Childhood Early Attachment Problems

[ms spock]

Thank you @Chava and @lostforgottensoul for being so honest and open, I feel humbled and grateful that you are both on this forum. It does help me more than words can express.

 

[desiderata310]

I've admitted to having nightmares about my therapist doing things to me. I've NOT admitted to him having sexual dreams about him and those make me really uneasy. He's tried very hard to make a connection with me but when he asked me to come over any get Buddy this summer he tried to give me a tour of his house. I FREAKED out and ran out. We've never talked about it. When I borrow dogs I stop at the end of the driveway and text him. Kaia runs to me naturally (and runs back). Fact is I was afraid of what would happen if I went in his house and I was also afraid of having a visual of the inside of his house in my head.
Unless I SPECIFICALLY am there to pick up Kaia I REFUSE to go down his street even though many times it would make my commute to wherever I am going shorter.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Fact is I was afraid of what would happen if I went in his house and I was also afraid of having a visual of the inside of his house in my head.

Therapy dogs Im assuming?

I find that most people have their therapist's cell # and you know where yours live, lucky, actually makes me feel jealous? :embarrased:

Apartently this isnt unusal and has a name, tranference, coined by Freud or whoever. My therapist and i talk A LOT about it!

My therapist and i have boundries, and though i know its normal to have these automatic thoughts, it still makes me mad at myself when it happens because i dont see my therapist like that at all. Actually, weird as it sounds given i dont see him outside of the office in a session, have no clue where he lives except in or near the same town i do, seen a picture of his wife (brought up in discussion and he showed me off his phone...she also doesnt look her age and quite beautiful!), i still view him as sort of a stand in dad. I VERY often imagine myself as his daughter, probably to be loved by a dad figure, and probably due to him having a daughter my exact age whom had his first grandchild via inventro. So stinkin cute too! Though normally when i imagine this im younger, below 18, so maybe to imagine a different past or one that i was saved from.

A lot of the time these automatic sexual thoughts that come very much frustrate me as i can be at work on a break, not thinking of any thing in particular and all of a sudden im all turned on ready to go like i just spent houra watching porn. How does that happen? Just all of a sudden out of the blue, not thinking about anything or anyone and especially nothing sexual. Why does that happen? Thats the most frustrating part of this as my next automatic thought is to punish myself for the automatic sexual thought, which i'll usually do by cutting down there but at work i would burn the underside of my lower arm or my wrist with my cig but i quit smoking a year ago. I dont know!

 

[desiderata310]

Therapy dogs Im assuming?

Yes.Long strange story about me and his dogs and now my Service Dog in Training. It's just one of those weird things about me. I got VERY attached to Buddy- his dog that he started bringing to session about a year in - actually Buddy made it ok for me to BE in therapy. Buddy passed away and I'm not sure who took it harder. The following week we tried to have a session and we both agreed it just didn't feel right. A few weeks later he came in with a new pup named Kaia who took to me very quickly and I to her. There were a couple of times that I would see J get out of his car and wouldn't immediately see Kaia and I would freak and almost drive off.

I can't bring Charlie with me to sessions however because the dogs are just too young and too good of friends to be anything but a nuisance to everyone.

He thinks that I bond much quicker, easier and deeper with animals than people.


anyway... back to the topic at hand....

Unfortunately, for me I am very very accustomed to anonymity. I don't LIKE knowing where he is. The cell phone number? It's a matter of survival a lot of times but I don't call. EVER. The text function however if necessary I will do.

I miss it. I've moved to a TINY town. I live less than a 1/2 mile from my therapist's office and 1/4 of a mile from his house. He knows where I live. I see him or his car almost every day. I honestly can't avoid him. Of course, I also have a very strange hang up with his office. JUST the office. I have to pass it. HAVE TO. It's been something that has bothered me for a long time.

