Connection

Some individuals stabilize themselves by leaning on others to feel safe and secure.

They tend to be hypersensitive to how close and connected they feel to a significant other — a parent, friend, or a romantic partner.

This individual doesn’t feel that they can meet their needs independently, devaluing themselves, and feels like the other person is their savior, idealizing them and ignoring any flaws the other person has.

While this connection is present, it can feel euphoric and all consuming. But importantly, the dependent person never feels 100% safe. The consequences of the other person leaving would be catastrophic. The idealization of the other person serves to calm worries that they could disappoint, reject, abandon or otherwise hurt them, but the dependent person remains on alert for threats — rejection sensitive.

Inevitably, because the other person is human, they do something that is perceived as threatening the connection. This threat could be a criticism, paying attention to other people or obligations, expressing uncertainty in the relationship, or being physically absent. The individual then tries desperately to to get back to the connected position.

This threatened mode reduces cognition, and amplifies the speedway between angry and fearful feelings, and fight or flight behaviors. The emotionally equivalent of flailing ensues…all the tools in the toolkit come out – whether they work or not: punishing the other person through rage or insults, hurting the self to communicate that the other person needs to stay or else, distancing themselves so the other person panics and returns on their own to maintain the relationship. Sometimes these behaviors work. The partner says or does the right thing: “you’re right, I won’t go out with my friends, I should only be with you.” When that happens, the person feels connected again and can return to their unstable equilibrium.

Sometimes connection junkies find people that like to be in control, forming a co-dependent but more stable equilibrium. One partner becomes hysterical, rageful, aggressive at any threat to the relationship. The other partner – rather than run away – finds comfort and security in the feeling of being needed and depended upon. While the rage and anxiety of their partner is unpleasant in the moment, they derive a sense of control from this dependency that they too need.

Unsurprisingly, though, these behaviors often push the other person further away. The individual is then left alone and empty – and in immense pain. Often in this moment of aloneness, individuals feel intense pain: the pain of loneliness and emptiness, as well as the feelings of shame – that their badness has gotten them rejected from the group. The lack of cognitive control from the threatened state drives impulsive behaviors that may alleviate emotional pain in the moment but are dangerous in the long run: drinking, drugs, reckless driving, spending, sex, gambling, cutting.

These behaviors often create a vicious cycle moving the person further and further away from the connection they so deeply desire and need. As this happens, actions can get more and more exaggerated, desperate and dangerous. These impulsive behaviors are often the thing that get the person into trouble or into treatment.

When this trouble leads to hospitalization or jail, this structured environment recreates a scenario where they can depend on something outside themselves to meet their needs. They feel held. When these behaviors lead to increased involvement from significant others – parents or partners leaning back in, guilty after a reckless incident or suicide attempt is clearly a cry for help – this can even return the patient to a temporarily relieved, connected position.