Attachment Types - Overly Independent

[Hashi]

Thank you all for responding.

Meadowsweet, you've confused me with what you've said here. I just went to look at your thread and you say in it things like, "From the heart, I want someone to pick me up, cuddle me up in a blanket and tell me they're going to sort it all out for me". I can't connect what I'm expressing to writing that. Maybe I haven't expressed it well. This is the "rejection of nurturing" in the description - for me, that means rejecting even the idea. Certainly not having any sort of fantasy or wishes about it. To me, the idea of someone cuddling me in a blanket is equal to the idea of them shackling and then suffocating me. I think we might have different interpretations of the description I quoted, which would be quite possible.

I wondered if people would see this as essentially no different than the more apparent neediness, that deep down it's just the same and I want my needs to be met. Obviously I can't know for sure, but I'm doubtful about that. My sister has always reacted differently to me, and I've never understood her reactions - she had, and still has, the attention/approval-seeking thing. I think I just failed to develop things that have to be in place for that, or those tendencies have been damaged too much to be able to revert to them.

I was separated from my mother at birth (for medical treatment and intensive care - I was critically ill) and was then ignored or abused for the first six years of my life. I wasn't sent to school when I reached the compulsory age for attendance, it was about a year later when the authorities found out about me and made my mother take me. At that point - aged 6 - I hadn't learnt to talk because no-one spoke to me.

The only person I've had any connection to before I was an adult was my older sister, but I looked after her - it wasn't the other way round. I've always seen her as weak and have never had any empathy with her need for approval from others.

I honestly don't think I'll ever really look to someone else to meet my needs. I think that's actually impossible for me to want. Allowing myself some dependency is probably the most I can aim for, and I think I've done that to some extent with my therapist. I don't see dependency as someone meeting my needs though, I see it as support while I find a way to meet my own needs as best I can. I make a distinction between seeking support and neediness. I don't want someone else to make things all right for me, but I would like advice, encouragement and someone else to believe that I can do that for myself. I think that's the difference.

 

[Hashi]

Abstract, if you have any more thoughts I'd be really interested to hear them. I do see parallels in what you say. If there's a difference in being able to ask for support, I'd see that as how I interpret "omnipotence" in the description I posted. I'm very resourceful, and I keep seeking resources. To do that is within my power, as is pushing myself. It's probably a bit late to attempt to explain it any more at this point but I might try to come back to it.

I did wonder about that definition that I quoted - both the label for it and the description. I did really relate to it, unlike other descriptions that I've read. I haven't said attachment disorder, because I don't know if I have attachment disorder. I'd say that I definitely have issues but I don't usually relate much to what I read about it. I'll look at the links you've posted, thanks.

What happens when you get caught up in a victim mode with someone if you don't mind me asking? What mechanism keeps you attached to someone abusive or harmful? There are whole array for me but I wondered what yours are.

I'm not sure I do get caught up in victim mode, now, except with my mother. What keeps me stuck there is her extreme manipulation combined with my guilt. When I opposed her in a major way before, she went blind from stress and the stress was what I was putting her through. I avoid contact as much as I can, but if I stopped seeing her altogether I'm pretty sure she'd die as a direct result - her health is poor - and I can't deal with it.

I certainly don't put up with being a victim in friendships or romantic relationships - one strike (of any kind) and you're out. Yet another thing I don't understand is people talking about friendships that give them a lot of grief - I don't have friendships like that, I wouldn't bother. Even if it meant no friends at all.

In my last job I was being bullied and initially my reason for staying was defiance. I didn't want to be victimised, I joined a union, I raised grievances etc etc. In the end I had to admit it was taking too much of a toll and I should leave, but I stayed longer because it was obvious that I was going to be made redundant and get a payoff. I needed the money - with trauma therapy I was in no state to get a new job, so overall it was a practical survival decision.

It might be worth saying that the bully, typically, accused me of being the victimiser. In a sense, from his point of view, I was - he was insecure and full of bluster, and I was calling him on it. He started therapy because of me. The whole thing deteriorated to the point where I reverted to surliness and being unco-operative and disrespectful. Which I suppose is one of my patterns with regard to being in a victim role. I didn't try to do better to get his approval. I tried to fight him and when I couldn't I became hostile.

The other way in which I experience being a victim is environmental. I see myself as persecuted by life and circumstances. That's when I feel most defeated. I take it much more personally than anything a person does to me. What to make of that, I have no idea.

In the case of my therapist, I do need her to believe in me. I kind of feed off her belief that things can change for me.

 

[Hashi]

I am not convinced that as humans we are not able to change our attachment style. Maybe a better description would be that the same conditions can bring about different styles of attachment styles, but within us are all, and one may just be the predominant type-others dorment but able to come out under a change in circumstances.

brat, feeling a bit like a rebel sounds like a good thing, although I'm not sure that everything you're describing sounds like you feel it's positive. Do you think it's possible that a secure attachment style is also dormant and can come out? As I've said above, I don't feel that's possible for me but I'm interested in whether you think it's possible in general.

 

[Badger]

Hashi, this sort of makes sense when I think about what you have posted in other threads I have followed. Theres probably some uncomplimentary words to describe your condition, antisocial personality disorder or some thing like that. The way I see it, is if you were to take a young puppy and alternately kick it and pet it for the same behavior, it would turn into the dog version of you.

How do you fix that dog? Alot of people believe it can't be done, but you can do it. Someone has to make a choice to love you, and put consistency above all else in tbeir treatment of you. You can't have that relationship with a therapist, they are getting paid. Make a friend worth having that has the qualities of consistency that will eventually cause you to have a genuine response, cultivate that friendship, be a friend, even when you don't feel it and your heart will come around.

 

[Abstract]

antisocial personality disorder

:wideeyed: Not at all Badger. If you look in your local jail you will find many of these. Many also in general society but they present with a manipulative and immoral approach to people and situations.

Hashi, I will come back with my many comments when I find the time.

 

[Abstract]

Hashi,
The more you say the less I see Anxious Avoidant and the more I see Dismissive Avoidant with some other stuff added. You are not anxious avoidant in any way. If you are looking at Pete Walkers way of describing these things, and Complex Trauma, it's sounding a lot like a flight-fight type to me.

I am convinced our attachment patterns can change. Both my sister and mine have done so for one but I also believe in the concept. Brat and P-No too and I agree with Brat that sometimes circumstances can do it. Sometimes change means going from one unhealthy type to the other but others it can mean getting closer to Secure Attachment.

I suspect that one of the big factors is that those that are Anxious-Avoidant or on the Ambivalent or borderline type spectrum often want to change . Those who are Dismissive Avoidant or have a Fight or even Flight response (Pete Walker speak) are often unlikely to want change unless they are able to fully accept the cost of staying the same - even believing there is a cost is not a given. Sometimes part of that difficulty is also admitting that this way may not be the best way as there is vulnerability or threat to the ego even in that.

My sister interestingly went from a fairly pure Fight with a dash of Flight, to a Flight-Fawn briefly. This happened after a whole lot of therapy. She is balancing out now thank God as the Fawn stuff almost ended up getting her into some very serious trouble.

The way I approach this is trying to aim myself in the direction of Secure Attachment. I am so much improved in many ways but still have big issues. I don't think I would ever have been motivated to change in the way I am if I did not see it as imperative if I am ever going to heal from trauma. I also want to be able to have give and take, full relationships in the future.

The danger I felt from any dependence is now counteracted by the danger I sense from being unable to ask for support. That isn't comfortable because both responses are reactions of avoidance rather than a positive moving forward. It therefore feels horrible I have to say. Caught between a rock and a hard place. I try to do a lot of reassurance that it is OK to ask for help/support but it is hard.

One more thing I will point out is that I suspect your perception of what people are describing when they talk of need or a strong desire for connection might be different to what it is for many. For others it is what you have in mind - a desperate need for someone to scoop them up indefinitely and for them not have to look after themselves anymore.

The first lot is usually a very healthy movement towards getting comfortable with tolerating getting something from others in an intimate way or tolerating closeness. Something they haven't been used to doing and that they may be phobic of. I see a lot of this on here. A lot of it starts with the first really healthy relationship they have started to develop - the one with their T. I think the phobic feelings mean that when they speak of it it tends to sound intense and it feels that way too. I see this as healthy movement towards Secure Attachment - one that is going to be very uncomfortable for the person while it happens.

I am guessing you might find these expressions hard to accept because for you all of this still feels so fundamentally undesirable and not very sensible to do. The second lot described in the paragraph above are acting out the Ambivalent or Preoccupied stuff and if they reacted in this way as children and they are triggered I imagine it is incredibly strong and painful. I have to say that I am endlessly grateful that I am not on this end as it sounds like hell to me. I do have a slightly disorganised pattern but not in this way.

The other thing that I suspect changes how the whole picture looks for people is empathy. I think there are some who just don't have it; others who reject it early as they sense it makes them vulnerable; some who have balanced amounts and others who have an overwhelming supply of it.

