Attachment...

Post Reply New Topic

I'm going to try to explain this quick.
I've had a lot of problems with being not wanted by people, semi-including my own mother.
It started when I was 8 and I'm now 17 and I have gotten used to it for the most part.
I've felt really strong attachments to 4 people though. 2 of them want nothing to do with me.
The other is an online friend and enjoys that I look up to her as a mom-sort-of-person along as a best friend.
To put it simply, I lost the want to be attached to 99% of people, I'm depressed, and the 1% I do get attached to...it's extreme.
Anyway. I met this girl at camp. As soon as I saw her, I wanted to be close to her. I knew what was going on, so I managed to avoid her for awhile...and then I broke. She just made me feel safe and comfortable in a way that people in my life never have.
Well now camp is over and I'm left craving everthing from hugs, to leaning against her, to just hearing the sound of her voice.
I gave her a much longer explanation than this and gave her the option to just end the friendship. I'm very needy when I get so attached to someone and I don't want to put her in the position that I was trying to. I apologized to her for even starting to do it.
I'm just wondering if this happens to anyone else?

Yes. I am very attached to my friend at work. She seems not to mind it.

I am very attached to a friend, and worry about losing her friendship for whatever reason.

Last edited by Tim_Tex on 07 Aug 2008, 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes I worry about losing my friend for any reason.

i've felt this but probably not to the same degree as you and not as often. i get attached to some people where i just love having them around and think about them all the time when they're not around, but this is usually only when i'm new to the relationship. after a while this dies down because either 1) i see them often enough that i'm used to them, or 2) the relationship has ended and i've stopped thinking about them.

I feel so guilty and selfish.
I learned the hard way that people don't like having others attached to them.

I'm that way with my husband, though he's like that with me too. We were just saying tonight how more isolated than usual we both have been. We're each other's best friends, we cling to each other for support and that's a good thing. The bad thing is that where we used to have some social interaction outside our household, we've lately had next to none. I was attached to a co-worker friend for the longest time, but we're kinda growing apart. She and a few other co-workers were our regular "social group" for awhile. She's since pulled back and I don't know if it's because the Aspie in me has finally stopped being endearing and started becoming annoying or if it's just we weren't as close as I thought to begin with.

i get attached to people easily, as im completely unable to even speak to people whom dont make me feel comfortable and safe (hence my inability to order my own food at restauraunts, or talk to people i dont know on phones) it goes without saying im very attached to my boyfriend and my closer friends, were like family. and i have this horrid tendency to get to attached to the people in the bands i join, or more particularly, getting too attached to the band itself. for me, a band is a family, because i dont really have a family myself (i just have my mom, and i quite dislike her as we havent gotten along on anything since i was 8 years old. theres always an argument and i fear it may never change.) so my band becomes my family... but then bad things happen :/ my first band ended up kicking me out without giving me a chance (they told me they gave me a warning, they did not, it makes me mad) and i ended up moaping(sp?) around the house for a few weeks, and then going through a few-month-long super-hate on the band (as theyre not very good, musically, in all honesty, and this is a known fact in the local band network around here) and now im just in the state of dislike and disasociation with them. it took me a year to find another band, and then i did, and it already contained people whom were VERY close to me (the vocalist is the boyfriend of my best friend, who is like a sister to me, thus making me and the vocalist like siblings as well. hes even said im like a sister to him, though he generally seems like a father to me cause hes older and acts older. and the guitarist was fairly close because he had been helping me get my name out there to help me get into a new band, because he was fairly well-known because he used to belong to one of the most popular local bands here in the city, who have played outside of state before) and then recently, horrible things happened we had our first public show at a really popular cafe downtown, and frankly, we didnt do so great. the crowd didnt notice though, and loved us. the drummer thought we did horribly, and left without much warning. this caused the guitarist to leave, as he thought we did horribly too... and no one told the vocalist for a few days, and when he was told, he was told rather rudely :/ i figured hed been the first to be notified of this, else i wouldve told him myself. so he decided to discontinue the band... it makes me horribly sad, its like my family split up.. besides the frustration one usually gets when youve accomplished SO MUCH and then to have it fall to pieces :/ i mean geez, we had effin business cards o_O we had this giant banner that was like, 6 feet long and 4 feet tall... and we never got to use it ._.; it makes me feel like we wasted someones time and money on the banner, the signs, and the business cards... ill really miss that band...

Wow. That's really awful. =(

I don't really get attached to people but part of it is because I refuse to allow myself to.

Yes. I don't easily attach to people and the ones I do attach to, I do so too intensely. It's very painful.

I've gotten very clingy about this lady I live with. Just being around her is very soothing.

I am normally not much in need of social contact, but I want to be around her ALL THE TIME. I don't have to talk to her, I just want to be around her. I worry that it's a sick reaction, and I hate being so dependent on her. But then she'll do something completely sweet, and I'll get even more clingy.

I find the situation very annoying, but I don't think she even notices. She's perfectly ok with me hanging around her without talking! I feel like a rather large cat that she's taken in.

That's exactly how I feel with a few people at camp.
I also worry that it's a sick reaction. They try to turn me away from being dependent on them, bc we're all Christians and need to depend on God. But my social life just seems so incredibly messed up that I need someone I can see, hear, and touch to be dependent on also. My full dependence is on God, but don't I need people too?
It's very hard now that I'm home and may never actually see them again. I can feel their patience running thin when I talk to them online. I'm much more open online and they've come to see how negative and paranoid I am.
They keep telling me that all my social issues are a 'choice'. I'm worried that if I get diagnosed (getting tested sometime w/in the next few months) that they won't believe me and will still tell me I'm making a choice.
Part of me is saying end the friendship with them before they end it with me...but I don't have anyone else to look up to and it's nice to at least pretend I'm wanted for a change.

Last edited by Kate_Austen on 16 Aug 2008, 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've actually been meaning to make a post about this exact thing for ages, but I kept forgetting to do so when I was actually on here. But, yes I end up with very strong attachments to only a few people and end up becoming "too attached." It's not a nice feeling when I can't be around those people for any reason.

I wonder how common this is among us

I'm attached to my friend, Michelle for a good amount reasons with one being that she understands better than most of the girls that I have as friends.

This is exactly how things usually go for me. Right down to the title of the thread, I've always referred to people who filled this role for me as "attachments" of mine.

Unfortunately I flip from being almost completely detached, as in I wouldn't be too upset if I never talked to a person again, to super-dependent on someone's presence, depending on who it is, with very little in between. I usually end up doing anything to keep around those people who I'm close to, and then find it hard to understand it when they push me away or replace me with someone else. People often make the mistake of assuming that I think about them as "more than a friend." They misunderstand - it's nothing sexual, and I can really barely conceive of anything that would be better than a good understanding friend. A lot of people tell me it's a problem, to have this all-or-nothing kind of mindset, but I don't quite understand the point of putting effort into impressing people who I will likely never be able to trust or confide in or be close to. I'd rather save my energy for those few people that I really want to keep around, in hopes that it will be returned to some extent.