Attachment Types - Overly Independent

[Abstract]

I think I really can't be expressing myself well in this thread. What I said about my sister reacting differently,

@Hashi, I just wanted to say that I totally understood what you were saying and was picking up on it so to speak and carrying it further. Supporting it in a sense. I also didn't want to steamroller over you because even though you mentioned many of these things it can be different when others say them. I was also not sure how you would feel with too much compassion being expressed as I sensed this is all new for you to discuss and highly charged.

same path through this as people have who had the ambivalence.

I would describe many discussions on the site as not showing signs of ambivalence/preoccupation though and rather showing a movement away from avoidant dismissive or anxious and in the direction of secure. I know in some ways you know this but am pointing it out here to do with healing. I do however hear you that you are way away from any movement in that direction including the absence of any desire for change. As you said, Meadowsweet is a good example. She is obviously a lot further along the spectrum towards secure than you are and she wants to change which you don't - other than how it affects you getting help in therapy.

Feel free to tell me if anything I said before was too much for you at present. I greatly respect your courage in approaching this and in being so honest. For me this stuff often feels as deep as anything can get.

I'm still not convinced that I have the same path .

I don't believe the same path is ever correct for different attachment types. For example those who are on the extreme end of the preoccupied spectrum need encouragement to tolerate a holding space which they perceive as distance and not encouragement to seek contact. I won't go into the "however" part just yet but it exists. I know you are meaning way more than that when you refer to a path and that is just a small example.

My parents, obviously, have some serious mental health issues.

Well :rolleyes: I won;t say any more. Just :mad: if you don't mind.

I do have thoughts on this issue and on the points you mentioned if you want to hear them. I just wanted to clarify what I had said before, here, now.

 

[Badger]

This might explain it @Badger [DLMURL]http://www.psychalive.org/2010/07/what-is-your-attachment-style/[/DLMURL] I think they say almost 60 % of the population has secure attachment patterns.

Apparently we can display different types of attachment behaviour with different people though. For example with a father versus a mother or with men versus women. This stuff is really sabotaging my life. With Complex Trauma I love Pete Walkers description though. I find it very user friendly and being triggered sets it off more.

Huh. Based on the parenting I received I would have thought it would be secure, but it came up preoccupied, the way they describe it, it sounds like codependent. I hope I didnt mess up my kids too badly.

 

[Abstract]

Badger, even slightly enmeshed families can result in attachment disorders. Post-partum depression of the mother is another one. It doesn't have to be severe abuse.

 

[Abstract]

Hashi,

It sounds like you were pretty much almost a feral child in some senses. Did your sister speak to you pre six or don't you remember? I wondered if part of the reason you did not have language was because people never engaged with you (you may have had some internal understanding of language) or was it that noone spoke to you at all ever? No pressure to answer.

 

[Hashi]

@Valentino, thank you for your thoughts. You don't sound preachy at all, I appreciate you sharing your ideas.

It seems like you might also be dealing with aspects of empathy challenges or blindness

Actually, what you have said and something @Abstract said have made me think that I'm actually very empathic but have blocked that because of my experiences with my mother, who later became off-the-scale controlling and manipulative. (To flag up - she has no formal diagnosis since she never sought help and I don't want to think about diagnosis, only her behaviour and how it affected me.) Unfortunately I'm still very empathic towards her. It's like curse. I cannot switch it off. Which is why I don't want to take steps to separate myself and probably cause her to literally die from her emotional martyrdom.

I don't know whether this is unusual but with regard to lack of empathy it's actually the following that I think applies to me:

a learned response from long term exposure in an overly manipulative relationship, not really an in-born instinctual response.

I feel like I constructed myself in many ways, because I didn't develop normally but watched and learned from people later in quite a conscious way. It makes me a strange hybrid. I'm not always sure what's my nature and what I've trained myself to be like.

I do relate to the Freeze description in the Pete Walker link Abstract gave, and to the grief description you posted.