I suspect this is one of the key areas where you and I differ. I am slightly strangely empathetic. I am not proud of that. Not only do I see these things as a result of random factors of nurture and nature but at a certain point I realised it was a key factor that kept putting me in danger. When it comes to attachment patterns my lack of ability or desire to ask for help from anyone and my over empathising ended up making me attractive to certain personality types that essentially meant I kept getting into trouble. Thank goodness the avoidance would often kick in at a certain point and dominate the rest. Again I relate to Brat as I have become less empathic. It has helped me even though I sometimes feel a loss. I would do almost anything to save others from feeling pain. I felt their pain almost more strongly than they did so in many senses I was attempting to stop my own.

One of the changes my sister has had is a deepening of empathy. She has said that there are times she would do anything to go back to how she was. She didn't really care about others and was sectioned off from a lot of pain. On the other hand I have started to see the beginnings of so much in her life flourishing for her. My mothers relationship with me is in many ways was more f'd up than hers with my sister but there was less contact or interest in my sister.

I always think it is a bit ridiculous when people think siblings should react the same way to their upbringing. Forget about the physiological stuff - each sibling has different parents with different environmental factors and different reactions to each child.

Then we get to reactions that seem to be a response to feeling threatened that are totally out of character for me. I whole different story I won't go into now. If you are interested in some of the other differences I see in our responses and how I see them then let me know.

I can look at your childhood and mine and it makes total sense that we react so differently in this way. You had zero empathic reflection for a critical period if time. The extent of it is extreme and it occurred whilst you were in mortal danger. I was not neglected in this way. I had very confusing mixed signals and often things dressed up as empathic connection/reflection were a means of getting at me - often very subtle. The environment was controlling and intense rather than the absence interspersed with abuse that you describe. Not being able to speak at the age 6 very graphically demonstrates the wasteland you found yourself in. It is no wonder you reacted as you did and it is a great credit to you that you survived.

 

[Abstract]

I don't see dependency as someone meeting my needs though, I see it as support while I find a way to meet my own needs as best I can.

I wonder if differentiating between these is a another way of protecting yourself from the concept that you might need or benefit from intimacy with someone else. To hold onto your position above these things. I personally don't see them as being different. The issue of not wanting to help oneself at all is a different matter in my eyes.

. I don't see dependency as someone meeting my needs though, I see it as support while I find a way to meet my own needs as best I can.

Again, I wonder the same thing here.

those who'll trample on others to get out, and those who'll get trampled on

I actually don't believe this and I have been in crisis situations. There are those that are not laying there being trampled on but are helping others and themselves. I don't think it is a purely idealistic belief either.

I suppose in a way I'm arrogant about my own abilities

I have no doubt you are very resourceful and intelligent as well as being very capable. I do wonder how much of this is a defence though if you don't mind me saying. I think one of the signs is if we feel shame or threat when this autonomy, superiority or invulnerability is threatened. People who are truly full of self esteem are not threatened by these things and as you say it isn't high self esteem for you.

I can trust in the metaphysics.

I wonder if this is a substitute for personal emotional contact with others - a holding ground. That would explain too why you find environmental factors causing difficulties for you as being more difficult. Not sure I have expressed that clearly or not. Please know that I am not criticising it. It sounds like an excellent and helpful belief to have regardless.

To end here is a description of secure attachment:
Secure attachment
Securely attached people tend to agree with the following statements: "It is relatively easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don't worry about being alone or having others not accept me." This style of attachment usually results from a history of warm and responsive interactions with relationship partners. Securely attached people tend to have positive views of themselves and their partners. They also tend to have positive views of their relationships. Often they report greater satisfaction and adjustment in their relationships than people with other attachment styles. Securely attached people feel comfortable both with intimacy and with independence. Many seek to balance intimacy and independence in their relationship.

Secure attachment and adaptive functioning are promoted by a caregiver who is emotionally available and appropriately responsive to her child’s attachment behavior, as well as capable of regulating both his or her positive and negative emotions.[10]

 

[Badger]

I wonder how many different attachment styles there are?

 

[Abstract]

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.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Meadowsweet, you've confused me with what you've said here. I just went to look at your thread and you say in it things like, "From the heart, I want someone to pick me up, cuddle me up in a blanket and tell me they're going to sort it all out for me". I can't connect what I'm expressing to writing that. Maybe I haven't expressed it well. This is the "rejection of nurturing" in the description - for me, that means rejecting even the idea. Certainly not having any sort of fantasy or wishes about it. To me, the idea of someone cuddling me in a blanket is equal to the idea of them shackling and then suffocating me. I think we might have different interpretations of the description I quoted, which would be quite possible.

I'm able to recognise what you've written, because I've been there. I'm 40 years old, and only felt these occasional bouts of deep, unresolved neediness since beginning therapy.

Still I don't feel any neediness for my own mother, nor would I want to.

