childhood trauma

On insecure avoidant (dismissive & fearful) attachment styles

August 26, 2019 By gwynn

Dismissive-avoidant
A dismissive-avoidant attachment style is demonstrated by those possessing a positive view of self and a negative view of others.

People with a dismissive style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with these statements: “I am comfortable without close emotional relationships”, “It is important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient”, and “I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.” People with this attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others. They often deny needing close relationships. Some may even view close relationships as relatively unimportant. Not surprisingly, they seek less intimacy with attachments, whom they often view less positively than they view themselves. Investigators commonly note the defensive character of this attachment style. People with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style tend to suppress and hide their feelings, and they tend to deal with rejection by distancing themselves from the sources of rejection (e.g. their attachments or relationships).

Fearful-avoidant
A fearful-avoidant attachment style is demonstrated by those possessing an unstable fluctuating/confused view of self and others.

People with losses or other trauma, such as sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence may often develop this type of attachment and tend to agree with the following statements: “I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to completely trust others, or to depend on them. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to other people.” They tend to feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness, and the mixed feelings are combined with sometimes unconscious, negative views about themselves and their attachments. They commonly view themselves as unworthy of responsiveness from their attachments, and they don’t trust the intentions of their attachments. Similar to the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, people with a fearful-avoidant attachment style seek less intimacy from attachments and frequently suppress and deny their feelings. Because of this, they are much less comfortable expressing affection.

~Wikipedia, August 2019

While the avoidant attachment styles are not my dominant styles, I have been in relationships (both intimate and platonic) where the other person has an avoidant style. Some of the ways I have witnessed these styles show up in others (note I have broken it down to three lists: characteristics they share; dismissive only; fearful only)

Both avoidant styles ::

Struggle with emotional intimacy
Unable to share their own thoughts or feelings with others in a constructive way
“Logics” their way out of emotional conflict

Avoidant Dismissive style ::

Become uncomfortable when relationships get too emotionally intimate; may perceive their partners as “wanting too much” or being clinging when the partner expresses a desire to be more emotionally intimate
Appear fiercely independent – act as though they don’t need others; they can take care of everything themselves
When faced with separation or loss, they shift their focus and attention to other (non relationship) issues and goals
Tend to withdraw and isolate, attempting to cope with loss and other emotions on their own
Deny their vulnerability; use repression to manage emotions that are aroused in situations that activate their attachment needs
When seeking support from a partner are likely to use indirect strategies such as hinting, complaining, and sulking
Overly focused on themselves and their own comforts; largely disregard the feelings and interests of other people
Typical response to conflict, and stressful situations is to become distant and aloof

Avoidant Fearful ::

Afraid of being both too close to or too distant from others; attempt to keep their feelings at bay but are unable to
Overwhelmed by their emotional reactions and often experience emotional storms
Unpredictable moods; unable to self-regulate or suppress feelings
Often in rocky or dramatic relationships, with many highs and lows
Fear of being abandoned and also struggle with being intimate
Cling to their partner when they feel rejected, then feel trapped when they are close
Timing seems to be off between them and their partner

What these styles can look like in the modern world:

Ghosting or semi-ghosting
Refusing to talk about emotional personal topics
Avoiding or ignoring conflicts by ignoring phone calls, texts, emails; when they do reply make no mention of the conflict

Ghosting is a very modern day way that those with avoidant, and particularly dismissive-avoidant, attachment styles cope with their feelings. They may tell themselves all kinds of things about why they are ghosting the person, but it does boil down to not wanting to face and feel with their emotions. Note that their partner may or may not even be aware of a conflict, as avoidant styles struggle to state when something is an issue for them.

As with the insecure-anxious attachment style, the avoidant styles grow from neglect from their primary caregivers during their developmentally sensitive years. This may be due to the caregivers having addiction issues, having avoidant attachment styles themselves, or could be from a life event in the adult’s life that has them withdraw into themselves, like grief over the death of a loved one or needing to work outside the home suddenly due to divorce.

Those with fearful avoidant styles tend to have grown up in homes when sometimes a caregiver was available and sometimes not; creating a sense of confusion and not knowing if the adult will be available to meet their needs.

