Politics of Attachment | Dylan Smeder

Who Systems Train Us to Be

Systems shape our emotional instincts long before we recognize them.

We learn who is allowed softness and who must endure.
We learn who receives empathy and who is expected to absorb the impact.

The body carries these rules forward like muscle memory.

How Control Hides Behind a Story

Controlling behavior often comes with a story meant to justify it.
But the story is not the healing.

It is the shield that protects the pattern.
Accountability begins when the pattern is named, not when the story is repeated.

What Secure Behavior Actually Looks Like

Security often looks quiet.
It is conflict that stays real and contained, boundaries that do not punish, and honesty that does not blow up the room.
What looks like “calm personality” is really a body that finally feels safe enough to stay present.

He's such a pos

Many of us learned our position in the system before we learned our own needs.

The body adapts to survive the rules around it and only later asks what it actually wants.

Unexamined childhood power patterns show up again and again until they are confronted.

The body holds familiar roles long after we have outgrown the people who taught them.

Conflict activates old alarms. Your reactions come from what once kept you safe, not who you are.

Bigotry walks, not leaps.
"It was a joke."
"Relax."
"You're imagining it."
Each line is a tiny permission slip for what comes next.

A lot of what we call personality began as training.
Families and culture teach who breaks down and who holds everyone else together.

There is a strange relief in overstepping boundaries.
"I got what I wanted" comes first.
Reflection rarely follows.

Your attachment system notices tiny changes in tone or distance because once those shifts meant danger.
Your body is not overreacting. It is remembering.

THE DEFLECTION

Bigotry hides behind “I didn’t mean it,” “you’re too sensitive,” and “it was a joke.”
The goal is always the same: move attention away from the harm.

#TheBigotryPlaybook 6/26

THE EMOTIONAL ECONOMY

Systems teach us whose feelings matter and whose stay quiet.
Some learn to apologize first. Others learn they never have to.

These rules shape relationships without ever being spoken.

#RaisedBySystems 6/26

WHY IT STICKS

People cling to unfair power because it feels easier than negotiating needs or facing insecurity.
Control becomes a shortcut that never leads to closeness.

#WherePowerLives 6/26

Your body remembers patterns that formed long before you had language.
Tension in the throat. A shift in breathing.

A sudden urge to pull close or push away.
These responses were once solutions.

What signals does your body feel when safety becomes uncertain?

#SignalsNSurvival 6/26

THE WARM-UP

Bigotry rarely starts with hate.
It starts with “I’m just saying,” “I’m just asking,” or “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Denial is always the warm-up.

#TheBigotryPlaybook 5/26

THE ORIGINAL BLUEPRINT

Families, schools, and culture taught us who gets to express, who holds it together, who apologizes first, and who never gets forgiven.

Most patterns were learned long before you chose them.

#RaisedbySystems 5/26

THE REFRAME (MIC DROP)

If someone needs you to shrink so they can feel stable, that isn’t partnership. It is emotional rent collection.

#WherePowerLives 5/26

Your attachment system can learn new settings.

The alarms that once kept you safe and the habits that once made sense can shift gently as your world becomes safer.

Your system is designed to change.

What signals does your body feel when change starts to seem possible?

#SignalsNSurvival 5/26

HERITAGE BUT MAKE IT PROPAGANDA

Call it “heritage” if you want,
but it’s mostly a multigenerational scheme of:
“We’re better,
so hand over your stuff.”

#TheBigotryPlaybook 3/26

THE MYTH OF “JUST PERSONALITY”

So many traits we call personality
are really survival strategies shaped by systems.

Who gets loud.
Who gets small.
Who smooths conflict.
Who absorbs blame.
Who performs strength.

#RaisedBySystems 3/26

CONSEQUENCES (ZOOM OUT)

Call it “love” if you want,
but a power violation is just a two-person pyramid scheme of:
“My feelings matter more,
so adjust yourself around me.”

Where Power Lives 3/26

Anxious Attachment isn’t neediness.

It’s your body asking:
“Can I trust this?”
“Is it safe to relax?”
“Are we okay?”

Healing isn’t linear.
It’s circular.
You don’t go backward.
You revisit with more awareness each time you come around.

THE COSTUME CHANGE

Bigotry rarely starts loud.
It starts as “that’s just how things are” or “people like that exaggerate.”
Silence is the first disguise. Confidence is the second.

The Bigotry Playbook 4/26

WHO BENEFITS

Systems teach us patterns about whose needs matter first.
Who is the caretaker.
Who absorbs the discomfort.
Who adjusts.
Who disappears.

Raised by Systems 4/26

EARLY SIGNS (THE QUIET ROT)

The first power violation is usually the smallest one,
because they know you’ll try to “be understanding.”

#WherePowerLives 4/26

If unrealized gains aren’t real enough to tax, then why are they real enough to borrow against?

THE BARE MINIMUM OLYMPICS

Most bigotry is basically:
“Let me feel superior without doing any actual work.”

Superiority is the laziest coping mechanism ever invented.

#TheBigotryPlaybook 2/26

STRUCTURES WE INHERIT

Systems teach us what relationships should feel like.

Who carries the emotional weight.
Who apologizes first.
Who adjusts.
Who absorbs.
Who gets believed.

These aren’t personal quirks.
They’re inherited templates.

#RaisedBySystems 2/26