attachment- the basics
Our attachment nervous system forms in the womb. Connected to our mother, we begin the process of learning about connection and relationships. Is connection safe? Will our needs be met? Can we trust the world? These questions form and sometimes get answered before we even see the bright lights of our grand entrance into physical form.
If mom is stressed, preoccupied, full of rage, not eating, and depressed, there is no other time in our lives where that state of another person affects us so devastatingly. We feel what she feels. We eat what she eats. We know what she knows.
Before age 3, our relationship map is charted. We know if we can trust, who or what will reliably show up for us and if our needs will generally be met. You may not have conscious memories of your life pre-age 3 but your body does and your current relationships with attachment figures mirror this knowledge.
Lean in, pull back, freeze in silence, these are all ways our bodies remember our early lessons in relationship school. Our reactions to severed connections and sometimes abundant connections are remnants of how we were cared for in those early years before we could talk.
A few attachment basics:
We all have all four styles (secure, anxious, ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized) but the styles occur in different size chunks of a pie. For example, your pie may look 50% secure, 20% anxious ambivalent, 20% avoidant, 10% disorganized.
We have different attachment styles depending on the relationship. The style we occupy in the relationship is often dependent upon whether the person is an affiliate figure or an attachment figure. In some relationships, you may feel and behave quite securely, and in others, erratically and insecurely.
Your style is an adaptation you developed to help you survive your childhood. You needed it. It allowed you to remain connected to your family of origin at a time when you were 100% dependent.
IT IS NOT FIXED. We can work to reorganize our attachment nervous system and earn more secure attachment.
If you had the kind of experience where your caregivers could feed you when you were hungry, comfort you when you were sad, hold you close, and find you delightful, you may have walked away with a mostly secure attachment system. In adult life, this means that you feel ok being with or without others. You can enjoy your connections and be mostly connected to yourself. You don't struggle knowing what you need or want in relationships and you can take responsibility for your experiences. You know how to repair well and feel secure enough in yourself to admit when you have caused harm or rupture.
If you had the kind of caregivers that were preoccupied, emotionally unpredictable, or inconsistent, you may have survived using the anxious ambivalent style. This is a style that means that you are consistently overly worried about the status of the relationship. When there is a rupture it consumes you. You long for connection and deepening of connection so much that you tend to not notice or discount connection when it's readily available to you. You ruminate on abandonment as a possibility of every disagreement. You need help knowing what you need or asking for it directly and will sometimes strategically give to others in order to ensure security in having your needs met later.
If your caregivers were harsh or stoic and you were often occupied by screens or toys instead of interacting with other humans, you may have come away with an avoidant attachment style. You learned early on that connections would not be where you got your needs met. You then curl into yourself as the only person who can make things happen for you. You may find that you struggle to move towards a relationship, and that closeness feels overwhelming. It may be difficult to stay in moments where intimacy is high. You may energetically leave the connection by keeping other connections alive, fantasizing about other options, or finding small reasons to be critical of your current attachment figure.
In disorganized attachment, your caregivers could be very loving but they were also scary or extremely neglectful. You may have been left unsupervised, given roles that were beyond your capacity, or experienced violence and boundary violations. This type of caregiver experience leaves you divorced from yourself. Dissociation is a common feature of the disorganized attachment system. If you identify with this style, you may struggle to identify true danger, find yourself in chaos, and even feel safe in abusive dynamics in the name of “protection”.
With disorganized attachment, we see a cycle of numbing, spiraling in shame, and connecting through rage. This leaves people in a relationship with those who are occupying this style reporting fear and unpredictability. The disorganized system finds itself confused in competition between connection and survival. Imagine knowing you need air to breathe but also knowing that air could and has almost killed you in the past. Imagine knowing that you have a job but never knowing where to show up to. The location changes every day and you get in trouble if you don't guess it correctly. These are the experiences of disorganized attachment.
If you want to learn more or practice corrective experiences, our next workshop is THIS FRIDAY! March 1st, 2024 from 2pm-330 pm EST. If you can’t make it live, don't worry! There will be a recording!