Anne Shirley does not stop talking — not because she is naïve or dramatic, but because silence once meant disappearing. Passed between homes where care was conditional, she learns early that belonging must be earned through brightness, usefulness, and charm. This essay explores how the fear of not being enough forms as an attachment strategy — and the quiet cost of performing safety long after it’s no longer required.

An attachment-informed reflection on Rebecca Welton and the quiet cost of strength. This essay explores avoidant adaptation, dignity, endurance, and the way longing is managed rather than expressed. Using fiction as emotional distance, it examines how unreliable early attachment can shape adult relationships, grief, and the practice of staying composed when wanting once felt unsafe.

Being truly seen isn't the relief we expected. It's exposing. My client said it best: "You're the first person who's really seen me, and that feels exposing, not comforting." We crave witness and bolt from it in the same breath. What Fleabag teaches us about attachment, the terror of visibility, and why intimacy makes us want to disappear—and what to do about it.