I Had Disorganized Attachment. Now I’m Changing How We Heal It.

When my therapist told me I had a disorganized attachment style, I didn’t handle it graciously. Full transparency: I handled it terribly. I was pissed. Relationships are hard enough without the push and pull of wanting closeness while fearing it. And now I was aware of the pattern, which made it more painful.

I already knew attachment styles reflected how we were treated as children. This felt like yet another wall I had to break down because of an upbringing that made a lot of things harder than they should’ve been.

So I took some time to process and accept. By “process,” I mean binge-watching Buffy reruns, crying a lot, and eating an obscene amount of French fries and non-dairy ice cream. Then I did the only thing I knew how to do, I got back out there.

Watching Secure People

Around that time friend recommended the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller because it was helping them work on their relationships. I loved the book and the main lesson I took from it was that to build secure attachment, I needed to know what it looked like. To know that, I needed to observe people who seemed secure and study how they managed relationships.

In theory, that sounded easy. And I was lucky to have several people to observe. But in practice, it wasn’t so simple. I immediately noticed even the most secure people sometimes had anxious or avoidant tendencies. They just managed them better. But when I asked how they thought about relationships, most of them didn’t really know. It was second nature to them. And, to be fair, it wasn’t their job to teach me how to be secure.

Secure Thought Models 

So I started to break it down and research how people with secure attachment might think in specific situations. For example:

• During a breakup, a secure person would appreciate the good and the bad and be glad they tried, rather than going to extremes or belittling their ex, like I was encouraged to do by friends and the media.
• At the beginning of a relationship, they would enjoy getting to know someone instead of anxiously staring at their phone, waiting for texts, like I was doing at the time.

From there, I began prioritizing the secure thoughts and perspectives. And in less time than I expected, I noticed I was thinking securely in situations where I used to be anxious.

When I felt the urge to send a duplicate text or the avoidant tendency to run when someone wanted to spend a lot of time together, I would pause, take a breath, and remind myself that relationships are tricky, but I didn’t have to make a decision right then. What’s the rush? After all, secure people don’t add unnecessary urgency.

Secure, Not Perfect 

I started noticing the most progress when I acted secure after making a mistake. If I was anxious and did something that wasn’t my best look, I would acknowledge that secure connection is sometimes messy, and relationships have ups and downs. Then I focused on how to repair the relationship (if I wanted to) and stay secure while in the unknown, trusting that I could handle the uncertainty. 

So many beautiful conversations and deep connections followed. It felt like I’d found a secret code. I wasn’t just acting secure; I was embodying it. Imperfect, but open and willing to connect. Slowly, these secure thoughts became automatic. I didn’t have to consciously remind myself anymore. It wasn’t just theory, it was my new way of seeing things.

Sharing my “Secret” 

Eventually, I shared the swaps in carousel posts on TikTok. Simple Times New Roman, black text on a white background. I expected maybe a few hundred views, but the first attachment style thought swaps got tens of thousands of views and thousands of likes. Viewers were commenting, asking questions, and showing that the thought modeling was resonating. It felt wonderful to open these conversations while helping people feel validated and seen, just like I had felt when I was creating the swaps.

At first, I saw the followers as just dots on a screen that floated up when the carousel post was opened. But my perspective quickly changed when I noticed people’s profile pictures. Some with professional attire looking their best, others being silly, some with cute pets. I realized these aren’t just dots. They’re someone’s parents, partners, siblings, bosses. They all want to learn how to have better attachments. And by learning, they would positively impact not only their own lives but the lives of everyone they connect with.

Changing How We Heal Attachment

Through the entire process I kept thinking, we deserved so much better. And our parents deserved better too. We were all misguided by people who were misguided themselves, told we needed to earn love, protect ourselves from it, or that wanting connection made us weak. It’s time to change that.

After seeing how much the thought swap posts resonated, I decided to prioritize writing a thought swaps book that gives a full view of the relationship cycle. The goal is to help people learn how to get secure in their attachments by showing them how different styles “think” in common relationship situations. At the same time, I keep posting carousels on social media to spread awareness and remind people there is hope.

Thought swaps aren’t advice or rules. They’re modeled thoughts that show what security looks like in the moments when things feel uncertain, vulnerable, or unresolved. Over time, those borrowed thoughts become familiar. Then they become yours. And you don’t have to interrogate your securely attached friends to figure it out.

Healing attachment doesn’t require perfection or constant self-analysis. It requires exposure to healthier ways of thinking and the patience to try them again and again. When we change how we think inside relationships, we change how we show up in them. And when enough people learn to think securely, connection itself becomes safer.

Secure attachment isn’t something you become. It’s something you learn, one thought at a time.