The quality and characteristics of emotional attachment to others during early childhood and youth significantly influence the way one connects with people later in life. Relationship experiences during this period remain much more deeply and strongly embedded in the mind than any subsequent experiences (with the exception of extremely traumatic situations during adulthood, which always leave a deep imprint and lasting consequences). There are several styles of emotional (affective) attachment that develop based on parental behavior—specifically, their responses to a child’s attempts and needs for closeness and connection. These are:

• Secure
• Anxious-avoidant (insecure)
• Anxious-preoccupied (insecure)
• Disorganized-disoriented (insecure)

Among individuals who have been exposed to systematic toxic psychology, we find a dominance of insecure and disorganized attachment styles. Insecure attachment patterns are conditioned by toxic parental behavior—such as absence, indifference, a lack of positive emotions, a conflictual atmosphere, ambivalence, a lack of care and support, little to no expression of love, excessive criticism, guilt-tripping, lack of patience, violence, and the like—leading to the formation of an unstable self-image and instability in relationships with others. Emotional relationships with others are viewed as something from which suffering, guilt, negative emotions, conflict, and danger to the ego may follow; in essence, everything a person systematically experienced during toxic interactions with their loved ones is projected onto others.

Individuals with such experiences form a negative self-image; they are dissatisfied with themselves, emotionally unstable, and, naturally, possess an internal critic of a persecutory-sadistic type. Consequently, they will inevitably form unstable relationships with others or avoid them entirely. Since early interactions conditioned the child to view emotional closeness as a source of unpleasant feelings, these individuals later face significant difficulties expressing emotions and experiencing intimacy in romantic or platonic relationships. Primarily, they struggle to engage in an emotional relationship without various forms of anxiety, ideation, blockage, and similar defenses; secondly, even when they do engage, they do so with extreme caution, the activation of defense mechanisms, excessive emotionality, or, conversely, a lack of affect; thirdly, their relationships are characterized by turbulence, misunderstanding, feelings of being unloved, guilt, jealousy, suffocation, low self-esteem, fears of abandonment, frequent conflicts, or “mini-breakups”; fourthly, even if relationships do manage to last, they ultimately fail to endure—partners feel exhausted, one person typically feels more wounded or at fault, or believes they have been treated “unfairly,” leading to feelings of being used, rejected, and victimized, accompanied by an intense sense of not belonging and worthlessness. The list is already long, and it could be even longer if we were to continue.

TYPE	DESCRIPTION	SELF-IMAGE	IMAGE OF OTHERS	DEPENDENCY
Secure	seeks harmonious intimacy, independent	positive	positive	low
Anxious	fears intimacy, avoids closeness	negative	negative	high
Preoccupied	burdened by intimacy, fears abandonment	negative	positive	high
Avoidant	uninterested in intimacy, rejects relationship	positive	negative	low

Three aspects permeate almost every domain of intimate interaction (relationships) with others, one of which may be dominant, or several may be expressed simultaneously; in the third case, they alternate throughout different periods of the relationship:

1. Fear of abandonment and rejection by a loved one, and separation anxiety. An intense or constant fear of rejection, whether conscious or unconscious. A feeling that we are never good enough for our partner and that there is a constant possibility they will reject us—because of who we are, what we feel, how we behave, what we think, and what we say. Ruminative or occasional thoughts that the partner will leave us (especially after disagreements or when we are apart), as well as the belief that this is normal and expected because we deeply (or overtly) believe that we deserve no one, and that the partner should find someone else with whom they would be better off. An intensified sense of abandonment triggered by everyday trifles (tones of voice perceived as dismissive, a partner’s withdrawal, a partner talking to others, lack of attention, etc.) as well as after “heavy” discussions. Separation anxiety is present when we need to part from our partner (a loved one) or when the partner pulls away. A sense of tension arises when we are separated from our partner or when the partner wants time to themselves.
   
2. An intense need for validation (of one’s personality, feelings, thoughts, and attitudes) from another person. Since we believe that our core essence is not good enough, then what we feel and think cannot be good enough either. Doubt in our own feelings and attitudes is particularly expressed when we are in an intimate relationship (because old patterns of connection are activated, in which we were attached to people who showed us we were not good enough), and therefore we have a need for the other person to validate us: first, as a whole personality (simply our existence and its meaning), and second, on a micro-level in daily life. A need (often of an obsessive nature) to receive any kind of feedback regarding what the other person truly feels about us (for example, whether they truly love us and how much), to constantly re-examine and seek evidence from them that they are attached to us, what they actually think of us (how good or bad we are), and to “secure” the other person for ourselves. Pervasive self-doubt reaches a point where our partner becomes the sole source of our sense of security, and consequently, we begin to demand it from them more and more overtly. We feel the need to justify our behavior, doing things we do not want to do just so our partner will accept us, often affirming our feelings toward the person (again, in the hope that they will be reciprocated).
   
3. Fear of intimacy and deeper connection due to the fear of being consumed by the other. This moment essentially repels us from any kind of connection with others. It stems from the belief that, because we feel in our very core that we are not good enough (bad, toxic, “nothing,” weak, wretched, pathetic, ugly, stupid, etc.), no one can actually want us (or will want us) for that reason, so there is no point in seeking out or approaching another. Since intimacy involves the process of revealing oneself and one’s personality through deeper acquaintance, our inherently “bad” essence will consequently be revealed to the other person, and we will accordingly be “exposed” to them as inadequate. Once a person sees who we truly are and what we are actually like, they will inevitably reject us (this is the primary axiom that drives insecure attachment); because this is painful and we do not want it confirmed that we are bad people, nor do we want to experience that “inevitable” rejection, we maneuver by preemptively preventing ourselves from opening up to the other person and forming a deeper connection. Similarly, there is no uncommon fear of being consumed by another person within a relationship, accompanied by a sense of “suffocation” and an uncomfortable phantasmatic reality of merging with the other, which triggers intense anxiety, frustration, and a sense of blockage. This originates from an inadequately navigated separation-individuation stage, where a parent (caregiver) did not allow us to achieve much independence, keeping us too strictly within the defined boundaries of their world, where we were expected to exist according to the needs, expectations, or anxieties of that caring other. The projection of this moment—where the one who loves and cares for us is actually the same one who prevents us from individualizing and separating into our own independent mode of existence by attempting to control our lives—lies at the core of our need to flee from any serious and deep relationship.