Attachment And Touch

[Hope4Now]

I'm glad folks are back to talk on this thread. Feel free to take the discussion wherever it goes and I'll jump in later. This is still an issue with me in many ways, but can't post or respond on this topic at the moment.
Also, fyi Recently learned about Hakomi therapy. Interesting. http://hakomiinstitute.com/ . Also check out Somatic IFS Therapy http://embodiedself.net/about-somatic-ifs/

More later.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Bereft 'n Burnt Out I'm glad you've joined the forum! I think you will find a lot of healing opportunity here.

It has been more than a year since I posted this thread. I just went back and re-read the whole thing. It was quite an odd experience. I didn't quite realize how much things have actually changed for me. I'm still a disaster in so many, many ways, but a lot of healing has occurred too. So...thanks for posting and providing the nudge to me to go back and re-read. I rarely do that. I think maybe I ought to more often.

I have seen the love in his eyes ~ pure love from the heart and soul, with absolutely no sign of passion, voyeurism, etc. ~ and have felt 'held' by his eyes as well as his hands when he has made gestures of holding me. He's also reached out and taken my hand on more than one occasion...yet he will not meet this one aching need I have to be physically held, very, very gently and soothed...to tap into that something else that goes beyond words...

Stick with this. If you can tune into that kind of holding and take it into yourself, it helps meet the need. It took a long time for me to realize that there is more than one kind of "holding." I still carry the longing and raw need for safe touch and holding, but am very slowly finding a sense of shelter in the gentle and kind relationship with my therapist.

we both stood in the back yard of the centre letting off purple balloons

This is beautiful. I have two children. My heart breaks for you.

so I never got justice for my daughter)

Maybe the "justice" will come in receiving healing for yourself from others.

which finally got me to the point where I realised this was about ME and not just my daughter's death.

Both/and? Yes, it's about you. There's nothing wrong with that. At the deepest level, the life we live IS all about US. Our perceptions and conceptions of the past, the present, the future and where we fit in. How we were treated as children, and the things that happened to us, affect our perceptions and conceptions of EVERYTHING. We need to rewire our brains...if we can do that, we will be able to transform our experience of life.

This counsellor has offered me integration and hope of some measure of peace...I can't explain...and I do trust him..he is the one person who I have let near to my core/has got to my core and I just cannot go through this with another person/counsellor/therapist..it's like you've said before elsewhere on this thread how do you express something as primal and deep as this goes???

I hope you will stay working with him. Sometimes I think there is a reason that we stay and trust even if the therapist is not meeting every need. I don't mean "reason" in the sense of divine...I'm not sure what I mean. Maybe systemic within ourselves? That something in our core, something in our deep self knows that we are working with someone who can help us help ourselves. But sometimes the desperate needy child parts take over and get so frustrated that our needs aren't being met. I get that way with the touch/holding thing. But when I'm more in my SELF (versus wounded and vulnerable parts or protector parts), I realize I have a lot of needs that my therapist IS meeting. And the more I see that and stay open to receiving it (easier said than done), the more closely attached I feel to him. And the more that happens, the more solid I feel in myself. It is such a bizarre experience. I don't think I've ever really attached to any human being before this. Animals yes. Not humans. I am deeply attached to my children (and my husband too), but it is a different sort of attachment...a loving caretaker attachment. I have learned that parts of me attach to different people in different ways. The relationship with my therapist is completely different...all the bits and parts are starting to attach to him. Hard to explain. Terrifying much of the time.

I do also have access to other forms of complimentary/healing therapies

This is fabulous! I've dumped our family into pretty deep debt seeking out these kinds of therapies which are essential to my survival but not covered by insurance. My greatest wish is to find someone who could do the healing touch AND the trauma therapy. At the same time. Not there yet in my psychotherapy...but I've made enough breakthroughs in integrating parts of myself that I've had two situations in which some really good healing has happened in the past week.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'd be interested to know whether/if/how any of you have managed to resolve this

Not resolved. But changing/shifting in all sorts of ways after 1.5 years of intensive therapy and reading and meditation and movement and massage and other healing touch.