I'm afraid inner child work is not something I relate to at all. I don't agree with the concept. I don't want to get into it in this thread because I started a different thread about it some time ago. But I appreciate the thought.

A lot of what you say about grief makes sense for me. I think that's why metaphysics is helpful. I do some meditation although I have to be very careful against horror stuff coming up (from later trauma).

I think you're also right about the things that can help with grief. Unfortunately ideas of service and even compassion make me very angry. I can't forgive life for my experiences.

 

[Hashi]

It sounds like you were pretty much almost a feral child in some senses.

Yes, unfortunately, in some senses. But if it's OK I'm not going to go into details because that's a Pandora's box that I don't want to open.

Did your sister speak to you pre six or don't you remember?

Ironically, my sister is the person I had the most interaction with and we did actually play together when on our own, so I suppose I should say that she didn't ignore me although I don't think I felt paid attention to as a result because I sort of felt she was me. I didn't really see her as a different person. Can't explain.

Until I went to school we didn't use language. We had our own "language" except it wasn't. It was a single made up word/sound that was used to mean anything. We understood each other but we weren't communicating anything complex.

I heard language around me and I was sometimes shouted or hissed at so I think I must have had some understanding of it, but actually that's speculation. I was so dissociated that might not have been the case. During the trauma when I was 20 my ears blocked out a lot of what was said to me but I understood it in other ways, which may have been a mirror of how things were when I was little. At any rate, I don't think I verbalised things to myself. I'm not sure I could form words at all, even in my own head. If I understood other people, I think it was one way.

For my own expression/conceptualising I think I did something like the sound I used with my sister - used a wordless form to go straight to a meaning. I might have actually used that sound when thinking to myself. I don't really remember, but that's the impression I have when I try to think of it.

Having said that, I don't think I conceptualised things at all until quite late and then not very well. I do remember feeling distress with no concept for it. No awareness/understanding except my physical self and... distress.

I don't know if any of that makes sense to someone else. Oddly, it's helping some other things make sense to me.

I'm good at learning other languages. However, I need to see a word written down as well as spoken or I can't learn the word even if I hear it a hundred times. I've already realised this is probably because it's how I learnt to speak English when I went to school. I learnt to speak and read at the same time. A new realisation is to do with my pronunciation of whatever language I learn. My accent is always perfect. I think this is because my English accent isn't ingrained. It's no more natural to me than my Japanese accent. Even though it's my first language, English was a foreign language that I studied. So it doesn't override any new language that I learn.

That might not sound especially significant but I think it is, because I think it's more than saying the English language isn't my default. Language itself didn't become my fundamental way to understand things.

The essential way I experience things is still energetic. Language is important - in some ways, excessively so when I feel it matters. In therapy I always take the time to find exactly the right words to express myself, even if that's several minutes for one word. But verbalising isn't my first language. I think my ability to understand things energetically is probably much more developed than many other people's as a result. I also think I find it easier to "speak" symbolism than many other people might.

I can't believe how much I'm writing in this thread. Thank you for putting up with it! I'm finding your thoughts, and other people's, very helpful to process this a little. Please share more if you'd like to. I don't think I want to give any more information about how things were, but I'd like to hear any thoughts about the effects and - particularly - what I can do now.

 

[Abstract]

Hashi,

Just wanted you to know I am still listening. My brain is all over the show at present but I am coming back to this once I find my brain. You are very brave to start dealing with something that was previously impossible to look at. You seem to have come a long way in a short time.

 

[Valentino]

Unfortunately ideas of service and even compassion make me very angry. I can't forgive life for my experiences.

What has worked for me is to investigate my emotional triggers, 'the only way out is through', yes it can be extremely uncomfortable and scary to dive into the unconscious and unknown. But that's the most practical and effective way I have found.

Feels like you're stuck with resentment against life. It's a common variation of angry at god, life isn't fair, why did this happen, etc. It's a natural shock type reaction when your actual life experiences don't match up with expectations and assumptions.

