#attachment theory

You are not entitled to anyone else's time or affection.

People are allowed to leave you if they do not want a relationship with you.

People do not have to give you a reason that you approve of, or even a reason at all, to leave you if they do not want a relationship with you.

Your own co-dependency issues and attachment to someone else does not trump that person's ability to deny consent.

No-one is obligated to give you attention just because you want them to.

No-one is obligated to stay in a relationship they don't want to be in, even if the other person hasn't done anything wrong.

No-one is obligated to stay in a relationship they don't want to be in, even if the other person is mentally ill.

for people who want to become nonchalant or 'manipulative' or whatever, leaving someone hanging to let them chase may seem like the dream character trait they want to have, but it's a slow social suicide you commit.

as you grow up, you leisurely lose friends who deeply cared for you, you lose chances of true love because you couldn't face your fear of commitment or your low worth about deserving real things, you don't get to face your demons of seeing relationships as a struggle. the painful part is realizing the loss after a very long time, the what ifs and whys they come as sequela.

i actually didn't realize until looking it up just now that attachment parenting & the secure/anxious/avoidant stuff are both part of the same deal. my thoughts about attachment parenting is that it's absolutely cruel to expect mothers to singlehandedly attend to every single need or want that a baby has & act like refusing to do so is Ruining Them Forever Psychologically. like the idea that kids prioritizing only one or two core caregivers is crucial to their development is so often used to reinforce the nuclear family form.

i tried to do the whole babywearing & breastfeeding on demand thing. especially with K who 1) was able to latch much better than when i tried it with A and 2) HATED pacifiers. and it completely wore me out. it was so overstimulating and it made me feel like a dairy cow. oh my god i was so miserable. and everything i read about it (especially on kellymom. can i be honest. fuck kellymom) was like you're SUPPOSED to be miserable, that's the POINT, and it's CRUCIAL to your child's lifelong health that you're miserable.

anyway. i don't buy it. i try to affirm my kids' bids for attention as often as i can, but there's plenty of times that i'm like. no, stop asking me to look please, i'm working/reading/et cetera. sorry if that creates an anxious attachment and ruins them forever (or until they reparent themselves or whatever). i think they'd be better off if we had a collective living situation where they could run off and play with someone else they trust, too.

So, I've been obsessively collecting qaf meta ever since I came here a few months ago, but ultimately the thing that explained almost everything about why Brian does what he does, why he is the way he is, and why his and Justin’s relationship works, was Attachment Theory (particularly David J. Wallin’s book Attachment in Psychotherapy which is fantastic even if you’re neither a therapist nor in therapy). And now it makes up 80% of my headcanon. So have a seat because I'm about to wikileak all my research.

This post got very long as usual, so I’m splitting it into two parts.

Disclaimer: This is obviously not a scientific article and I am neither a psychologist nor an expert in Attachment Theory, so don't take this with more seriousness than a tumblr analysis deserves. If you find a factual error, let me know. If you want to learn more about attachment theory, Wallin’s book is great!

Attachment style in the smallest nutshell

Our attachment style reflects not just the way we form relationships with others, but also our capability to process our own emotions and needs, our self-perception and life experience.

Brian has a predominantly avoidant attachment style, which develops in children who are emotionally neglected or rejected by their primary attachment figure (usually the mother). Brian's avoidant attachment style means that he is pathologically independent and it’s really difficult for him to be emotionally open with people and to form secure, trusting, close relationships with anyone. It also means that Brian is terrible at feeling, understanding and dealing with his own emotions, especially those related to attachment and those that are painful, so most of the time he just denies or suppresses them.

Attachment style forms in very early childhood and is believed to be mostly constant throughout life, although some factors can change it, e.g.:

therapy, 

trauma, 

the relationship with parents changing, e.g. a parent dying, leaving or developing a mental illness,

forming new consistent attachment relationships and developing new emotional patterns.

Brian’s childhood and emotional development

We don't know everything about Brian's childhood, but we can make some guesses based on his allusions or by interpreting his adult behavior.

@thoughtsickles wrote a beautiful post about it.

I imagine baby Brian was often left on his own when he needed soothing (if anyone would let her baby “cry it out” it would be Joan Kinney) and when they interacted, Joan wasn’t emotionally attuned to him. I can see an echo of that when they interact on the show - it’s like each of them is in a separate bubble. They talk next to each other rather than with each other. Each of them wants to be heard or get a reaction, but neither wants to hear the other out. Now compare them to Justin’s scenes with Jennifer.

