxious and avoidant traits. And even though there has been much dramatic lamentation over how hard all of this is for me (and much very serious genuine pain), I am also kind of perfectly situated to face both my anxious preoccupied and my avoidant traits head on.
(The way I'm describing disorganized attachment in this article - being more anxiously attached to one person and avoidant with all the rest - is not the only way disorganized attachment can manifest. It's just the particular way mine manifests, though I'm sure there are many who can relate.)
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Clementine Morrigan is a writer and public intellectual based in Montréal, Canada. She writes popular and controversial essays about culture, politics, ethics, relationships, sexuality, and trauma. A passionate believer in independent media, she’s been making zines since the year 2000 and is the author of several books. She’s known for her iconic white-text-on-a-black-background mini-essays on Instagram. One of the leading voices on the Canadian Left and one half of the Fucking Cancelled podcast, Clementine is an outspoken critic of cancel culture and a proponent of building solidarity across difference. She is a socialist, a feminist, and a vegan for the animals and the earth.
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I wish I could like this post a million times. I've had a suspicion for a while that I might express a disorganized attachment style, but i had been told by my therapist for some reason that I was really just anxious preoccupied. I started rereading Jessica fern's polysecure yesterday, and again, those suspicions arose. Then I read this, and your words resonated so deeply with me that I literally started to feel high. Thank you for helping me make sense of myself and my relationships. Again and again and again. 😭💛