If you can open yourself to the anger underneath the resentment, you can find the sadness and/or fear also underlying, once discovered, the sadness needs to be mourned and honored, while the fear needs understanding, curiosity, and exposure. Anger needs old defense mechanisms, beliefs and boundaries removed, changed or updated.

Here are some more potential emotional triggers you could explore:

... I have no empathy for children whatsoever. I can't stand their lack of ability and knowledge, and how needy they are.
... I see being vulnerable as the ultimate stupidity (for myself).
... I identify with a fear of being cut off from resources that I need.

Seems like a lot of judgement against vulnerability. I can relate, I used to also subscribe to the need to be safe at all costs. But I eventually discovered that being defended all the time was exhausting and actually made me less safe. Sometimes even inviting more danger into my life, or creating big blind spots for personal mistakes. I now see that being vulnerable is also a strength, it helps me be more flexible, adaptive, sensitive, and mobile in the face of potential dangers.


.... anyway, just some suggestions, since you asked for what you can do now. I prefer to speak in generalities or big picture, as it's really hard for me to read other's emotional capacity and sensitivities. Even more difficult to read other people in an online message forum.

 

[Hashi]

Valentino, I appreciate you responding. I'm afraid I need things that are more specific and concrete in order to understand them. Examples in particular. I'm a bit lost with abstract nouns.

 

[Valentino]

Unfortunately working with emotions can only be fully understood through personal action and direct experience. It's very much like an art, which needs to be refined and developed with a lot of practice and exposure.

But I can relate to where you might be coming from, I started out trying to use raw will power or obsessive focus to mentally figure out exactly how to heal and recover. But eventually I had to explore and learn the basics of emotions, understand the language of emotions, make friends with emotions, and develop the capacity to stay with uncomfortable emotions and explore deeper.

Here are some metaphysical friendly teachers who I found helpful:
- Karla McLaren - author of new book titled "The Art of Empathy" and older book and audio series titled "The Language of Emotions". One of the best resources for breaking down specifics of emotions and practical ways to work with them. Her webpage is her name.
- Michael Brown - author of 'The Presence Process", a 10 week guided experiential procedure to integrate past emotional traumas, probably the best method I know out there, but not many are ready to fully engage it. He has videos on youtube explaining parts of the process and has a webpage called the presence portal.
- Brene Brown - Vulnerability & Shame researcher, has one of the most popular TED talks, and author of several books. Her work is backed by actual hard research data from tons of psychological surveys and interviews. She makes a compelling argument about the benefits and power that can come from Vulnerability.
- And... Adyashanti - a modern spiritual teacher who focuses more on spiritual awakening but he does have some good pointers for dealing with emotions, this below from his book "Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering"

Experiencing the Raw Energy of Emotion - Allow your suffering to speak
Our suffering consists of two components: a mental component and an emotional component. We usually think of these 2 aspects as separate, but in fact, when we're in deep states of suffering, we're usually so overwhelmed by the experience of emotion that we forget and become unconscious of the story in our minds that is creating and maintaining it. So one of the most vital steps in addressing our suffering and moving beyond it is first to summon the courage and willingness to truly experience what we're feeling and to no longer try to edit what we feel.

...... Once you touch a particular emotion, allow yourself to begin to hear the voice of suffering. To do this, you cannot stand outside the suffering, trying to explain or solve it; you must really sink into the pain, even relax into the suffering so that you can allow the suffering to speak.
..... It's important that we open all the emotions and all of the thoughts in order to fully experience what is there.
..... What you're looking for is how your suffering, how the particular emotion you are experiencing, actually views your life, views what happened, and views what's happening now. To do this, you need to get in touch with the story of your suffering. It is through these stories that we maintain our suffering, so we need to speak or write these stories down -- even if the stories sound outrageously judgmental or blaming or condemning.

