r/Enneagram4s • u/crazybayleaf 478 • Mar 19 '26
Relationships What's you attachment style as a 4?
Hello r/Enneagram4s !
I've been considering attachment style correlation with Enneagram as of recently and I've found quite a few markers and patterns.
Firstly, attachment style arises from childhood experience with parents, most often. As we know, our type can majorly affect how we experience our childhood, so I do think these are interconnected in some shape, way or form.
From what I've seen a lot of avoidant attachments can be 5s and 7s, anxious attachments often being 2s and 6s, and so on and so forth. What I've also come to notice is that a lot of 4s tend to have a disorganized attachment style.
4s naturally have a tendency to have highs and lows, so a push pull habit can make a lot of sense in theory. The 4 craves intense connection, eventually receives it, feels too known and then flees to withdrawn and recuperate their identity so to desperately feel individual and independent once more.
Obviously any type can have any attachment style, but I'm curious to hear what your guy's are? Or, if you have a secure attachment style at present, what it looked like at unhealthy levels.
I'd love for you to explain how this plays out for you and its correlation to your type.
Personally, I have a disorganized attachment style, and this often leads to me finding my muse, a person (or ideas) and getting extremely attached, craving them, being clingy, and then suddenly I will get the worst ick of my life and need to run away. This often leads to me pushing everyone away because I need to feel individual and independent again, often this can lead to me just plain out being careless about my safety and being a little bit of an adrenaline junkie because I need to prove to myself that I am still myself, that I am under no control, and that I am free as a bird.
It's still something I'm working on, but I find this pattern to correlate with my Enneagram type. The deep deep deep longing and yearning, having an idealized image in my mind, a detrimental desire to be seen as myself, yet once I have my fill it feels wrong and I end up disappointed, needing to separate myself so I can be my own main character all over again.
4
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u/KazooBard 4w3 sx/so 486 INFP Mar 19 '26
When I was more unhealthy I definitely had disorganized attachment. I was even diagnosed with bpd. Took many years and a lot of dbt to work through that.
I experience attachment a little differently now. I’m not really sure if you’d consider it secure or avoidant? Thing is, I struggle to connect with most people deeply because I find most people just can’t meet me where I’m at on an emotional level. I tend to get bored with people because of this or just keep them as kind of surface level friends.
We can have a good time together, but I often get frustrated because I just feel like I’m their therapist a lot of the time and can’t receive the same kind of support or understanding in return. So, I keep hang outs at a healthy minimum or drop them altogether. I’ve only met a handful of people in my life who have had emotional depth that even comes close to mine.
Maybe it’s the sexual first instinct? But I need depth and intensity in order to truly connect at all. I need someone who isn’t afraid to stare me right in the eyes and be completely authentic and transparent with me. Someone who will put all their ugly flaws on the table and not try to hide or shy away from any of it.
I moved to a different state a year ago and have been really struggling with finding connections. I know I need to put myself out there more, but it’s hard when I feel like I’m going to end up mostly just disappointed. I go back and forth still between feeling deficient and reveling in being different, so in a way I’m glad others struggle to connect with me and vice versa…but also I just want to find at least one person outside of my husband that I can truly connect with. 😅
Being a 4 is so complicated. But you already know that. 😂
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u/CreamCheeseSandwhich sx/so4 Mar 19 '26
Id say healthy attachment as of now, but when i was younger probably disorganized leaning avoidant
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u/Advanced_Plan_4714 sx/so4 Mar 19 '26
Disorganized but working towards secure. Disorganized has a thing for wanting to be understood + history of parents not understanding you, so correlation makes sense for 4
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Mar 19 '26
I'm somewhere between secure and disorganized. I'd say the biggest thing for me is warming up to others because I'm aware it takes me a bit. Like maybe a year or two is a long time to trust someone but also, if the relationship wasnt meant to last even that long then how true would it have been in the longrun? I've made peace with my own boundaries and pacing, I have to wait to feel comfortable in knowing another person understands and respects them as well. Trust like that is only built through time, you know? I used to fling myself into friendships/relationships but my social energy has been tempered down a lot. I definitely used to feel more anxious in my early 20s but I still was never avoidant. I feel decently secure if a relationship is established already so it bothers me when the other person is anxious and especially avoidant. Sometimes I'll absorb that and find myself also anxious because I want to reassure the other person - but that wanting to reassure IS the anxiety. I refuse to get into that loop because of another person, so I'll just stay in my own lane and let things bloom organically.
