Insecurely Attached

Why me and Mexico fit together like uña y mugre

Hypothesis: people with an anxious attachment style are rarely very professionally successful because they’re too busy worrying about whether everybody likes them or not, waiting patiently and dutifully for some authority figure to deem them worthy of reward, and feeling guilty about a bunch of stuff.

They also tend to be honest a lo pendejo (that is, unable to tell even innocent lies in their interest), another feature that does not help them to get ahead. It’s not that honesty is such an important value to them, it’s that they’re terrified of being exposed as anything but beyond reproach, which for humans, is always a losing game.

Gullibility, I believe, also goes hand-in-hand with this style: why would others try to fool you when you’re so obviously being genuine? Once it’s discovered that there are indeed people who seem really great but who are actually much less great, this shifts to simply giving people the benefit of the doubt, sometimes when they don’t deserve it. “Nobody’s perfect,” the insecurely attached insist. Imperfection is forgiven in others, but not tolerated in oneself.

Spoiler alert, that’s my attachment style. But I hope it won’t be for long.

Secure attachment, here I (continue to) come! I hope?

Yesterday I had my first appointment with the “psycho-traumatologist” (the guy I wrote about before was just there to administer some tests to see if I’d benefit from sessions with her in the first place).

I liked her immediately. First, the waiting room smelled great, lemony and minty at the same time (I greatly appreciate an environment set up just so to ensure the comfort of those there). She was accommodating and forgiving when I realized that I’d gone all the way to Veracruz for an appointment that was actually not until next week. She made space for me later in the afternoon, so Wuan and I sought air conditioning at a fancy seaside mall for a couple of hours before having the meal we’d planned for later at an outdoor restaurant, sweat rolling down our bodies as we ate (Veracruz is hot, y’all). Afterward, we headed back to the consultorio.

She’s the kind of person who calls people mi reina, and hermosa, and exclaims, “¡Ay, te amo!” when you do or say something she’s deemed adorable. While some naturally mistrust people like that (“Why is this dude I don’t even know calling me amigo?”), I love it, especially when it comes from women: it just fills me up with warm, fuzzy feelings.

In fact, it’s occurring to me that maybe one of the reasons I like Mexico so much is that everyone’s constantly giving you feedback that says, basically, “I like you.” People smile, they greet you formally, they try their best to help you if you ask for it. Mexico is an insecurely-attached person’s paradise.

The downside of such friendliness is that, while there might be a lot of nice words going around, follow-through can be a bit harder to come by. Promised actions might be put off, or forgotten, or tied up in bureaucratic requirements, or never have been a serious consideration in the first place: the nicest part is usually the words themselves.

So if your love language is “words of affirmation,” then boy, is this the place for you! If it’s “acts of service” (a close second for me), then it’s possibly the place for you if you’re a man, less likely so if you’re a woman; traditional gender roles have hung on tight around here, even in my young-ish generation. (The time my Mexican mom friends spend on laundry and food preparation and scrubbing the bathroom!)

If it’s “quality time,” then this is not the place; among OECD countries, Mexicans are the ones who work the most hours each week. And despite all those working hours, this isn’t a place where people get very much in return for all that labor, so “gift-giving” love language people might not find this is the place for them, either: not a lot of time and not a lot of money spells not a lot of time or money for buying or even making presents.

I’ve spent a lot of time, often to my detriment, feeding myself with the nice words of others without actually getting the nutrients that seem like they’d naturally come with them. My marriage was filled with these empty calories, at least at first, and by the time I got out of it I was downright malnourished.

Nowadays, I’m giving more weight to acts of service: actions, after all, are concrete things, and much harder than words. That’s my measuring stick now!

My current partner is indeed a man of few words; when he uses them, he chooses them carefully and free of veiled criticisms or riddles, and he follows through with action. Someone doing what they said they were going to do when they said they were going to do it? Wow! I mourn for my former self that this feels so novel and luxurious.

I’m not sure what my new bestie who apparently adores me over at the psico-traumatologo office has in store for me. She gave me “homework” so that we could hit the ground running at our next appointment, the Young Schema Questionnaire L3. I filled it out. From what my untrained brain could tell, she’s going to have quite a lot of material to work with.

As I told my sister, I hope it’s at least partly some witchy shit. Judging from the essential oils and the headphones around her office, it may very well be, at least in part. But she also clearly knows her stuff and is very effective: I’m one of many out-of-town patients.

I have high hopes. At the ripe old age of 41, I’m definitely ready to get out of neutral.