Generally speaking anxiously attached and avoidant attached people are attracted to each other. Their relationships tend to look a bit like a cat and mouse game where the anxiously attached person reaches out for connection, then the avoidantly attached person withdraws, so the anxiously attached reaches out more and the avoidant withdraws more, each upping the ante so to speak with each turn of the cycle with neither ever getting their attachment needs met. This cat and mouse game can last for decades, for a lifetime even.

However as one or the other partner works through their own trauma history and starts to process it, learning to develop a more securely attached relationship style there are two paths the relationship could either go down: 1. The relationship ends or 2. The other partner also begins to work through their trauma history and learns how to become more securely attached in relationship.

Securely attached people can be in relationship with either avoidant or anxious attached people (and of course other securely attached people). The good news for those with the insecure attachment style, is if they are willing and able, these relationships are excellent opportunities for them to grow and begin their trauma processing work and begin to shift their styles. However, the securely attached partner is not the insecurely attached partner’s therapist, and so finding a good trauma informed therapist is vital to facilitate the shifting that can begin to happen in these types of relationships.

Of course the ways we relate to others, especially our intimate partners, is complex and varied. We all have a more dominant style that we typically utilize, however we all have bits of each of the insecure attachment styles in us, regardless of which one is more dominant for us. How our attachment styles show up in our relationships is also varied depending on our partner’s (dominant) style and the work each person has done in processing their own childhood trauma.

My hope for sharing about each of these styles over the last couple weeks is for you to learn a bit more about yourself and to help you develop a bit more compassion for yourself in understanding some more of the hows and whys you interact in the world the way you do.

The best news in all of this, is with the right trauma informed therapist and our own dedication to practice and growth, we can all shift from insecure attachment styles to a more and more securely attached style. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it can be done. It requires us to literally rewire our neural pathways, and I highly recommend a therapist who utilizes a combination of somatic and talk therapy. This rewiring can begin to happen in a few months, and with more and more work people can begin to see significant changes in how they feel in their own bodies and within their relationships in as little as a year to eighteen months.

That may seem like a long time (eighteen months), but consider how long, how many decades, you have lived with the attachment style you developed as a child. When we look at it from this perspective, eighteen months is a drop in the bucket.

That doesn’t mean that in a year and half you will be “healed” or “cured” or completely changed in your attachment style. I believe those of us who developed insecure styles as children will always need to manage them in certain situations and consciously and intentionally bring ourselves back into more secure ways of being. However, developing that pause, to be able to move into that secure way of being with ourselves and with others, is everything.

** I want to note that I do not believe it is the responsibility of those who have more securely attached styles to “help” those with insecure styles. None of us are responsible for another person’s growth or trauma processing when in intimate relationships or platonic friendships. However, love is complex and we may find ourselves being willing to be present during our partner’s growth. The key is being able to recognize when a partner is being abusive and to be very clear that abusive behavior is unacceptable and if repeated it is necessary, always, for us to save ourselves and leave the relationship.

/../

This essay was originally published in my newsletter on August 11, 2019 and edited for publication here. To read my most recent essays, you can subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter here.

Grief & Complex Trauma

August 22, 2019 By gwynn

Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you. ~John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.’ ~Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase

Grief. It is so complex, with its ebbs and flows and intricacies and nuances. When we grieve a death, be that the end of a life, or the end of a relationship, or the end of a phase in life, we can understand what it is we are grieving. There is a concrete thing that has been lost. We can wrap our brains around it, allow for the grief because it “makes sense.”

And there is more in our lives for us to grieve than the endings of people or relationships or phases of life.

There is the grief in beginnings (because every beginning exists hand in hand with an ending).

There is the grief in the paths not taken, either intentionally or unconsciously.

There is the grief in who could, who would, we have been if we hadn’t experienced that one thing or that series of things. What I call the “what if” grief.

What if grief is one of the kinds of grief we experience when we are processing our complex trauma. What if my parents hadn’t been alcoholics? What if he had never touched me? What if they had been paying attention and stopped what was happening? What if they had loved me in the ways I needed?