Infants and toddlers learn their own emotions when the attachment figure (e.g. mother) acknowledges their emotional states and responds to them in an attuned way. For example, smiling when the baby is smiling, mirroring and soothing the baby’s sadness, or reassuring when the baby is scared. This is called co-regulating and these experiences teach the child how to self-regulate and how to build a connection with others. If Brian didn’t have that, he had to develop his own, dysfunctional ways to suppress his overwhelming or threatening emotional states (fear, pain, sadness, loneliness, etc.) in order to function. He also learned that he can’t count on anyone else for help or comfort. And quite possibly, he was also punished or isolated for showing anger, pain, weakness, complaining or crying. 

And while arguably Brian had an opportunity to learn more secure and nurturing patterns with Debbie and Michael, we don’t know how much they actually helped him, how consistent they were in their support, and it also all started late in Brian’s development, so it was already filtered through layers of his emotional dysfunction and distrustful worldview.

We also know that Brian was abused by his father and - as far as he remembers it - his mother failed to protect him. We don’t know exactly what Brian’s relationship was with Jack. Even though I believe it was closer than the one he had with Joan, I don’t believe Brian ever relied on Jack for safety or emotional support, so my guess is that he had no positive effect on Brian’s attachment style.

Brian’s avoidant attachment style manifests in many tragic ways, both internal and external:

Part 1: Brian’s emotional avoidance and relationship with himself

“Just don’t think about it.”

Brian suppresses and dissociates from difficult emotions (through denial, distraction, drugs, alcohol and sex) rather than feeling and processing them, because otherwise they would overwhelm him - his ability to handle difficult feelings never fully developed. 

Suppressing difficult emotions doesn’t get rid of them, it just pushes them out of consciousness. They still run in his nervous system, causing him pain and discomfort, and his emotional needs remain unaddressed. 

The only difficult emotion Brian engages in is anger, but it also overwhelms him. When he gets angry, he gets enraged and he lashes out. He had a lot of experience with anger at the Kinney family home, where it was common and maybe even respected, as a show of "strength." And I’ll bet you nobody there knew how to manage it in a functional way.  Expressing anger allows you to physically release some of the tension and pain that's built up inside, so at some level it feels good and can be helpful. But if you don’t know how to release anger in a non-hurtful way, it ends up isolating you from people you're close to and reinforcing your deep-rooted belief that you're a piece of shit. On an instinctual level - pushing people away is the point of Brian's anger, because he feels the safest and in control when he's alone.

Because his emotion-processing capability is impaired, Brian relies on cold, pragmatic logic, obsessive control, sarcasm, eloquent rules of life and cynicism as scaffolding to substitute feelings. He’s also built up a cool persona of someone who can't be hurt because he doesn’t give a shit. Of course, Brian sees his emotional detachment as strength, not an impairment. He probably thinks people who succumb to feelings are weak, embarrassing and needy.

“Just don’t think about it” is what Brian told Justin whenever Justin wanted to talk about the bashing or got triggered by thinking about it. “Forget about it.” And it seems like Justin listened to this shitty advice until his suppressed anger blew the lid off when he joined the pink posse. “Just don’t think about it” is also obviously how Brian decided to manage his trauma from the bashing, which made it that much harder for Justin to process their shared experience. “Just don’t think about it”, aside from “never seeing a shrink and a series of hopeless addictions,” is Brian’s secret to being surprisingly “high-functioning” despite suffering from some profound dysfunctions and emotional wounds.

“Like I give a shit what God thinks about me. He'd better be worried what I think about him.”

Brian has terrible self-worth, because his parents rejected and/or neglected him. In the baby brain a parent’s rejection means "I'm unlovable" or "There's something really wrong with me," because babies are incapable of thinking "There's something wrong with my mom and that's why she's neglecting me." Your survival fully depends on your mother and she can do no wrong. And then there's the fact that Brian knew his parents never wanted him to be born.  

How do we know Brian has terrible self-worth? Because: 

He regularly engages in dangerous, self-destructive, self-sacrificing and self-neglecting behavior.  

He never expects people to be there for him (Michael being the codependent exception) or to treat him well. 

He never goes after anyone, and he doesn’t fight for what he wants or needs from other people (It’s your choice who you wanna be with). Because he doesn’t feel his emotional needs are important, especially to other people. He doesn't believe people would or should choose him.

He thinks he's a disposable element in other people's lives. When he gets abandoned, he just accepts it because that's what he thinks he deserves. 

He rarely stands up for himself when his friends misjudge him or treat him unfairly. (On some level he believes the bad things they say about him)

Despite his terrible self-worth, he has fantastic confidence and self-esteem, because self-esteem and confidence are earned from success and other people's approval. Brian knows he’s attractive, competent, admired and successful. He makes sure his success is apparent to everyone, through designer clothes, glamorous home decor and status-symbol cars. He's also condescending to people he considers "below him" - you can't be better than everyone else unless there are people worse than you. But having to constantly improve and prove his value to other people is still a show of insecurity in his innate self-worth. 

