I came across the following description of the writer Grace Paley in a sixteen-year-old Guardian article: “A feminist who loved men and, in her own words, a ‘combative pacifist’.”
That’s me! I thought.
Of course if you know me IRL and we’ve had an argument, you might disagree with the pacifist part? Or perhaps, we simply have different attachment styles?
I’m referring to attachment theory, which is a psychological theory—with five decades of research behind it—that “posits that infants need to form a close relationship with at least one primary caregiver to ensure their survival, and to develop healthy social and emotional functioning.”1
We just need one. One measly primary caregiver who actually cares! (Using the word measly here as a gigantic, not-very-funny joke, obviously.) Point being, depending on how well or poorly or somewhere-in-between this early attachment went, the child grows up to be an adult with one of the following four attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized.
Secure is pretty self-explanatory, no?
This sentence from this online Cleveland Clinic article made me lol: “Babies who form secure attachments to their primary caregiver are more likely to become adults who confidently seek out healthy relationships.” For those of us without that early secure attachment: what an interesting concept—to “confidently seek out healthy relationships”? Wow.
When I first read the following description of someone with an anxious attachment style as having “the tendency to move toward [their] partner in an attempt to close the emotional distance,” a bunch of inner air horns sounded off, especially as contrasted with someone with avoidant attachment who instead “tend[s] to pull away or shut down in order to protect the relationship from conflict.”
As for the last style, disorganized, it’s all there in the name. People with this style, according to that same Cleveland Clinic article, “can be seen to act irrationally and be unpredictable or intense in their relationships.”
Maybe you’re thinking: But Amelia, there’s a major presidential election in one week. Why do I even care about any of this? There are more important things than one’s attachment-style!
To which I would answer: But because of my direct and oftentimes confrontational attachment-style, I have learned that this doesn’t work with a large swath of the population. To go at these people with your strong point of view only scares the shit out of them, only pushes them farther away. Trust me, I know.
I’ve briefly written about this before, but demanding that my mom vote for Biden in 2020 didn’t “work.” I mean, I don’t know. Maybe she did vote for him in the end, but I couldn’t physically be in the voting booth with her to get any confirmation. And two: the whole dynamic between us didn’t feel very, uhm, good. Like being forced to apologize to someone with whom you aren’t actually sorry. What did I really accomplish there?
Maybe this explains part of my aversion to activism writ-large. Because so much of it feels like I’m getting yelled at by someone who isn’t at peace with themselves. Not that I’m at peace with myself, but I know that I’m in a much better place than I was in 2020.
For example, instead of texting/ reaching out to people in my life who have insinuated or even straightforwardly said that they’re opting out of voting in the presidential election, I am writing this here Substack post. Instead of sending them articles about how this non-choice, this avoidance makes no sense to me, I drew a complicated New-Yorker-style cartoon about it!
Also, for the record: I’m voting for Kamala Harris. Does she check every box for me? No! But have I been to the DMV recently and while there, understood in a very tangible, whole-body way that humanity is vast and complicated and that to find a presidential candidate who could tick every box for me personally is an incredibly unrealistic ask? YES.
On that note, best of luck to us all. And see you on the other side! 🙏
Omggggg that cartoon!! And based on it alone I have an M&M attachment style 💔 PS combative pacifist!! Unruly lovers of men unite 🇺🇸
“Because so much of it feels like I’m getting yelled at by someone who isn’t at peace with themselves.” So relatable. And also the amount of hours I’ve spent over the last 2 weeks debating with myself whether I should broach this topic with MY mom. It is a second job I am not getting paid for. 🫣😫