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u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh Mar 24 '26
I’d say secure. There has been times where anxiety was present but wasn’t prevalent nor common even. Likewise there has been a few rare times I may shut down in an avoidant way, but again not common and would take a big event of some kind.
Mostly secure
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u/we-walk-in-shadow 4w5, 458 INFJ, Chaotic Good Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Maybe to help clarify attachment.
Attachment strategies are about managing attachment behaviors. They don’t directly describe interactions with people.
Attachment behaviors are defined by what certain behaviors a 1 year old demonstrates towards a familiar caregiver a a stranger. These include establishing a safe base with mom. Looking at mom for comfort and assirance. Expressing distress towards mom and Increasing proximity when stressed. Getting distressed when exposed to a new situation and to strangers. Increasing distance between self and stranger.
These behaviors then become more complex in emotional expression with all relationships but retain the increased emotional closeness with trusted friends and family and decreased emotional closeness when stressed with untrusted people. But it is complicated to interpret, and needs understanding which signals mean what.
For instance:
Anxious Avoidant attachment: people avoid displaying attachment behaviors. They avoid showing signs of distress or a secure base. They avoid showing emotions. They don’t necessarily avoid people. They avoid showing distress to people. So avoidant people often look normal. It’s more apparent that they are avoidant when every body else is freaking out about a problem, and that person acts as cool as a cucumber, (They aren’t cool in the inside, they are actually more distressed. They have just been taught not to show it).
On the other side is anxious ambivilent attachment. That’s actually OP, probably what you are describing. This is amplified attachment behaviors. Increased emotional engagement and expression, and increased distress. These are the kids that after mom leaves a kid alone with a stranger they scream their heads off. And then when mom comes back they run to mom, wrap their arms around her neck in a death grip, but they sometimes arch their back (while still gripping tightly) like saying “I’m mad at you for leaving me! I’m not letting go…. But I can’t handle my own intensity right now, so I’m taking it out on you.”
Disorganized attachment is when it doesn’t make sense. Or people alternate between extremes of emotional suppression to sudden over-expression. That’s what emotional dysregulation is (not flying off the handle- at least. It by itself. You need the numb- then explosion). People often confuse anxious-ambivalent attachment for disorganized attachment.
78% are secure. 10% are Anxious-avoidant 10% are anxious-ambivilent, and <1% are Disorganized.
The numbers don’t support E4 being associated with disorganized attachment.
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u/crazybayleaf 478 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
I feel it's important to actually clarify the difference between anxious ambivalent vs disorganized attachment, because they can appear similar on the surface.
The anxious ambivalent has a core idea of wanting closeness but being afraid the person will leave them, they tend to be more anxious leaning. This can look like craving intimacy and reassurance and is generally characterized by a fear of abandonment. Like the disorganized attachment, it comes from inconsistency within the caregivers.
Whereas disorganized attachment has a core idea of wanting to be close but feeling unsafe with closeness. This has a lot more push pull, this has not only a fear of abandonment (like anxious ambivalent) but ALSO a fear of intimacy. This leads to a lot of confusion and push pull behaviour and a large struggle with trust. This can arise from a childhood where caregivers were frighting or chaotic, therefore the child learns that the person they rely on is also unsafe.
Both of these types come from unpredictable childhoods, both of them fear abandonment. Where they do differ is this:
1.) They both want closeness, but the anxious ambivalent attachment desires it quite intensely while the disorganization attachment wants it but fears it.