When we experience childhood trauma we lose a lot. We lose choices. We lose options. We lose our childhood. We lose our innocence.

There is a whole lot of grief in all that is lost. Especially when we wonder who we might have been, what our life might have been like if these things hadn’t been done to us.Would we have dated those people? Would we have made this career choice? What would I feel like in my own body? What would food taste like? Sex feel like? How would my relationships, all of them, look different?

Of course there are no answers to those questions, or rather no known answers. We can imagine the answers, but we’ll never know, because that is not our life or the laws of physics work.

Even so, we can grieve that unknown, because the one thing we do know, is we would not be who we are. We, in all likelihood, would not have the same daily emotional, psychological, or physical experiences that we have now. We would be different people because the events that shaped who we are would have been different.

Part of my work with my individual clients is this grief work. It is never forced, and in time, it comes up. Within this grief is anger, sadness, frustration, bitterness, loneliness, despair, anxiety, overwhelm, apathy… and a whole host of other emotions. Learning to feel each of these emotions as separate, learning to articulate them, learning to be in them without keeping ourselves stuck in them… this is all part of the work.

This grief appears naturally, in its own time. It can’t be forced. We can’t make emotions happen. They happen, in their own time. We can learn to recognize them, to feel them, to allow them, to process them, to let them flow in and out in their time without feeling flooded. Time, practice, and intention. All those are needed.

This grief is real. It’s not being “self-pitying.” It is part of exploring the full range of the impact of our experiences and seeing the ways we carry that trauma in our life. Allowing space for this grief allows that much more space for us to know ourselves more fully, more wholly. It gives more space to our own processing, shifting, and growth.

Grief is not one of the funnest or easiest emotions for most of us. And it is an important part of our human experience. It has been said that we only grieve that which we loved, that which meant something to us. How beautiful is it then, for us to grieve the parts of our Self that were lost; how beautiful is it that we have come to love our Self so deeply that we can grief for all that we lost, all that was taken from us, all that we may never have for ourselves?

/../

This essay was originally published to my newsletter on August 18, 2019 and has been edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

In Embodied Writing :: Unspoken Grief we will spend seven weeks exploring the grief that goes with having experienced childhood trauma. To learn more about the program, click here. We begin on September 2. Partial scholarships are available.

On insecure anxious preoccupied attachment

August 19, 2019 By gwynn

An anxious-preoccupied attachment style is demonstrated by those possessing a negative view of self and a positive view of others.

People with anxious-preoccupied attachment type tend to agree with the following statements: “I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like”, and “I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them.” People with this style of attachment seek high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness from their attachment figure. They sometimes value intimacy to such an extent that they become overly dependent on the attachment figure. Compared with securely attached people, people who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment tend to have less positive views about themselves. They may feel a sense of anxiousness that only recedes when in contact with the attachment figure. They often doubt their worth as a person and blame themselves for the attachment figure’s lack of responsiveness. People who are anxious or preoccupied with attachment may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, emotional dysregulation, worry, and impulsiveness in their relationships. ~Wikipedia, August 2019

The anxious attachment style is one I developed due to my particular traumatic childhood experiences. Of all the attachment styles it is the one I am most personally familiar with and have spent years working to unraveling and shifting myself more to a secure attachment style. With that said, this style still pokes its head up and is something I need to intentionally redirect.

Some of the ways this style shows up in our lives:

Trying to prove to another why we are worthy of their love
In school, always needing and striving to be “teacher’s pet”
Chasing after people, even as they pull further and further away. In fact the more they pulled away, the more we chase
Bottling up our emotions and feelings about hurtful behavior from another until we couldn’t any more and would explode. (These explosions can look like screaming, throwing things, slamming doors, breaking things, hitting our own body until we bruise, among other not so helpful behaviors)
Beating our self up emotionally and psychologically with the stories of how unlovable and unwantable we are
Jumping from one intimate relationship to another without taking time to grieve the relationship that was ending/had just ended
Constantly seeking external approval; being “charming” so we could get it
Enmeshed relationships, with both sexual partners and friends
Completely breaking down at the slightest hint of criticism
A push-pull game where we would withdraw, waiting for a person to “chase” us, and if they didn’t, upping the ante in one way or another, chasing them for a bit and then withdrawing again to have the other chase us.
Picking fights to just get some reaction/attention from a person

