“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
The world can be scary. One wrong move and, puff! You’ve respawned. That’s why some people prefer to stay in the safety of the Town. But no matter how safe it may be there, there’s always the risk of it being attacked and taken over by enemies.
Attachment Anxiety is, broadly speaking, a measure of how worried you are about losing your sources of security even when there’s no real threat, because “an anxious person (…) sees danger in innocuous situations.” (Love Is Never Enough, by Aaron Beck)
This fear, which includes fear of rejection, can lead to some very unhealthy behaviors to make sure you keep your attachment figures close to you as much as possible. But far from helping you get reassurance, these actions often cause more issues and reinforce the idea that you can’t get the protection you want.
“People high in attachment anxiety, who typically tend to hyperactivate attachment worries, may engage in intrusive, ambivalent, tense, and ineffective forms of proximity seeking, which can exacerbate rather than alleviate distress.” (Attachment Theory Expanded, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver)
The Detect Thoughts Illusion
This hypervigilance can make you recognize non-verbal expressions faster than others. But speed also comes with more errors. The idea that you ‘can tell how others feel’ is often just an illusion that feels like a successful Detect Thoughts spell. Often, the assumption is that whatever is going on inside the other person will result in them leaving you.
“More attachment-anxious participants perceived the onset of expressions of emotion earlier and made more errors in judging the particular emotion the face was expressing. That is, anxious people’s early recognition of emotional expressions seems to be a sign of heightened vigilance to emotional cues rather than a reflection of emotional sensitivity. (…) Their problems in decoding emotions seem to result from heightened vigilance to emotional cues and the resulting tendency to make premature judgments.” (Attachment in Adulthood, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver)
Armed with a false sense of security believing that you have so much empathy that you know exactly what the other person is thinking, you might rush to the wrong conclusion and act accordingly.
To make matters worse, when you truly feel that you know something to be true, it’s very hard to accept that you might be wrong. Even if you see proof that contradicts you.
Special Skill: Protest Behaviour
When the attachment anxiety level reaches a certain threshold, you may gain the Protest Behavior Skill, which works like Taunt. Useful for many Tanks, its goal is making your target pay attention to you if they weren’t doing so.
“Attachment-anxious people who yearn for love and affection often try to maximize closeness even when their partner is unresponsive to bids for intimacy.” (Attachment in Adulthood, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver)
Originally, all this hyperactivating strategy was supposed to do was get the Attachment Figure to pay attention to you, be closer, and restore a sense of security. But just like taunting in games, it also creates aggro. Which often results in a battle where one or both of you will end up taking damage.
Since “anxious attachment interferes with the down-regulation of negative emotions and encourages intense and persistent distress” (Attachment in Adulthood, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver), the attention you get might not be enough. So you may end up using more protest behavior, which can bring you closer to losing that attachment figure, restarting the whole process.
Like a Barbarian using Rage, or worse, going Berserk, you may lose the ability to concentrate and think clearly. This, of course, then becomes a vicious cycle.
“Strong, negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, hopelessness) tend to narrow our minds.” (Permission to Feel, by Marc Brackett)
Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
Not trusting that your support systems will be there for you, you won’t go out, level up, or defeat the BBEG that threatens to destroy the world. And that means that when the Forces of Evil arrive to your Town, you won’t be ready.
If Frodo had stayed home, Sauron’s army would’ve eventually found him. Not even the Shire was safe from the long… eye of the Lord. And we would all be ruled by orcs even today. Not a nice environment if you want to find a date, in my opinion. Unless you like orcs (no kink-shaming).
“By basing their judgments of relationship quality on amplified perceptions of daily relationship conflict and strife, highly anxious individuals may unwittingly create what they fear the most-the destabilization of their romantic relationships.” (Dynamics of Romantic Love, by Mario Mikulincer and Gail S. Goodman)
Being able to temporarily leave the Town with the security that it’ll still be there to support you when you need is the best way to finally beat the game and save the world. Including the Town. Ironic, isn’t it?
Sources of security can also include communities. Join us on Discord to get support with your Quests!
Related Grimoires:
- Attached, by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
- A Secure Base, by John Bowlby
- Attachment in Adulthood, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver
- Dynamics of Romantic Love, by Mario Mikulincer and Gail S. Goodman
- Attachment Theory Expanded, by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver
- Attachment Theory Applied, by Mario Mikulincer, Phillip R. Shaver
- Attachment in Psychotherapy, by David J. Wallin
- Wired for Dating, by Stan Tatkin, Harville Hendrix, and Helen LaKelly Hunt
More (Great) Stuff:
