i've been out of a toxic relationship for about two or three years now, and i still find myself craving for that validation that he would give me. i still find myself craving *his* attention because i had spent almost a year in that environment and have had nothing to fill the void. i can't imagine the amount of damage he would've caused if i had stayed.
there's an epidemic of attention seekers and it's been villanized to the point someone can very blatantly cry for help and it'll be pushed to the side that "they're just an annoying attention seeker, don't fuel their delusion"
but this behavior typically is from traumatized people who have been victims!!! let me break down how attention seeking behavior ties back to being abused for you to understand.
first your abuser makes you nothing, your self worth is zero and you are completely worthless. then bit by bit, your self worth is drip fed back to you ONLY this time it comes with a clause. your self worth now belongs to that abuser, so the moment you leave and escape? you become nothing all over again. it's like an addiction really, feeling worth something after feeling worthless for so long. and the cycle just repeats over and over, it's easy for abusers to take those who already view themselves as nothing under their wing - and for the victim? the pattern continues again and again until it is etched into their brain that the only way to make them feel worth something is to be abused.
so what happens when someone gets out of abuse and doesn't find another abuser? well that's where the attention seeking behavior comes in. they are free but they feel lost, and attention is the only thing that comes close to the feeling they had back when they were being abused.
so can we stop viewing attention seeking behavior as an inherently negative trait and start realizing it may be signs of something more going on beyond the surface? people don't do things for no reason and especially regarding syscourse issues, some people REALLY need to have more compassion.