He finally gave me a quote:
"Ritual speaks to the amygdala in a language it can understand"
...to help me understand that this is my brain's way of feeling safe. It oddly has nothing to do with HIM- just the office. Which by the way I am anxious to go past again RIGHT NOW. *ugh*

I can NOT look him in the eye or face with one exception and this is weird I know: IF I am trying to drag myself out of a flashback I will look at him. or at least I am looking FOR him. I'm somewhat aware of that. I am trying to find his face. It's strange. I can't think of the last time I looked at his face when I wasn't fighting to get out of a flashback.

I don't think of his as a father but some times think of him as my big brother and think about him being the brother that I lost.

Dunno. The sexual stuff is scary and disturbing and I wind up SH my genitalia.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

to help me understand that this is my brain's way of feeling safe.

SO WEIRD! Not what he said, just the timing.

I was writing that reply today while in the waiting room and hadnt finished with my last few words when he called for me, and had to say my name to get my attention away from my phone (usually im looking at the door cuz he takes me in at almost 8 mins late everytime; its actually written to the insurence as a 45 min session when its supposed to be an hour...i dunno, since he's in a group office, maybe he has to gather his thoughts onto his next patient) but anyway, i finished my last few words in his office, no time to find and correct mistypes and said "I told you its become an addiction" (he's the one that sent me here). So anyway, we didnt talk about the topic at that point, just the site in general, having some support finally etc. And my big step recently but i did at the end bring it up and he said those exact words; which is what made it weird when you said that. Just weird timing.

Ok, so i can get saftey at night, thats a bit obvious, or even in the day during high stress times but what i dont get is what about on a break at work, on the site or not, i can be talking about anything or nothing, i can be thinking about anything or nothing, and i can be thinking of someone or no one at all and out of the blue, not feeling unsafe, these thoughts just come out of no where. Then i have to struggle to get my mind back on my job. Thats the confusing and MOST frustrating part of it for me. He still says it has to do with how my brain looks for safety or feeling safe and i do have a stressful job but COME ON!

Dunno. The sexual stuff is scary and disturbing and I wind up SH my genitalia.

SH as in self harm? I ask cuz im used to SI. If thats what that stands for, i do that too. Mine stems from my past, being cut inside with a box cutter was a commonality, as it was done for punishment, for rituals, for fun i think at times by my step dad, my mom, and the cult members so that was the first "punishment" i carried to adulthood and do it a lot. I actually stopped cutting there for a few yrs, not sure why. The only time i stopped (or should say stop) cutting is when i have and have had drugs to replace it. When I was 22, my ex told me that if he found a cut on my body he'd leave me (and i didnt want that, as dead beat as he is) and then laid a line of coke in front of me and said "this is better than that anyway" and so i did the line and can say i was hooked from the first try. I was a coke then a crack addict for a year before moving to another State and got myself clean. I spent the first week locked in my apartment throwing chairs against the wall.

I started cutting there again about a year or so into my therapy i have now, about the time i told my therapist why i was really there so about 5 or close to 6 yrs ago, so i had stopped cutting there about 4 or 5 yrs, stopped cutting in general when i was on coke and crack but started cutting my arms and stuff when i got clean. I have never stopped self doing other rituals, my ex just didnt know about them. Some of them i dont feel comfortable yet talking about on here....

now my Service Dog in Training. It's just one of those weird things about me.

Not weird at all and i totally get that. Before i moved to where i currently am, in the other State, i had 4 total free therapist. One was blind, had a service dog due to his blindness and that dog is the only reason that i could walk into that church. He was a German Shepard, dont remember his name, but he'd unlock the church door and id make sure he AND the dog were in first and id pet him the whole time. This was before i would tell anyone of my actual true past though and the therapist wasnt all that great and ended the sessions due to "not being ready for exposure therapy" whatever the eff that means.

I wish i could have a service dog. Would help me greatly with my anxiety and fear. I own a VERY SWEET pitbull and though he loves people and children, he is protective over me and anyone and so at home i take him with me outside and stuff but i cant take him to stores or Drs or anything. I see some service dogs come through my therapist's office. My therapist is in a psychriatic group (2 psychristrists and i believe about 10 LMHC; licenced mental health counselors, amoung both, possibly more) and so thats why i cant have his cell # or anything. He sees patients back to back all day long. It really sucks for me as i have no friends, no family that believes me and most dont talk to me, no one i could text if i feel like overdosing again or jumping in front of a train, which i think about often. Thats why he sent me here, he knows i can type what i cant say, people here understand as emailing with a pastor once went so far downhill due to him not understanding (over me baiting then coming onto pastors, not him, on an annoymous app called Whisper) it just went so wrong. I was emailing him as like a bouncing board for my thoughts but if you've never been there or studied psycology then you wont understand.

I mean, look at what im admitting to here and i had no clue any one else had these sort of thoughts!

And ive soaked this place up like a sponge! Ive needed this for SO long!

 

[desiderata310]

SH as in self harm?

yeah same thing.

When I was 22, my ex told me that if he found a cut on my body he'd leave me (and i didnt want that, as dead beat as he is) and then laid a line of coke in front of me and said "this is better than that anyway"

My ex said the same thing but used violent sex to take the place. Offered to do the cutting for me. Did other things I can't talk about.

My therapist is in a psychriatic group

Sorry. That DOES suck. Mine runs his own practice and has grown it a bit. If I text, it's usually because I'm in serious need. He knows this place exists but didn't tell me to come here. Not sure but pretty sure he does not come here.

"not being ready for exposure therapy" whatever the eff that means.

"stabilization" You weren't in a safe enough place in your own body to do exposure therapy. I'm still in stabilization. If they aren't trauma specialists, they can't really help get you there either.

he said those exact words; which is what made it weird when you said that. Just weird timing.

heh...maybe your therapist and mine are doing the same continuing education training. That's where mine got that quote.

i can be talking about anything or nothing, i can be thinking about anything or nothing, and i can be thinking of someone or no one at all and out of the blue, not feeling unsafe, these thoughts just come out of no where. Then i have to struggle to get my mind back on my job. Thats the confusing and MOST frustrating part of it for me. He still says it has to do with how my brain looks for safety or feeling safe and i do have a stressful job but COME ON!

*quietly* oh.... at least I'm not the only one....

 

[Mit]

I'm only just starting to explore this stuff. From what little I have read so far, about attachment disorders arsing from adoption (I was adopted when I was five and in hospitals and care prior to that) there are some traits, behaviours and ways of thinking described that are so spookily like me. Quite frankly I'm amazed I've never really connected so much of the way I am with abandonment and attachment issues. There is so much to try and understand and try to unpick....

This Christmas my sister in law (she's a lovely person) borrowed my adoptive parents slides of me and my brothers (they are my parents biological sons) when we were young and scanned them. She printed a picture of me soon after adoption, framed it and gave it to me for Christmas. It was a lovely thought. I've never seen any images of me when I was little before, so it was totally unexpected. Seeing the image triggered very strong emotions, and before I knew what was happening I was in floods of tears.

She has since sent me all the images, some of which are of me in hospital taken by my adoptive parents before I was adopted. Looking at them had me in tears again, just writing about them now is making me feel emotional. It's the only tangible thing I have been given about my history, a glimpse into the past. It's probably stupid but looking at the images sort of brings me closer to the total stranger that gave birth to me. Some very weird emotions are surfacing, so it's time to stop writing.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

My ex said the same thing but used violent sex to take the place. Offered to do the cutting for me. Did other things I can't talk about.

Freak! Him, not you. I have control issues that I never knew i had before my current almost 7 yrs in therapy. I didnt know because before i would say these last few months, id let people run all over me and still be doing everything in my abily to help them (no boundries) BUT when it comes to cutting and sex, i control that now. I still cut and my therapist thus far hasnt told me to stop (i think he knows that wouldnt go very well). He does say things like "wouldnt it be nice to not have to" but pointed out a few times that i control that, i control my own pain now. Not sure how much though as i feel rituals that i just HAVE to do controling me.

