Attachment theory isn’t just theory when you’re the one waiting.
I was shaking after 4 hours without an answer to my text
by Jesper Jurcenoks
Four hours.
That’s all it took for my body to slip into fight-or-flight.
One moment I was feeling secure, connected, loved.
The next, I was spiraling - shaky, distracted, obsessively checking my phone like my life depended on it.
And in that moment, it kind of felt like it did.
I wasn’t worried that anything had happened to her, I was worried about the big “I” - that I was being IGNORED, I was flooded with all the feels from my childhood as they came rushing into my nervous system.
As if the connection to life itself had been severed. My nervous system didn’t care that we’d been in a good place hours earlier - it cared that my text had been sent and received… and not answered.
I wanted reassurance. I wanted contact. I wanted some thread to hold onto.
Instead, I was circling the maelstrom.
This doesn’t happen every day. Some months, it’s weekly. Other times, I go two or three weeks without getting hijacked. But when it happens, the pattern is eerily consistent.
First, the wait.
Then the panic.
Then the collapse into the hole of self-indulgence: chips, scrolling, phone games, Netflix.
If the silence continues past a certain threshold - somewhere between 6 and 24 hours - my emotions make a 180°.
From “I need her” to “I don’t need anyone.”
From “where is she?” to “I will be a hermit in the woods.”
I get cold. Dismissive.
Not because I stopped caring - because I cared too much, and couldn’t tolerate the uncomfortable feeling.
Even when we reconnect, I’m distant. Arms crossed. Not out of malice, but protection.
On the outside, I seem aloof.
On the inside, I’m a storm.
One part of me screaming to run back into her arms, another vowing never to let myself feel that vulnerable again. This distancing used to last for hours… sometimes days.
So what is this that is happening to me?
Back in the 1970s, a group of psychologists placed toddlers in a “strange situation” - separating them from their caregivers, then observing their reactions upon reunion.
Some ran into their parent’s arms. Others ignored them completely while their heart rate betrayed full-blown distress.
From this, Attachment Theory was born - describing Secure, Avoidant, Anxious, and Disorganized patterns of connection.
Later, these attachment styles were mapped onto adult relationships.
We just get more creative at masking them.
What’s going on here?
It’s what Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller call insecure attachment in their book Attached.
Specifically, I bounce between anxiously attached and avoidantly attached - as if two parts of me are fighting over how to survive the disconnection. Negative coping thoughts fill my mind.
It’s exhausting. And it’s familiar.
Some call this pattern Codependence (hello, CoDA).
David Schnarch frames it as Emotional Fusion.
Others might recognize it as Reactive Attachment or simply nervous system dysregulation in the face of perceived abandonment.
Whatever name you give it - a rose by any other name - the experience is real.
And I’m not alone, according to PubMed over 40% of adults identify with an insecure attachment style.
If you recognize any of this, I’d love for you to join me.
I’m hosting two Radical Honesty practice sessions this week -
One on Monday evening Aug 11 (Central Europe time) 18:00
One on Tuesday evening Aug 12 (US West Coast) 6:00 pm
We’ll get radically honest about our attachment patterns.
We’ll name the fear behind the shaking.
We’ll explore the patterns in more depth.
We’ll talk about compatible and incompatible attachment disorders.
We’ll talk about why so many people on the dating scene seem messed up.
We’ll laugh, cry, and share the hard truths.
Not to fix each other - but to raise awareness and to witness each other in the messy middle of healing.
Click below to sign up.
Come as you are. Bring your storm.
I’ll meet you there.
But here’s the modern twist Camus didn’t account for:
Sisyphus didn’t have a phone in his pocket.
He wasn’t being pinged every 2 minutes.
He wasn’t chasing serotonin microbursts on TikTok.
He wasn’t losing hours to inbox dopamine.
He didn’t scroll to avoid his fear.
He felt it. He faced it. He kept walking.
Most of us don’t.
We say we’re tired. Unmotivated. Lazy.
But chemically? We’re just depleted.
We’re trying to push a boulder uphill with no dopamine left, no serotonin in the tank—and a brain that’s terrified of the emotions waiting in the silence.
