Path of self discovery

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Consulting-Emotional Help
  • Self-knowledge resources
  • Other resources
    • Trans stuff
    • Architecture
    • Vegan stuff
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Donation
  • Savęs pažinimo kelias LT
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Consulting-Emotional Help
  • Self-knowledge resources
  • Other resources
    • Trans stuff
    • Architecture
    • Vegan stuff
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Donation
  • Savęs pažinimo kelias LT

Path of Self Discovery

Blog

How to find the middle ground between topdog and underdog states - way to secure attachments

17/11/2021

0 Comments

 

If you finding yourself within being on a top on everything and everyone you meet  most of the time, so you must be a topdog, the leader of a food chain so on. Person, who was a cool kid in the class and similar. You achieve a lot and still going towards a lot, you set your clear goals and actually hitting them one by one. You know, you’re liked, you give good impression, it’s easy to conversate with others and you’re just that “easy going” girl/guy. You also must be familiar how much of emptiness and nothingness there can be within yourself and those around you and in everything in general… how nothing makes sense and is seemingly useless… You achieve goals, one after another but it’s just… useless… Most of a burden apart this nothingness surrounding you is also constant attempts to hold your image, to maintain this facade, and no one can look through it. Cool and awesome - outside, alone and empty – inside, caring and nice – outside, useless and dark – inside.. It’s so hard, especially, when everyone is sure, you’re just fine or even some are convinced you're bad in being such a leader and mostly for simply not giving up your stuff and your-self to others, although you might be doing it as well… just not as loud, more privately. It’s a struggle and not many or even none of others seemingly get’s it. You like to fight and freeze (pretend dead)
If you’re finding yourself being left behind, sitting in the corners, unable to speak up, your voice is slow and low, you consider yourself for an introvert or at least others think so. You like being isolated, get tired fast from the people and crowds. Most of life you just are in your own world, a bubble. You know, you were bullied in school… Various reasons: too smart, too ugly, too this and that.. and all, basically any reason. You know you could achieve so much more but seemingly you just stuck in worthless jobs, trying often just “blend in”, “not stick out”.. being grey and avoiding opportunities, since you know the hurt of falling and it seems like better to take less but hold it like, if that was most pure gold that is known on this planet, or even not known to no one… Sometimes maybe you hide mostly valuable things even from your-self for security reasons. I know, it sounds funny, you know, you’re funny, that keeps predators away. You like to run and fawn (pretend you’re inseparable with the attacker). Despite you being such a good chameleon and master in saving stuff and people and all you touch, you know, you miss opportunities, you know you lie a lot… And also… you know, you are silent too often.. you slip just before getting "it", let go just before actually becoming more happy… You play too often, pretend and so on. And actually no one sees it… even worse, instead of encourage you to go on, people often tend to see you as a traitor as a shady one, who needs to be punished. You let them walk on you and they do it with a pleasure cause, you know, not everyone get's it…, when the only thing you really need is a friendly hand to help you to stand up tall and fend you, when you shiver. You know your strategy isn’t always working and opportunism isn't rewarded as in fairy tails but you still have a hope… hard to live saving the world with that crazy hope to be saved by someone in the process yourself.
And then…. If you only know these two types and you actually can be only in these two state that I described above (and in no any other possible state).. And both of these states seem doomed, then article is really mostly for you and about you and it’s not a threat, rather an attempt to understand you and myself better.
I think it’s like some pollution or missunderstandings between cultures… If it’s like a pollution, so it can be similar to addiction, although it isn’t that. We all need air, water, food, sleep, movement, sex, - basic physiological needs, we all have safety needs for ok health, finances, personal, emotional state. In same way we have just as we need connection, socialising, having purposeful relationships, close friendships, family, company, emotional, mental intimacy. And just like our air, water, food can be polluted, we might appear in environment, where it's hard to sleep or move or get privacy, so on, so same might happened with our bonding, we might have been in toxic or just purely working bonding situation for so long and from such an early time (mostly from the birth) that we aren’t capable to create more pure and effective social environment later on, and who could blame or shame us for it? Especially, when so many of homo sapiens are simply with more or less polluted circle anyway.. How it ends up? It seems like in that Pink song: Just like a pill…. Or just like a packet of cigarettes or like a wine.. so on.. it often seems like addiction because we are set to need a bond but since we only know, how to create unhealthy stuff with others, we end up feeling sick.. we are in pain… it's seems to be the burden - to connect so much more than to stay simply alone… but then, we're set for bonding, so we try again, and fail again… Seems like being cursed? Or “ending with bad guys/girls” ALWAYS… even friends don’t seem trustworthy… co-workers.. ALL, EVERYONE… We either are changing partners and having one night stands, trying not to attach to anyone really, no one can have more value or power than us, so we just dump anyone… change anyone, like tools or things to achieve and then we go to achieve another one. Or we are picky and not trusting, and if we do, so that person is like gulped by us then and/or tortured for eternal competition, where both finally lose their sense of, who's winning or who's losing. Or…. We do both… depending, who’s near and how they treat us: don't attach or make their life impossible, if attachment happened.. Never ever attach and never ever let the other to attach to you. Why?? Because attaching/letting to attach seems too dangerous, we all know, what it meant in our childhood, right? Either they will abuse you or neglect you or both, so how to do it differently?? So you either abuse or neglect or both as well. Vicious circle.
A person, who has been breathing poisonous gas from birth, after releasing him/her into the woods will think that he's dying from that fresh air, at least at the start ... We can see fresh air as dangerous, if we were never exposed to it, just like we would view a person, who knows how to make healthy connections. We would probably defend ourselves against that person ... as if we would fight for our own lives with some unknown evil. The sobriety is still super unpopular and we’re ridiculously clinging to the same old "good".