Having a complete experience
In the face of a difficult emotion, we often turn away from the experience by either repressing it or impulsively acting it out; we do not in fact experience what is there all the way through. We have learned to do this over many years as a way to cope with unpleasant emotions and thoughts as they flow through our lives.
.... As soon as we go unconscious, whatever emotion that happened at that time will be locked in our system. It will stay there and regenerate itself over and over again until we find the capacity to experience that emotion without going unconscious in any way.

Even though our stories about what happened may seem very justified, the important thing to remember is that they actually cause us to go unconscious and lock suffering into our bodies. Instead, what we need to do is to find the capacity to feel what we feel without creating more thoughts about it. When you start to experience a difficult feeling, you see that it's often associated with a memory. As you replay that memory in your mind, if you allow it to be there without a story or conclusion, you start to feel the emotion releasing itself from your system. It may not do this immediately; in fact for a time the experience of suffering may even intensify. But this is only because you're now experiencing it in a conscious way, not a numbed or a disassociated way. You are becoming very intimate with the moment-to-moment experience of your suffering.

I share this simply to offer things that helped me from my personal experience. Everyone is unique and I can't tell how useful this might be for you. I would like to thank you for this discussion topic and other past interactions. Your experiences, stories and questions have helped me explore and better understand grief/depression/avoidance as a spectrum. There's plenty of books exploring all aspects of Anger (abuse, manipulation, motivation, etc) and Fear (anxiety, panic, trauma, etc), but for some reason there's very little exploration and details exploring Grief. So you are quite unique having so much exposure with avoidance, depression, dissociation, numbing, etc. While there isn't as much research about it out there, once you start figuring things out and digging your way out, all of that suffering will offer amazing amounts of wisdom, love and freedom. Most likely at higher levels than the majority of the population can even consciously imagine or endure.

 

[Mayday]

Do you know...I am sure I've clicked on this thread before, but only read as far as the first paragraph where you mention neediness/wanting closeness etc...and thought "ugh...that's not me" and then not read any further. Then for some reason, today I looked at the title of this thread and thought, hang on a second...overly independent? that is totally me!

I identify strongly with the dismissive-avoidant attachment theory. All my life, even as a child, I have been "accused" of being too independent (I could never work out why people thought that being independent was such a bad thing). I don't remember much of my childhood, but do remember a few instances of being physically hurt, but it was like it never occurred to me to say anything to anyone about it at the time, I would just deal with it as best I could.

What you say about not learning to speak until you were 6, hit a bit of a chord with me. My experience was different, I can't recall it myself, but from what I've been told, I could talk, but I had difficulty with pronounciation so mostly people didn't understand what I was saying, except for my older brothers who knew what I meant and would translate for me. When I started school, the teachers made my parents send me to speech therapy and I guess it got better after that. I imagine it must have been frustrating, not being able to make myself understood, and would have influenced my "no point in telling anyone anything, just manage on my own" attitude that was already pretty established.

what I relate to is more like a kitten that someone I know got from a shelter. It had apparently been thrown into a dustbin as soon as it was born, and was rescued at the brink of starvation. Given a secure home and care it became relatively calm and settled into a normal enough cat life, but it was always withdrawn and didn't seek affection. It wasn't going to change in that regard, whatever happened now.

I relate to this. I think I've written before this before. Anyway, just wanted to share a few stories that I've witnessed for myself, from working in an animal shelter. There is one cat in particular, that never let anyone touch her, she wasn't scared/timid as such, but more just like the cat you mentioned...she just didn't need people or want affection. If you tried to pat her, she'd lash out and then stalk off. Then after 4 years of this, one of the ladies started to spend more time with this cat, just sitting with her, not having any expectations or anything. And this cat slowly started to bond, and now seeks out affection...very much still on her own terms, but she will actually come up and sit on your lap and let you pat her (only if she's in the mood though, and only with people she knows and trusts). I've seen this with a lot of the other timid/angry or antisocial for whatever reason animals...that they can start to trust people, even if they came in as feral animals. That gives me hope for myself at least.

 

[Valentino]

Recently stumbled upon these videos and thought about this thread, maybe it might be helpful to others: