A therapist and client Dallas Bragg explore how anxious attachment fuels FOMO. Bragg describes feeling unsafe alone and needing explicit reassurance: "I need somebody to tell me they want me." The conversation traces how anxious-attached people become especially distressed during typical abandonment triggers like Saturday nights when friends are out.
So for an anxiously attached person, perhaps relationships are really important and feeling connected. So if you know that you're anxious, as a therapist, if I know that my client is anxious, I might need to pay special attention to moments when they're on their own, or moments when the partner leaves, or where friends are on holidays, or the typical, it's a Saturday night and everybody's out and I'm dealing with FOMO. Why do you think that would be?
Me? Well, I would think if you're anxious, if you're alone, you definitely feel unsafe. I know that— I know it was very hard for me to be alone for a very long time.
Mm-hmm.
In that it felt— it did feel like FOMO, but it just felt like I need— I needed somebody to tell me they wanted me.
Mm-hmm.
And being by myself, I couldn't get that unless I went to social media and posted something to get likes, you know, something like that.
