I will be brutally honest with you. There are times when I get these extreme feelings of anxiety. Sometimes it will be so bad that nothing seems to alleviate or satisfy me. There are moments where I will pace my bedroom, back and forth, over and over again, because I am so anxious that I literally cannot sit still. I'll get stricken by these feelings of apprehension out of nowhere. I'll start worrying that I've forever burdened myself with the monumental mistakes I've made. That I will always be forced to pay for and remember all of my misgivings, painfully blessed with an explicit memory. Sometimes I wonder if I'm a deserving wife, a good person, or worthy of all I've been given. Am I really giving back what I'm getting?
I mean, granted I don't always feel this way. It isn't necessarily a daily occurrence but it does happen. And these inevitable feelings of inadequacy can be overwhelming, maybe for some, even unbearable. And this sense of anxiety can make people needy and clingy. Women (and men) will cling to what they want in hopes of keeping it from slipping away.
I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go into relationships as a needy person. Better to go in with a full deck. -Angelica Huston
I used to have this friend who, for whatever reason, had a real problem with being clingy. She would just latch onto men almost instantly after she met them. I remember, when we worked together, she would come into work in the morning and say to me, "I met a man at the pool on Saturday," (her apartment complex had a community pool). Obviously, as a good friend and co-worker, I was interested in the aforementioned mystery man that she met at the pool. She told me all the normal things: He was tall, handsome, successful, and charming. They had been on one date and had really hit it off. She was bright and beaming, eternally hopeful for their future.
Usually the way it would go is they'd go on a few more dates, the man in question would meet her children, she would encourage them to call him "daddy", and then for whatever reason, the guy would break it off. She would be literally heartbroken. And not the kind of heartbroken where you're sad because it didn't work out but you can somehow manage to move on. I'm talking about actual devastation. She was so grieve stricken because she really, genuinely believed that they were going to get married. That this flavor of the week was in love with her and wanted to be a step-dad to her children, and that they were going to live happily ever after, for better or for worse, as long as they both shall live.
This isn't a joke, friends. She very seriously wanted to work it out with every single one of them. (Obviously not all at one time, but you know what I'm saying.) I truly believe that in some sense, she really did love those men. The proverbial love expressed was very real to her. And I'm not implying she was delusional. I'm saying that she believed it. She believed in love. She believed each time that she had found it. I mean, if she was guilty of anything, it was naivety or her habit of being too trusting.
Or too clingy. Too needy.
When a person goes into a relationship emotionally needy, they are not going to have discernment in choosing people. -Jennifer O'Neill
So what is it? Why does it happen? What is it that causes women (and men) to get so clingy that they have lost all sight of everything else? It becomes like an addiction and it's like you need to talk to someone, touch them or feel them, just be a part of their life because that's the only time you feel any sense of relief.
Sometimes I think it's that people possess insecurities that are so crippling, no matter how much they may try to deny it, it causes them to get attached to the point of suffocation. They become so needy and clingy that it unsurprisingly pushes the other person away. And it isn't as if every situation has the caliber of Fatal Attraction. It's not like everyone is running around screaming, "I won't be ignored, Dan!" (Althoughhhh, I'll be real with you: I have heard and seen far stranger things happen.)
But it happens. People get attached and sometimes the thought of breaking it off seems life threatening. The thought of losing someone that you may have never had instills feelings of restlessness and foreboding. It's like a drug and without your fix, you will literally go crazy.
The problem with human attraction is not knowing if it will be returned. -Becca Fitzpatrick
Another example of this is something that happened about seven or eight years ago. A girl broke off a relationship with her boyfriend of three years. The only way she could get away from him was to flee the city and literally cut the cord on her life. In some weird twist of fate, her mother's dog chewed through the charging cord for her cell phone, eliminating virtually any possible future contact with her ex-boyfriend.
She was gone for a few days and her ex was unable to contact her, leaving him presumably mentally and emotionally spent. She came back home after those few days feeling partly rejuvenated, partly anxiety ridden. He was possessive, controlling and probably going crazy without having any contact with her. Without having her locked in his little box, isolated in his twisted little warped, piece of garbage world.
And when she pulled into her apartment complex, guess who was there waiting for her? He ran up to her car, flung the door open and clutched her arms as if he had lost her. He was half a wreck, violently and physically ill, his eyes swollen and red with tears of pain, three years worth of bad decisions rolling down her face. He was literally clinging to her, begging her not to leave, virtually needing her in his life to go on. He was like an addict going through a withdrawal, his brain clouded by desperation.
But where is the line between loving tenderness and Stage 5 Clinger? Caring and needy? Demented and simply in love?
Moral of the Crazy: Maybe given life's uncertainty and swiftness, the fact that love isn't tangible and there's so many things to cause us anxiety, it creates the opportunity for that proverbial clingyness. All that internal chaos makes for a messy outward expression. Losing a grip on someone you care about can be so unnerving and sometimes the only thing we can do is cling to that lifeboat. The waves may be choppy but we refuse to let go, no matter how much the rope may be burning our fingers.
I've often heard that quote, "Even the darkest hour has only sixty minutes." People cling to what they think saves them. Even if it's a false sense of security, a mutton dressed as a lamb, it feels good to hold on. It feels good to know you've anchored yourself to something. To know you have control over some aspect of your life.
But listen, you were given two feet for a reason. You were genetically configured to stand on your own. And when it feels like you can't anymore, put on some Ray Charles and pour yourself a glass of wine. Those people you think you need will still be there when you wake up in the morning. And even the darkest hour has only sixty minutes.
Any fool knows that bravado is always a cover-up for insecurity. That is the truth. And on that note, I'll say goodnight. God love you. -Bobby Darin
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