“Often, it can be due to feelings of insecurity, self-doubt or anxiety about the future,” she said. “A lack of confidence in relationships can also contribute to clinginess.
Acting clingy tends to stem from attachment issues and past relationships that were emotionally dramatic. Clinginess is not as severe as codependency, but it can be a symptom of this unhealthy relationship style.
Dependent personality disorder usually starts during childhood or by the age of 29. People with DPD have an overwhelming need to have others take care of them. Often, a person with DPD relies on people close to them for their emotional or physical needs. Others may describe them as needy or clingy.
Clingy Behavior in the Context of
Taking into account the causes of clinginess, it becomes clear that this behavior is often the result of attachment trauma – not receiving the closeness, comfort, and security a child needs to feel safe.
Clinginess can take a turn toward controlling behavior if power and wanting to gain the upper hand enters the picture. You may want your partner to fulfill specific expectations, and if they don't, it can intensify thoughts that they aren't doing what you need because they don't love you enough.
While clingy tendencies may have been “ok” in your previous relationship, being overly needy is generally considered a toxic dating habit.
To be clingy is to stay highly close or dependent on someone for emotional support and a sense of security. Clingy people may feel desperate to latch onto their friend or partner and depend on them for constant check-ins, updates, and responsiveness to all needs.
Anxiety and Attachment
People that exhibit clingy traits are likely to have anxious attachment styles towards their partners. They may constantly worry about being underappreciated or abandoned in their relationships.
In early childhood, crying, tantrums, or clinginess—all the hallmarks of separation anxiety—are healthy reactions to separation and a normal stage of development. It can begin before a child's first birthday and may reoccur until the age of four.
One of the signs of immaturity in a woman (or anyone) is when they feel like they need to be in the spotlight everywhere they go. Another sign of an immature person is being clingy.
Appearing emotionally attached but lacking empathy: An emotionally needy person can be very selfish because they only cling to others or appear to need them to make themselves feel better. Clinginess is not flattering. It is unstable and needy behavior.
Individuals with an anxious attachment style are characterized with: Being clingy. Having an intensely persistent and hypervigilant alertness towards their partner's actions or inactions.
Separation anxiety usually starts before a child's first birthday and can last until they turn four years. The intensity and timing of separation anxiety vary a lot from child to child .
Separation anxiety disorder most often occurs in childhood, but may also occur in teenage years, and sometimes in adulthood. SAD is more likely to occur in children with: a family history of anxiety or depression.
Neediness is an excessive need for acceptance or affection that results in that person repeatedly becoming overly attached to people and depending on them too much. An insecure attachment is often the culprit behind clinginess in relationships, according to relationship expert Jaime Bronstein, LCSW.
As Verily contributor Amy Chan explains, if you frequently feel needy and insecure in relationships, you may have an anxious attachment style. “When anxious attachers sense that their romantic connection is threatened, their attachment system goes haywire," she shares.
'Clingy' is a term often used to describe someone who does not have clear boundaries and tends to get over-attached emotionally or even physically. If your boyfriend is overly possessive, jealous (even of your non-romantic relationships), and irrationally insecure about your whereabouts, he is clingy.
OCPD traits include preoccupation and insistence on details, rules, lists, order and organisation; perfectionism that interferes with completing tasks; excessive doubt and exercising caution; excessive conscientiousness, as well as rigidity and stubbornness.
Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPDs) become overwhelmed and incapacitated by the intensity of their emotions, whether it is joy and elation or depression, anxiety, and rage. They are unable to manage these intense emotions.
By some estimates, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is the most common personality disorder. Around 1 in 100 individuals have OCPD, and it is diagnosed in twice as many men as women. OCPD is different from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Berrill explains.