I found one image in some group and added some details to it. In this scheme you can see both poles of extreme behaviour in bonding:
Anxious one - those people, who attach but can't let you to attach, they simply slip or make your life a living hell experience, so you must leave anyway. That type is run by anxiety mostly, often called co-dependants or anxious-preoccupied ones (as myself mostly)
Avoidant one - those people, who have impossible standards no one can fulfil and they just dump everyone, they don't attach.. One night stands, short bonds are often an option. This type is run by fear mostly, often classified as counter-dependants or dismissive avoidants.
Some people maintain both poles within and uses one strategy or the other depending on surroundings. That type is run by mixed type of high insecurity, called disorganized ones or fearful avoidants (sometimes have traits of some narcissism, not always).
And some people don't have peaks of those poles within... they are soft/flexible in their behaviour and can accidentally act as, if they would be avoidant or anxious, but that's super small percentage of their behaviour. Secure ones


Picture

And then I present you some dog/hog meme I came up with after talking with a friend, in this image:
Top dog - high achiever, leader, sweet heart (who doesn't want to be that, right?)
Under dog - lost case, outcast, rebel (who on earth would want to be that, right?)
Middle ground dog - just an ok pal (and that's... simply just sooooo boring :D)
​
These categories also show that it's not about being on the top, falling and then waiting till being on the top and then falling eventually to learn some again.. it's more about sticking about the middle ground, softly or freely moving from the top to the bottom and back, flexible. And!!! Being ok with that or somewhat okey, depending on circumstances.

Picture

About this groundhog… between topdog and underdog… you know.. spring is still coming and groundhog is known to predict spring and stuff… if not only for me, so then for everyone because why not? Who wants to live forever and not make their attachment style simply happier and more available for lovable people…

​So yeah, I guess, that is the way to just rolling this all up….
Oh and the explanation: grounded in this meme means centred (popular description in psychology). Coping - grounding psychology
AND obviously, most important detail in the meme: 
- first groundhog is Robin Hood (my childhood dream)
- second one is a florist (my another childhood dream)

_______________________________________________________________________________________

​This - just, what you learned some time ago:
if you’re not the top, then you're under… if you're not under, then you are the top…
Lose those top and under dawgs, shell we?…
​That's just some odd bulls***t, baby…

Let go all of this, get up, go on, just be an OK one… just… be a human.
Let's go, let's change, let's stay, don't run, don't use that humour..
​There is a rhyme, listen... it's time... 
Take all your freedom and fly…
It's all ok, all is fine.

f***k those chains… who needs them ever??
I just need a warm hug :D hug that lasts like forever
Yeah, man. PEACE 
✌
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Let the force be with you

<(◕‿◕)>
  />
☕< \
_______________________________________________________________________________________
BTW: never ever give up, it's not allowed 
🤟
_______________________________________________________________________________________
​Oh and BTW2: Pink and her hubbie are taking therapy on and off to save their precious family and level up their creative team-up, be like Pink :) 

Push me
Push me
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture



    ​Author - Laurynas Sadzevicius

    This is my blog about self-knowledge, self-work, emotional healing, growth, psychology, philosophy in general and other related themes.

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    January 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All
    Anxiously Attached
    Attachment Style Theory
    Co-depedent
    Counter-dependent
    Daniel Mackler
    Diagnose
    Dismissive Avoidant
    Disorder
    Dysphoria
    Fearful Avoidant
    Gay
    Gender
    IFS - Internal Family System
    Judith Lewis Herman's
    Lesbian
    Maturity
    Misgendering
    Norm
    NVC - Non Violent Communication
    Psychiatric Medicine
    Psychiatry
    Psychosis
    Psychotherapy
    Self-knowledge
    Sigmund Freud
    Transgender
    Trauma
    True-self
    Virtue

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.