Also the sex; like once i started to tail spin when my dad and I were watching a show very similuar to my past and he's like "oh shes she brave isnt she?" And im like "what about me, i went through that too" and he said "im not talking about you" and then continued on to tell me all the reasons he didnt believe me about my past and made me scream "IT HAPPENED TO ME! IT HAPPENED TO ME! IT HAPPENED TO ME!" I went in the bathroom and cut so bad down there that it took hours to stop bleeding and then told my freakish neighbor that seems to not leave me alone about sex, to gather as many guys as he could, 6 total guys including him, and let them have sex with me over and over again. When i told my therapist about it, first he said "Im sorry you felt so hurt to do that" which sorta suprised me; not that he was wrong, just that he had that much insite of my emotional state at the time...and also at the time i never felt pain about my past, that has only been in the last few weeks. And then he pointed out the control in that, that i controled it when i couldnt as a kid; which he's right. Its also how he found this site, in that session he googled "ptsd control" and found a post on here, sent me home with the site asdress. I lerk for that week, told him more of what i isentified with on the site and then that next day is when i joined.

I always say i pity the man that thinks he can lay a hand on me. My ex used to throw very heavy glass stuff at my head. One just missed my head, could hear it pass my ear, and put a huge dent in the wall. That raged me so bad, red zone right away (and this was way before it was all unsupressed) and i had this tough guy that has be in prison pinned in a corner daring him to hit me. I didnt want him to hite to call the cops as he thought, i wanted a reason to beat the living f*ck out of him or die trying.

heh...maybe your therapist and mine are doing the same continuing education training. That's where mine got that quote.

My therapist does do continuong education, he talks about it a lot but normally tells me thats where it was from. Maybe mine did that one before and then yours did it? I dont know but was very freakish timing lol.

*quietly* oh.... at least I'm not the only one....

Not by far, ive talked to others about it here and there in here. Some of my continued rituals i dont think others on here fo or have done. But my past isnt the common factor in PTSD and most dont have rituals that were done in their house and so now that have to self do them. One in particular, if i could get to a more comfortable, safe feeling place on here (a few in the past have hit triggers and been not so understanding, though most are great on here) then maybe i will say the one that i just told my therapist i do not that long ago. I did reveal one very guarded 'secert' on here but not at that place yet as its much more embarrasing and not something that i did but rather something i do.

"stabilization" You weren't in a safe enough place in your own body to do exposure therapy. I'm still in stabilization. If they aren't trauma specialists, they can't really help get you there either.

This free blind therapist was horrible to say the least. Ive been with my current therapist for almost 7 yrs, he knows everything, and still hasnt attempted this...cuz i would freak, and likely moreso since i had experience a bad therapist doing it. This free therapist didnt spend a lot of time getting my past from me, a few sessions at best. I had told him of one sexual abuse, he never knew of the 'house of hell' as i call it and though i told him i have an extreme fear of churches, he never bothered to ask why. We met in a church as it was this church's 'therapy', we were in a church building (issue one), he prayed before each session (issue two) and the therapist, if i can even call him that, spent very little time fetting information and jumped right to this 'exposure therapy' when i freaked out over a long shadow that ended up being a kid. He made me not like therapy and was a long time before i looked for another one. 2 of the free theripists acted on my sexual adcances and the other one kicked me out when i didnt say a word the entire session, though i did call and get the therapy and went there (i was terrified and since he was the last one, i had no clue what to say ir do that would be "right" or if im supposed to come on to him or not).

Needless to say about 4 yrs later when i was forced to move to my homestate and live with my dad and step mom for some time (they now live with me) and i was exploding over everything and anything, my step mom's MD Dr gave her a card of my current psychritrist and i went, dont like her much but she isnt whom i talk to, asked if i wanted counseling along with my meds, i reluctly said yes, asked if i wanted male or female, onviously said male, and my current therapist, thank god, was the only male that worked with her. My therapist now is awesome! I have no idea how he puts up with me!