But now I know that there is that kind of healing touch out there...it just takes time to find it, and to find a person willing to be part of it.

Yes, it's there. I've been lucky to find bits and pieces of it with friends, therapist, husband, and healers. It never feels like enough. Feels like I'm gathering scraps and trying to put together a nutritious meal. Probably because I am trying to fill an emptiness that is from the long past.

What I am learning still, every day, is that this is a bottomless pit of need that will never be fulfilled when I am blended up with/taken over by child parts. That somehow I have to learn to be present in my body as my deep self...and to receive the "scraps" of holding. Because in those brief moments when I can be in my body and my SELF, the scraps aren't scraps at all. They're a gourmet meal. But when I'm taken over by a child part, I'm starving and needy and touch is simultaneously never enough and absolutely terrifying...can't accept it even if it is offered...so even if I got the holding my child parts need, it wouldn't be enough. I don't know. It's hard to explain.

I think it is why so many therapists talk about self-soothing and re-parenting. I am just beginning to have an inkling of what this even means. And a tiny bit of hope that maybe I can do it for myself over time without dissociation. I have only ever been able to self-soothe by going off into a fantasy world where I don't exist in my present body. I have spent my entire life not existing in my body, and I didn't even really know it. I could have maybe explained this at some intellectual level a year ago (not sure), but it has only been in the past month that I have experienced something completely different. A different kind of "knowing". I found a tiny bit of access to my deep/core self. I always thought I knew who I was. I didn't. The person/people I thought I was are parts.

I have worked really, really hard in the past couple of months to try to be in my body in the present. It sucks. But something is changing really slowly. I think in therapy they call it integration. I've had a handful of lovely brief moments when I've sensed what this feels like in my body and what it looks like in my self-concept. I want more.

So...no resolution. Just process. I have opted to continue working with my therapist and trust the process. It is a miserable slog and I am a wreck physically and emotionally and mentally...but I think it is because my brain is starting to rewire. I know, deeply and confidently, that I need to continue on the path I'm on...to trust my therapists (both psycho and massage) to help me along as I learn how to trust and love myself. This sounds so shallow and easy as I look over the words I'm writing. It's not. It's a horrible experience, filled with the darkest terror. Parts of me are afraid I will die from it. But those integrated moments have come along to remind me what life could be like, so I'm hanging on to that. Reminding myself that those moments are real, and that they happened to me (that's hard).

Bleh. I've written too much again. Brain dump.

 

[Chava]

Interesting thread. I was not in an orphanage but was left in the hospital for 1-2 months and my mom was depressed and/or dissociative. Zero connection is what my life tells me. I do have touch issues but they are pretty complex. I do not crave being held because it is too foreign...like I do not have a craving to travel into outer space. I don't have a positive reference point. Even when loving grandparents gave me a hug I sort of froze and wanted it to be over faster. BUT my body still has those needs (the relational stuff just screws it up), like I do feel better with a blanket wrapped tight around me sometimes. I sound Autism spectrum about now. I'm not, though I relate to some of those touch issues.

In therapy my therapist is able to touch my shoulder or arm or something else she feels drawn to supporting, but always asks my permission. Sometimes it stings, I whole-body flinch, and she carefully withdraws. Other times it feels just neutral, or like I don't notice anything. On a very subtle level it feels okay sometimes, or like I'm supported. I've also been drawn toward being able to touch her hand or arm (probably more of this)...like have the freedom to reach out and not be in danger. My hands shake a lot around these issues because I move between wanting to shield myself or protect my head with my hands and wanting to reach out and connect just a little bit.

I respect therapists that can do this sort of body work thoughtfully. I don't think the cold and distant approach is helpful but I understand the touch part could make the process seem extra complicated. But more than anything, this is what has helped me understand my very early traumas. It's all stored in these reactions to touch, isolation, self protection, and the scary impulse to connect.

