Default

Start the game over.

I like to think that we all have our default settings.
Default is the program we came into life with or learned as children from the people around us, because as kids we soak up everything in our environment.

As an adult, one of my default settings is anxious avoidant attachment.

“Anxious-avoidant attachment is an insecure attachment style in which individuals crave closeness but simultaneously fear intimacy, leading to a push-pull cycle in relationships.”

For the majority of my life, this default caused me to only attract surface-level relationships. I rarely experienced closeness or intimacy of any kind, which led to deep feelings of loneliness.

It created the hyper-independent woman who doesn’t ask for help and who felt she had to go through life alone.

Through therapy and working on myself, I was able to identify this default behavior, because before this, it was just my norm — something I believed I had to be.

But the thing is: in any game, you can go in and change the default settings to something else.

I like to think of triggers as restarting the game.
And when you start over, the settings automatically go back to default.

When I start to develop a relationship (platonic or romantic) and I get triggered, my default settings jump in:

“Watch out now. Don’t get too close to this person — they could leave, and that’ll hurt.
You don’t need them.
YOU DON’T NEED ANYONE.”

And the closer I get to someone, the harder the game feels and the louder those words get.
In that default setting, I return to:

• Anxious avoidant attachment

• Hyper-independence

• Isolation

• Pushing people away

• Fear

I’ve had to learn that closeness is not a threat, vulnerability is not danger, and allowing someone to love me is not a burden — it’s a privilege.

I love deeply once I get there, and I had to learn that sometimes in parts of the game you lose — but that doesn’t mean you stop playing. Because if you don’t play, you definitely don’t win.

When my default settings are triggered, it feels like I’m starting the game over because those intense feelings come to the surface, and it feels like I’m on level one all over again.
But once you gain awareness, you’re never truly starting over — because now you have the tools to change the settings.

Even when the game “starts” over, I now know how to go into the settings and switch my default to my new program.

And know, no matter what your default program is, you always have the power to change the settings when you’re ready.