In fact, the drive (desperation) to prove his value as a person, as a man, as a professional, as a sexual MVP, is proportional to the size of the void of self-love that he tries to fill inside him. But filling the void of self-love with outside validation is like filling a gas tank with water - it's not gonna get you anywhere, no matter how much you pour in. You can know for a fact that people like, desire and respect you, while deep down you still believe you're a worthless piece of shit that doesn't deserve love. Brian’s competitive promiscuity is the primary source of fuel for his self-esteem, that’s why he can’t give it up.

Brian’s love language is acts of service, sacrifice and financial support, because he believes he has to earn other people's love. And no matter how much he does for other people, he’ll never feel like he's earned that love. That's why he never asks for help, even from the people that we would say are “indebted” to him.

Warning: this is just for fun + based on vibes and my own opinion not actual diagnoses.

attachment styles are patterns, not identities

Jin - Secure attachment (but with emotional intelligence so high it sometimes looks avoidant)

Jin gives secure attachment energy in the way he loves people openly but doesn’t lose himself in them. He teases, he jokes, he creates emotional distance when things get too heavy but not because he doesn’t care. Because he does and he knows how to regulate it.

He lightens emotional intensity so things don’t become overwhelming for himself and others.

He’s the kind of secure attachment that says: “I love you, but I will not disappear into you.”

He shows up, he stays consistent, but he also has boundaries and that’s what makes him stable, not distant.

He knows when to step in emotionally and when to step back.

He’s the kind of secure attachment that doesn’t chase, doesn’t withdraw dramatically, he just stays steady.

RM (Namjoon) - Anxious-avoidant (fearful attachment, intellectualized emotions)

Namjoon feels like someone who understands emotions too deeply to handle them directly. So he translates them into art, language, philosophy.

He wants connection, but he also overthinks it.

He feels responsible for people emotionally, but also fears failing them.

It’s like: “I want to be understood, but if you get too close, you might see everything I haven’t figured out yet.”

He processes love through thinking before feeling out loud.

Suga (Yoongi) - Avoidant attachment (earned secure tendencies over time)

Yoongi gives classic avoidant energy at first glance: quiet, independent, emotionally self-contained.

But it’s not a lack of emotion,it’s actually controlled emotion. He feels deeply, but doesn’t externalize easily.

His attachment style feels like: “I can handle everything alone. But if I let you in, it will matter too much.”

He feels like someone who learned that depending too much on others can be risky, so he built independence as safety.

Over time, though, he shows signs of earned security: choosing closeness, but carefully, intentionally.

J-Hope - Secure attachment with anxious sensitivity underneath

Hobi is emotional safety in human form. He gives, he expresses, he connects easily.

But there’s also sensitivity underneath the brightness. Like he’s deeply aware of emotional shifts in others and adjusts himself to maintain harmony.

He feels like: “If you’re okay, I’m okay.” “I’ll make this feel safe for you, even if I have to hold a little more.”

Still, his core is steady. He doesn’t fear closeness, he creates it.

Jimin - Anxious attachment (deep fear of losing connection, high emotional fusion)

Jimin feels everything intensely. Love, rejection, distance, closeness—all amplified.

He forms emotional bonds deeply and quickly, and that creates both beauty and fear.

His energy is: “Please don’t leave. I will love you so fully that I might lose myself in it.”

There’s emotional merging in the way he connects, he feels people through himself.

Closeness feels like everything. Distance feels like everything too.

There’s a constant awareness of how he is seen, how he is loved, how easily that could change.

“If I love you fully, will you stay?”

V (Taehyung) - Disorganized / complex attachment (deep need for connection + emotional unpredictability)

Taehyung feels emotionally nonlinear.

He can be extremely open, affectionate, present and then suddenly distant, internal, somewhere else entirely.

It’s like: “I want closeness, but I experience it differently every time I try to hold it.”

Not because he doesn’t care but because his inner world is very deep and sometimes hard to process even for him.

There’s both deep longing and emotional unpredictability like connection is beautiful, but also very overwhelming.

His emotions aren't inconsistent,they're just complex.

Jungkook - secure attachment with anxious undertones (and avoidant coping when overwhelmed)

He feels like someone who learnt how to be secure through growth and not because everything was always easy.

There’s a strong sense of connection and loyalty. He bonds deeply, cares intensely, and shows love through action rather than words.

But underneath that, there’s also sensitivity to evaluation and emotional pressure especially because he grew up in a highly visible, high-expectation environment.

So his attachment pattern can look like:

Secure: he commits, stays loyal, shows up consistently

Anxious undertone: worries about performance, approval, “am I enough?”

Avoidant coping under stress: retreats into work, training, self-improvement instead of expressing his emotions.

It’s not emotional distance,it’s emotional channeling.

His energy is basically:

“I will become better so I don’t lose people.”

But over time, he also shows more ease in closeness, more playfulness, more openness, more comfort in being seen without performing.