 

[Chava]

p.s. you might not have a diagnosable attachment disorder (I don't think this is much of a diagnosis made in adults), but might relate to attachment styles if you haven't looked that up. For example, I relate quite a bit to avoidant attachment style and also a little disorganized attachment....connects my early attachment to challenges I have now as an adult. So that's somewhat helpful to know about. Also, attachment issues are common in childhood complex trauma. The attachment relationship is what helps us build inner resilience and sense of safety. I came into the world in near-death state but also didn't have connection to help me feel "safe." When going through more medical trauma later, it was the same thing. Other children might have done better with medical trauma. I had zero sense of safety and felt extremely unreal. There was virtually no way for me to come back to "okay" in my body (also relate to having no self-soothing skills and having to awkwardly learn those as an adult).

So sort of side-tracking here, but the attachment stuff is pretty strongly correlated in cases of early complex trauma.

 

[Hope4Now]

you might not have a diagnosable attachment disorder (I don't think this is much of a diagnosis made in adults), but might relate to attachment styles if you haven't looked that up.

Yes. Since I started this thread back a year ago, I've learned more about attachment issues. I think most of my parts have various forms of disorganized attachment...sometimes all at the same time...the desperate need for connection/the fear of connection/the desire to reach out/the withdrawl. It is so flippin' confusing. I understand it intellectually, but am so not there yet in terms of integrated and deep knowing.

Even when loving grandparents gave me a hug I sort of froze and wanted it to be over faster. BUT my body still has those needs (the relational stuff just screws it up), like I do feel better with a blanket wrapped tight around me sometimes.

It only sounds autism/aspie in the sense that a tight or weighted blanket soothes the nervous system that is sending all the haywire messages that keep us stuck in trauma and pain.
This comment made me realize something. I usually have a freezing moment with touch that I suppress so I can receive it. At some point in college I think, I learned that touch can help me feel better. Very very complicated. I can't "receive" it in the moment...but its as if I store it up for later, when I am by myself and it feels safer to "receive" it then. This is way weird. But I realize that this is one of the things that has been happening to me lately. That when I self-soothe through fantasy, I've started to tune in instead to the actual supportive/healing touch I've received. Try to remind my parts that it was REAL and SAFE. Usually works best when I am wrapped up tight in a blanket. Hoping maybe someday I can receive and be nourished by the touch in the present moment. If that makes any sense at all.

 

[Chava]

This comment made me realize something. I usually have a freezing moment with touch that I suppress so I can receive it. At some point in college I think, I learned that touch can help me feel better. Very very complicated. I can't "receive" it in the moment...but its as if I store it up for later, when I am by myself and it feels safer to "receive" it then. This is way weird. But I realize that this is one of the things that has been happening to me lately. That when I self-soothe through fantasy, I've started to tune in instead to the actual supportive/healing touch I've received. Try to remind my parts that it was REAL and SAFE. Usually works best when I am wrapped up tight in a blanket. Hoping maybe someday I can receive and be nourished by the touch in the present moment. If that makes any sense at all.

I've done small amounts of this too...imagining a grandparent holding my hand. in the real moment I'm disconnected, but on my own it feels safer to "feel" them as connected. They are also dead so memory or imagination feels like my reality of that connection since it's all I have now. Anyway, yes it makes sense. And maybe while you crave being held, your body can tolerate only smaller touches that you can assimilate in a way that you can stay present and feel it at the time it's happening. ?? Anyway, it's good to be able to have these "stored" moments. Little kids create these kinds of inner representations and it serves as the real foundation of self-soothing. I've lacked that. I only started noticing myself trying this after I was an adult and the grandparent I had the most loving connection to had passed away. I didn't even realize what I was doing until I learned more about attachment and self-soothing. I was doing something natural, several decades late, but better late than never...?

My therapist lets me borrow stuffed animals from her house. I think that's brilliant. And I don't feel childish or stupid for it.

 

[Hope4Now]

Little kids create these kinds of inner representations and it serves as the real foundation of self-soothing. I've lacked that. I only started noticing myself trying this after I was an adult and the grandparent I had the most loving connection to had passed away. I didn't even realize what I was doing until I learned more about attachment and self-soothing.

Yes, attachment issues. I think for me the adoption/orphanage thing was a problem, as well as pre-natal stuff that I hardly begin to understand but have been talking about on @shimmerz structural dissociation thread. Then I got taken in by a messed up adoptive family and had more major traumas added onto what was already there. The more I read about attachment, the less I feel ashamed about my needs and what I've done with them over all these years. It all kind of makes sense. I'm trying to "embrace" my woundedness with more compassion. Very hard.

