When I was a boy, every time I got too emotional my parents would send me to sit on the toilet.

When I was a boy, every time I got too emotional my parents would send me to sit on the toilet.

That was the place where I had to “get myself together.”

No one sat with me. No one helped me understand what I was feeling. I learned quickly that my emotions were too much, that they weren’t welcome, and that if I wanted to be loved I had to shut them down.

It made me feel lonely.

It made me feel ashamed of what I felt inside. And most of all, it made me believe that if I wanted connection, I’d better figure it out alone.

That imprint shaped the way I loved for years.

I became independent, distant, calm on the outside but carrying a storm inside. Women thought I was strong, but really I was terrified of being swallowed up or rejected if I let myself need them.

That’s what people don’t always understand about attachment. It’s not who you are. It’s the protective strategies you built as a child when love felt uncertain.

Anxious attachment is what happens when love was inconsistent. The nervous system learned to cling, to over-give, to watch every move of the other person, terrified they’d leave. It’s often what daughters experience when their father’s attention was unpredictable, emotionally unavailable, sometimes present, sometimes absent. The little girl grows into a woman who chases closeness because distance feels like danger.

Avoidant attachment is the flip side. It’s what happens when closeness itself felt unsafe, for example when a boy had a controlling or critical mother, or when he felt smothered instead of supported. The nervous system learns to distance, to shut down, to rely only on self. That was me. I didn’t even know it, but every time attention came too close, my body would push it away.

Both patterns come from fear. Both come from hurt that was never given space to heal. And both are exhausting when you’re trying to build real intimacy.

The good news is, they can change.

You don’t have to be locked into anxious or avoidant patterns for the rest of your life. When you go back and actually resolve the pain underneath, by grieving, by letting yourself be witnessed and guided by someone safe, by learning to feel your body instead of abandoning it, you start to experience love differently.

You stop clinging. You stop running. You start allowing closeness to feel like nourishment instead of a threat.

That’s when secure attachment grows. Not through a trick or a technique, but because you’ve finally given the younger version of you what he or she needed all along; safety, acceptance, and presence.

I know this because I’ve lived it.

I don’t “sit on the toilet alone” anymore by running to my room as an adult.

I let myself be held.

And every time I do, I heal the boy inside me who thought he had to face it all on his own.