Not Broken, Just Adapted: Your Attachment Strategy in Real Life

Most of us grow up believing there’s such a thing as “normal.” Normal families. Normal love. Normal relationships. And if we don’t feel normal, we assume something’s wrong with us.

But here’s the truth: you are not broken. You are adapted.

From your first breath, your body and mind learned how to survive the environment you were born into.

You developed a strategy for closeness, for safety, for belonging. That strategy, your attachment pattern, was never about right or wrong. It was about survival.

What Is Attachment, Really?

Attachment isn’t just psychology jargon. It’s biology. It’s the nervous system’s way of figuring out: Am I safe here? Do I belong? Can I trust that someone will come when I need them?

Your strategy began in childhood, but it didn’t freeze there. It kept adapting, layer upon layer, as you moved through school, friendships, relationships, and workplaces. By the time you hit adulthood, you’ve got a whole system of beliefs, reflexes, and habits that help you navigate closeness.

Some of those habits serve you. Some keep tripping you up. But all of them made sense once.

The Four Main Strategies

Let’s strip away the jargon and meet the four main strategies most people fall into. Remember: these are not boxes. They’re patterns, tendencies, ways of being that can shift over time.

1. The Avoidant Strategy: Independence as Protection

If you learned early that reaching out wasn’t met with warmth — maybe you were ignored, criticised, or told to “get on with it” — you adapted by turning inward.

The message your body absorbed: Don’t need too much. Handle it yourself. Stay safe by staying independent.

In adulthood, this can look like:

• Struggling to rely on others.

• Feeling smothered in relationships.

• Preferring space and control over vulnerability.

• Seeming confident on the outside, but lonely underneath.

Avoidant strategies aren’t coldness. They’re protection. They keep you from the heartbreak of asking and being rejected.

2. The Ambivalent Strategy: Closeness at Any Cost

If you grew up with care that was inconsistent — sometimes warm, sometimes absent — you adapted by staying on high alert.

The message your body absorbed: Don’t let go. Keep watching. Keep holding on tight, or they might disappear.

In adulthood, this can look like:

• Worrying that your partner doesn’t love you enough.

• Feeling panicked if texts aren’t answered quickly.

• Giving more than you receive, to stop people from leaving.

• Swings between craving closeness and resenting it.

Ambivalent strategies aren’t clinginess. They’re survival. They kept you connected, even if the connection was unpredictable.

3. The Disorganised Strategy: Push-Pull Survival

If the person who was supposed to keep you safe was also the one who frightened you — through abuse, neglect, or chaos — your system faced an impossible bind: I need you, but you’re dangerous.

The message your body absorbed: Get close. No, stay back. No, get close again.

In adulthood, this can look like:

• Intense relationships that swing between passion and fear.

• Difficulty trusting, even when you crave love.

• Self-sabotaging closeness just as it arrives.

• The nervous system is stuck between fight, flight, and freeze.

Disorganised strategies aren’t dysfunctional. They’re genius survival adaptations to impossible circumstances.

4. The Secure Strategy: Safe Enough to Explore

If you had care that was “good enough”, not perfect, but reliable, safe, attuned, you absorbed a different message: I am worth loving. I can trust. I can explore and return to safety when I need to.

In adulthood, this can look like:

• Comfort with both closeness and space.

• Confidence that relationships can survive conflict.

• Trust in your own worth, even when things wobble.

Secure strategies don’t mean a perfect childhood. They mean your nervous system learned safety as a baseline.

Why This Isn’t About Blame

When we talk about attachment, it’s easy to fall into blame: My parents ruined me. My partner is avoidant. My child is too needy.

But attachment isn’t about fault. It’s about adaptation. Parents usually did what they could with what they had. Children always did what they had to in order to survive.

Blame keeps us stuck. Compassion moves us forward.

The Hidden Gifts of Your Strategy

Every strategy has strengths.

• Avoidant: resilience, independence, focus under pressure.

• Ambivalent: empathy, attunement, deep care for others.

• Disorganised: sensitivity, creativity, survival against the odds.

• Secure: balance, steadiness, flexibility.

Your strategy isn’t just what hurts you. It’s what saved you.

Can You Change Your Strategy?

Yes — but not by force. You don’t “fix” attachment by deciding to be different. You shift by experiencing something new:

• Therapy that offers safety, curiosity, and consistency.

• Relationships that hold you without control or chaos.

• Practices that calm your nervous system enough to notice new patterns.

Change happens slowly, through repetition. Each safe moment rewires the system, one thread at a time.

Why This Matters in Real Life

Understanding your attachment strategy isn’t just theory. It helps explain:

• Why you panic when someone doesn’t reply.

• Why intimacy feels suffocating.

• Why you sabotage closeness just when it feels good.

• Why you sometimes feel like two people at once.

It helps you stop seeing yourself as “crazy” or “broken.” Instead, you can say: This is my strategy. It made sense once. Now I get to choose differently.

A Forest Edge Reminder

Think of the trees at the forest edge. Each one grew differently, shaped by wind, soil, and light. None of them are broken. They’re adapted. Twisted branches, bent trunks, reaching roots — all evidence of survival.

We’re the same. Your attachment strategy isn’t a flaw. It’s your shape. And shapes can grow, bend, and adapt again.

You are not broken. You are adapted. And adaptation is proof of your strength.

Sarah x