I felt like this week had been more positive for me in terms of feeling mentally stronger and more in control, then I ended up throwing up on the drive back from Nottingham which was the worst thing for me. I absolutely hate being sick and to then have to travel back another 1-2 hours home wasn’t pleasant. I am very lucky to have been travelling with such amazing people who took control of the situation and then proceeded to tell me even worse stories about their friends in order to make me feel less humiliated.

Therapy had been a good session this week; I went into it with a much clearer head and the week had been fairly uneventful in terms of triggers so it was nice to not just spew all the emotions and thoughts out at once. Also, Emily had evaluated the attachment style quiz so I was intrigued to hear her thoughts.

Emily told me that we have a primary attachment style which comes from our upbringing and our relationships with others. Then we have our secondary attachment style which can come out when we are unsettled by things. In my personal case, my primary one is secure, and secondary is anxious. This surprised me slightly because I didn’t think I’d necessarily be secure after what’s happened, but apparently so. The anxious part didn’t shock me whatsoever!

What this means, is that my relationships with others are healthy and often long-term; I trust people and I am able to share my feelings and be open. This is true when I look at my platonic relationships or my family. The majority of my friends are people I’ve been friends with for 10+ years and I find it easy to make new ones. However, when I look at my romantic relationships, this is a whole different kettle of fish – for the most part. And from what Emily’s taught me, I’m guessing that this is where the anxious attachment comes out more. In my romantic relationships, more often than not there has been infidelity or lies which has led to a huge mistrust in people and caused a lot of anxiety.

When you have an anxious attachment, it is often based around abandonment, fear of being left by people or being unappreciated. I guess the reason behind this being my secondary style is due to the lack of stability and faithfulness in my past relationships; often making me worried that history will repeat itself.

I find the whole attachment theory really interesting and the more I learn about it, the more sense I get from it about how things have played out and why people act the way they do. I have always been fascinated by people and their behaviours so this therapy is beneficial to me from this perspective also. It is helping me learn more about others as well as myself; this can only be a good thing and will hopefully enable me to move forward.