Since there was other LMHCs added and another psychitrists with more LMHCs so its grown a lot (i live in tight outside of the biggest toen in my State), and i ever told my therapist that if my pschitrist didnt increase my anxiety med from 2 a day to 3 a day (i was close to loosing my job, lucky i didnt, and she had me on this merry go round of anti-depressants that do nothing and once with one and Abilify which i HATED and couldnt take) then i was gonna move to the other psychitrist, i made sure i could still state with my therapist, their all sorta grouped into one so that was a yes. She tried to move me to a completely different med (um no, why stop what works?) And so she did end up increasing it. I may move to that other pscychitrist anyway, i dont like her and she certianly doesnt read my therapist's note in my chart (oh i just moved to having 2 charts, my first one is about 5 inches thick lol, sad) but my therapist and i will talk in length about a medication, he knows his mediciations even if he doesnt prescribe them and the chemical brain stuff, he'll make a note about it or even a suggestion and she never reads it. Then i have to give her the short verison without any detials as i dont talk to her. Im just bitching now and rambling, as i do a lot :P

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Some very weird emotions are surfacing, so it's time to stop writing.

Join the club, but this new weird pain im feeling about my past in the past few weeks ive had; i dont know what to do with it. Its so weird to me, so foreign to me and i have no clue what to do with it. My therapist said write about it on here. Writing about stuff and replying to others is what got my moving again in therapy after being stuff a year or more.

As long as you werent abuse in your adoptive home, i always tell adoptees to think of it this way, you were wanted by your adoptive parents. I wasnt wanted by my mom or really my dad and was phnished for me being a live and the baby my mom lost at 2 hrs old 2 yrs before me was and "it was my fault"; though that makes not rational sense, it makes sense to me.

Anyway, not to minimize what being given away and what may of happened before you were adopted, especially when it comes to attachment disorder. I know there are special issues that come with that, just like there are special issues that comes from being raised in a cult. Was hoping to help some, maybe help to see it in a different way or to help you talk about these 'weird emotions' as its not good to keep things inside. Thats all. :hug:

 

[Gucci]

He finally gave me a quote:
"Ritual speaks to the amygdala in a language it can understand"
...to help me understand that this is my brain's way of feeling safe

I find that very relevant - ritual is all about reliability, predictability, nothing to shock or surprise (i.e. safety). Feeling safe is a big deal for traumatised people, whose limbic systems are usually highly dysregulated, and they feel like they're in free fall a lot of the time.

 

[Chava]

@Mit Adoption not until age five is major in terms of overall development (and generally poorly understood by too many therapists). Kids born right into a safe attachment can often go through later traumas unscathed. They are shook up, freak out a bit, and bounce back. But we need the foundation to organize internally. Early trauma, including non-attachment or no consistent caregiver, often creates a really early and hard-wired freeze response. I was a sick fetus, born out of a horrid accident, stayed in the hospital, and went home to a disconnected and dissociative mother who seemed to come to life only when raging (and hospitalized again in early childhood, several weeks PICU life support...nobody, myself included, seemed real to me at that point).

Quite frankly I'm amazed I've never really connected so much of the way I am with abandonment and attachment issues. There is so much to try and understand and try to unpick....

I'm sort of amazed by some of this attachment stuff too, as I learn and understand more about myself (I have later traumas I remember in parts or wholes, like assault, but am finding my major and unrelenting stuff is really probably from the first year or even <6months). The problem is that there just isn't a whole lot written about attachment trauma and disorders and how they affect adults. There isn't much research either, in terms of understanding it at all, and almost nothing on treatment. I really liked Laurence Heller's book, "Healing Developmental Trauma". I underlined pretty much the whole chapter relating to the "connection" survival style (which oddly describes disconnection).

I had asked my therapist not too long ago if I might even have aspergers because, even with all of my work, some patterns (especially involving willingness or ability to connect with others) feel so nearly intractable. She still felt all of my symptoms made sense in light of my complex trauma, which would also more likely include undiagnosed attachment disorder (inhibited form) than aspergers.

It's wonderful you got some photos and some pieces of your early history. I wish I had more...I notice I kind of yearn for pieces, or even if anyone had a good memory of me or a story (they don't). That's very precious. I love that your sister-in-law did this for you. Very touching.

 

[Tinyflame]

Yes I too only recall 2 photos from about birth-10. Plus school ones.

I think it comes down to attachment gets connected to pain, abandonment & neglect. Simple, but complicated.