I could probably go on for another few pages with all the ways this attachment style can show up in our lives, I know it so well. Most of the above behaviors I have been able to move past and no longer do. And in recent months I’ve seen my this insecure style show up in my life in some of the following ways:

Constantly checking my phone for text messages from particular people. Becoming increasingly stressed and anxious the more time passes before receiving a response
Seeking external validation via dating apps
Penduluming between the stories of how unlovable I am and the deep knowing that I am lovable and okay.

Those last two behaviors, in truth, have felt more like habits. I wasn’t so much driven to those behaviors and patterns as much as it was I couldn’t really think of what else to do to attempt to soothe the wounds that had once again been exposed. Which is often how shifting happens – we have a behavior, we do the work to change it, and at some point, we are still doing the behavior, but it doesn’t feel that same. That is the point when we can actually stop the behavior, when it truly is a habit and not a compulsive or unconscious action.

It is safe to say that all insecurely (avoidant and anxious) attached people have experienced abuse and or neglect when we were children. What seems to really be the key to the insecure attachment styles is more the neglect than the abuse.

This may seem odd to some, that “simply” being neglected would cause more long term harm than being physically or sexually abused. And here’s a thing, for those of us who experienced chronic physical and or sexual abuse, there was also neglect. Always. Because the abuse was able to occur, over and over again, it is because people were not paying attention to us, were not seeing the signs of our abuse, were not stopping the abuse from happening.

It is the neglect that I believe in the end causes the most harm in regard to the ways our neural pathways develop. The overt or subtle messages that we aren’t worth paying attention to, that we don’t matter, that our pain isn’t relevant… that is what creates the pathways that grow deeper and deeper, until, long after the abuse has ended, long after we have outgrown the need to be physically and emotionally cared for by our primary caregivers, we still have thoughts and feelings that we don’t matter, that we are a bother, that we are too “needy” or want “too much”.

Anxious preoccupied attachment feels like we are constantly reaching and grasping. That is the sensation within our bodies. It shows up in our behaviors in a variety of ways, some of which I listed above.

The good news is that we can re-wire our brains and shift our attachment styles. I posted recently how, apparently, I have a mostly secure attachment style now. This was so shocking to me, because I have gone through a period of feeling that reaching and grasping, the anxiety that comes with the sense of abandonment pretty recently. I still felt anxiously attached.

The key was, and is, though that I was doing my best to not act anxiously attached. That I could slow down, get my logic brain engaged, consider all the circumstances of the situation, and then, usually, act and respond to the situations appropriately. Was I able to do that every time? No. No, I was not. Because I am human, and learning, and the whole not acting out of my trauma and raw emotions is a relatively new concept for me. And. I can say, that I was able to slow down more times than I not was able to.

I couldn’t have said this a year ago. Definitely not two years ago. Absolutely not three or more years ago. Though I could say that two years ago I was a bit better than three years ago, last year I was better at slowing down than the year before. Practice, patience, intention, self-compassion. Those have been the four pillars of getting me to this place.

I don’t believe I will ever be “perfect” at not reacting from my anxious attachment style. I am not striving for “perfection”. This is a life long journey. There will be good days and not so good ones. There will be circumstances that allow me to slow down immediately and others that will require a lot of intention and awareness on my part to slow down my reactions.

This is true for all of us. I don’t believe I will, or anyone will, become 100% securely attached one day. The traumas I experienced impacted me too deeply for one. For another, life happens, more traumas are sure to come my way, my very old wounding will be poked at and opened up and I will find another layer to process, to grow from.

I believe this to be true of all of us. Layers upon layers. Exploring, expanding, shifting.

/../

This essay was originally published to my weekly newsletter on August 4, 2019 and edited for publication here. If you would like to read my most recent essays, you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

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