My therapist lets me borrow stuffed animals from her house. I think that's brilliant. And I don't feel childish or stupid for it.

People have talked about this. I think my therapist actually suggested I get a stuffed animal last year. I rolled my eyes. A few months ago, I dug out my teddy bear from childhood. It was WAY triggering. I put it in a drawer. Can hardly look at it. Not soothing at ALL. Last week I bought myself a stuffed bear. Am trying to get over feeling stupid about it. I had the first experience with it yesterday that it helped me unblend from a child part. Very odd stuff. I'm glad you don't feel childish or stupid for it...I hope I will get there.

 

[Chava]

It took me THE WHOLE HOUR to get a stuffed animal the first time I mentioned I sort of wanted to look at one of them in therapy. My therapist offered to just get one off the shelf for me but I knew I wanted to move toward in myself and get it. An hour and lots of tears (I don't cry normally...I don't move or make a sound, but it was just pools of tears). It's hard to describe what that meant. But sort of ...everything...? Then it was hard to feel myself holding the stuffed animal. But now it works and it feels soothing....relearning something very basic. If I want to think of it in more adult terms, I'm simply accessing a way to bring my parasympathetic nervous system back online (the calming part of the nervous system that has not been working for me). Little kids do it this way (through tears too). I guess it makes sense I start at a sort of elementary level and glad there is a place for that.

 

[Hope4Now]

It took me THE WHOLE HOUR

Thanks for sharing that. That, along with other things you've said elsewhere about your "normal/functional" self and how different it is really resonate with me.

Just responding to this and my reactions to it make me realize how uncomfortable I continue to be with this attachment stuff. Self-soothing behavior is very linked to guilt and shame for me. Still. I need to contemplate this more, I suppose. It's hard to do it without going into intellectual mode. The stuff is just too deep.

relearning something very basic.

I need to do this too. I rarely cry. I wish I could. I think it would give me some release. There's just too much stuff stuck in me, and a terrible, terrible fear that if I start it will never ever end. Crying=shame for me. Crying=death. Yikes. Wish I could get over this. My daughter cried when I took her to see Cinderella today. I wish I could have. There was a moment in the movie at the end when she says that we have to let ourselves be SEEN as who we really are. I've never done that to anybody. Way too scary. My therapist is as close as I have come, and even that isn't really all me. Not actually sure WHAT is all me. Too many parts. Ugh. Okay...babbling now. Time to stop. Long night.

 

[Bereft 'n Burnt Out]

My therapist is as close as I have come, and even that isn't really all me. Not actually sure WHAT is all me. Too many parts.

Although I'm the opposite now re crying, particularly since my daughter died (I didn't know one could cry so much/I've cried an ocean of tears and I frequently cry with my Counsellor...it's all I ever seem to do in sessions at the moment and, many times of late, I just have to think about a session with him and I'm off in floods :cry::cry::cry:) but, it was seeing the above quoted bit that helped me to finally realise I need to [finally] go to bed and follow my own
and C's 'advice'/words..he doesn't give advice, leaves me to be autonomous...it is after all 3:38 in the morning here, so this is not a good way to show any degree of self-care dredging through a forum on sexual abuse threads looking for answers, is it now ;) (old patterns/habits are hard to break "sigh* *yawn* :spitdummy::meh::bored:) but, thank you so much for all your feedback and for coming back to this thread ~ I will respond/be on again in the next 2-3 days (today is mother's day where I am, which is another difficult one for me now...) for now though I definitely need to say "goodnight" and go to rest and :sleep: ...x

 

[Chava]

My therapist is as close as I have come, and even that isn't really all me.

I'm never 'all' me in therapy...but more the parts I can't be anywhere else, so I think that's good. My therapist doesn't know what a tough ass I can be, but it probably comes out with the F-bombs in my e-mails about pain or whatever. I definitely have a few versions of myself. It's sort of the quiet lost self that can cry in therapy a little (took a couple years). Not really on my own.