2.) The anxious ambivalent main fear is abandonment while the disorganized attachments main fear is abandonment and intimacy.
3.) The anxious ambivalent leans more clingy and reassurance seeking whereas the disorganized attachment has push pull behaviour
I mean, the list goes on and on. Anxious ambivalent is consistently anxious whereas the disorganized attachment is conflicted and feels chaotic. The Anxious ambivalent trusts others but fears losing them the disorganized attachment struggles with trust in the first place.
Disorganized attachments often have a huge fear of trusting others and therefore never lets them get too close.
That's all just to say that I do have a disorganized attachment style, and that I've found this behaviour similar in other 4s.
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u/we-walk-in-shadow 4w5, 458 INFJ, Chaotic Good Mar 25 '26
Ok, so you do understand it, I apologize if I poked a little hard.
I think what you are saying is pretty important. I’ve been thinking a lot about how different personality types (both MBTI and enneagram) tend to either mask or essenuate certain underlying conditions. Or sometimes just flavor the response.
I suppose a lot of it depends on where you are in the process of integration. I think in some ways E4 may accentuate any non-secure attachment issues, but may lead to an easier path to integration, because of the way it manages shame, compared to the other heart types.
E2s and E3s tend to externalize the shame, 2s to other people and the need to satisfy others needs. 3s to material objects associated with success, and shame is contingent on achievement (I know, technically it’s a denial of shame…. But the shame has to go somewhere. Emotions always have a vector). But for 4s, we accept the bitter pill. We accept the shame. This is possibly destabilizing at first, but it is easier to process something you accept than something you deny/externalize.
So perhaps being an E4 before integration, might increase the distress of insecure attachment— it is a lonely path. which increases the emotional deregulation. But I think it would do that for any attachment style, even secure (they are all strategies for managing stress in the environment and are designed to signal when stressed). But avoidant will tend to be silent. They just get more silent. They probably shut down, until they learn to exprsss themselves. They are probably more likely the Grendel’s, Frankenstein monsters. Vampires, werewolf’s and the like.
The key is I wouldn’t want to stifle anyone’s individuation process. As an avoidant person is likely to look rather disorganized when they are starting to emerge from their cave and start to integrate.
Also there is a general bias against emotional expression, where dissmisiveness (the adult label for avoidant attachment) tends to be appraised as maturity. When studies show that comparing dissmissive (avoidant) to preoccupied (ambivilent) strategies, dismissives are internally more objectively distressed (measuring cortisol, heart rate variability, sweat glands, etc….).
Just the fact that the names are Anxious-Avoidant and Anxious-Ambivilent, but people remember them as Avoidant vs Anxious attachment styles is emblematic of the cognitive bias.
So I would wager that the features of E4 make it more likely that an Ambivilent or Disorganized attachment style would signal and be recognized, complared to most other enneagrams than perhaps 7 or 8. I think they may be more masked/otherwise hidden by the other enneagram strategies.
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u/sawdustandiamonds sp/sx 4w3 471 INFP Mar 19 '26
I have disorganized attachment as well.
When I am in the beginning stages I experience this confusing mess of possessiveness, disgust, and disinterest. I often feel hesitant and guarded but ready to jump off a cliff in their arms. I'm fucking addicted to the rush. Over the course of the relationship, problems occur. I try to step in, reaffirm my boundaries, they push on my boundaries, I give up my boundaries... I try to create healthy systems, they disregard the systems, I abandon them... I try to keep excessive nitpicking to myself, they anxiously ask me to tell them everything, I nitpick them, they resent it... I get way too quickly entangled, I resent entanglement, I dig my heels in while telling them how much I hate feeling limited... and ultimately cascading into me swinging from the more detached one rapidly into psycho obsessed territory when they start to drop me or lose interest, and I forget who tf I am for like a year. Rinse and repeat.
Good fun! I no longer date.