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

17/11/2021

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If you find yourself being on top of everything and everyone you meet most of the time, you must be a top dog, 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 go towards a lot, you set your clear goals and actually hit them one by one. You know, you’re liked, you give a good impression, it’s easy to conversate with others and you’re just that “easygoing” girl/guy. You also must be familiar with how much 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 the burden apart from 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 at being such a leader and mostly for simply not giving up your stuff and yourself 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 the others seemingly get 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, and your voice is slow and low, you consider yourself an introvert or at least others think so. You like being isolated, and get tired fast from the people and crowds. For 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 are 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 the purest gold that is known on this planet or even not known to no one… Sometimes maybe you hide mostly valuable things even from yourself 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 from 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 happier… You play too often, pretend and so on. And actually, no one sees it… even worse, instead of encouraging you to go on, people often tend to see you as a traitor a shady one, who needs to be punished. You let them walk on you and they do it with pleasure cause, you know, not everyone gets 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 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 states that I described above (and in no other possible state). And both of these states seem doomed, then the article is really mostly for you and about you and it’s not a threat, but rather an attempt to understand you and me better.
I think it’s like some pollution or misunderstandings between cultures… If it’s like 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, and emotional state. In the same way, we just as we need connection, socialising, purposeful relationships, close friendships, family, company, and emotional, and mental intimacy. And just like our air, water, and food can be polluted, we might appear in an environment, where it's hard to sleep or move or get privacy, and so on, so the same might happen with our bonding, we might have 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 circles 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 an 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 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 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, on 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 attached 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 against some unknown evil. Sobriety is still super unpopular and we’re ridiculously clinging to the same old "good".

I found one image in some groups and added some details to it. In this scheme you can see both poles of extreme behaviour in bonding:
Anxious ones - those people, who attach but can't let you 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 ones - those people, who have impossible standards no one can fulfil and they just dump everyone, they don't attach. One-night stands and 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 use one strategy or the other depending on their surroundings. That type is run by a 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 a super small percentage of their behaviour. Secure ones


Picture

And then I present you some dog/hog memes I came up with after talking with a friend, in this image:
Top dog - high achiever, leader, sweetheart (who doesn't want to be that, right?)
Underdog - 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 okay, depending on circumstances.


Picture

About this groundhog… between top-dog 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 roll this all up….
Oh and the explanation: grounded in this meme means centered (a popular description in psychology). Coping - grounding psychology
And obviously, the most important detail in the meme: 
- the first groundhog is Robin Hood (my childhood dream)
- the second one is a florist (my other childhood dream)

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​This - is 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 of 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 humor.
​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 
✌
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Let the force be with you

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

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    ​Author - Laurynas Sadzevicius

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

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