I also feel horribly pathetic and weak reading your thread having shared something on neediness recently . But I know I'm not, it's a step forward. (I realise that's my reaction, not something you necessarily think)

I was never allowed, and never allowed myself to feel pain or need as a child. Now I'm not asking for it to be fulfilled by anyone but myself. I'm just accepting that I do have feelings about being abused.

 

[Hashi]

@Meadowsweet, thanks for clarifying. I think I do have feelings about being abused, and I'm quite conscious that I have feelings about it that I'm still not allowing because they would be too much. I don't see you as weak or pathetic for feeling need, I see you as psychologically healthier than I am. :) I probably haven't been clear enough that I see my view of "vulnerable = stupid" as a big problem for me, not a better position compared to anyone else who is able to be more open.

I would like guidance and encouragement - so if to other people that means nurturing then that's what it would be called. But what I interpret other people often talking about is intimacy with another person - human closeness. @Abstract, that's one thing I mean about the distinction between dependency and neediness. I think what you say about what many other people here are expressing is a working through of the process towards a more secure attachment style is probably right. And if I understand correctly that's exactly what Meadowsweet is talking about.

I'm probably going to tie myself up in knots trying to explain this, but I completely agree about my responses being defence mechanisms. I think I really can't be expressing myself well in this thread. What I said about my sister reacting differently, I meant in the sense that we did have different circumstances - she had the ambivalence and I did not. (My parents, obviously, have some serious mental health issues. My therapist surmises that the separation for some time after I was born, combined with the fact that everyone had been sure I was going to die, created some sort of dynamic where they didn't really accept the reality that I'd lived and they were acting as if I hadn't.)

I survived through denial, dissociation and adaptation like we all do. Really, I didn't survive except physically. Writing what I am here is a big step forward for me, because to even get to this point of seeing/stating this much has been very destabilising in the past. I can't process this in therapy. I can't talk about how it was when I went to school. I can't do any more than state it, leaving the feelings out of it, because it's too overwhelming.

The way I see it, is if you were to take a young puppy and alternately kick it and pet it for the same behavior, it would turn into the dog version of you.

Badger, I think what you've done is possibly what some other people tend to do, which is to revert to an idea that I was alternatively given positive attention and negative attention. I wasn't, it was negative or no attention.

I don't think I can understand what it's like to be in a situation where it alternates between care and neglect/abuse/negative attention. I can see how that could lead to the push-pull of wanting intimacy but being afraid of being hurt.

The other side is that I'm not sure someone who hasn't experienced it can understand what it's like when the lack is absolute. There's no ambivalence. As a result, I'm not convinced that by this point I have anything left of the wanting/being afraid. I understand the idea that rejecting nurturing is a coping mechanism. What I'm suggesting is that it becomes an adjustment to the extent that there isn't any going back.

I think the dog analogy is interesting because 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'm still not convinced that I have the same path through this as people have who had the ambivalence. I'm not convinced that my adaptation is undoable, at this point. I think you're right, and it relates to what Pete Walker says about Freeze types, that someone may not see enough disadvantages in the approach they're used to. I don't, because it has worked well for me and I don't see a more emotional approach working at all.

I've never understood why other people want partners and children, since all I see in their relationships is a load of illusion, headaches and hassle. The idea of trying to learn to get enough out of a relationship to put up with all those negatives is about as appealing as spending the rest of my life studying advanced nuclear physics, and I suspect would be about as successful. I honestly don't think it's there for me to find.

I don't think I can properly explain how focussed I am on finding and using resources. I want to get round the attachment problem so I can use the resource that is therapy and my therapist. I'm aware that I need to allow myself to be dependent on her and I'm struggling to do that more than I am already. I'm looking for an approach within the limitations that I perceive, more than a complete overhaul of my relationships to everyone. If that isn't realistic then I'm probably stuffed.

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/complex-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-cptsd.13764/
I have to say, I find it really confusing that he uses words from one context to describe a different one (using the names for autonomic reactions to describe psychological responses). I'm not being picky, things like that really make it hard for me to follow the concept.
Given that, of these I think I relate most strongly to the Freeze type, then to Flight, a small amount to Fight. Fight sounds too full of drama for me - I rarely do drama. I don't think I make many controlling demands of others, although I have to try not to manipulate people because I can see how easy it is. Like everyone I'm sure I'm a mixture, but I doubt that I've got an ounce of Fawn.

This is a very helpful link, and the others things you've said have been very helpful too - thank you for your thoughtful responses to my long winded rambling.

Apart from the terminology, the Freeze thing is what I relate to and makes me feel it's something general, which is what I'm looking for. It's a bit depressing that the treatment section seems only to say how hard it is to do anything about it. The conclusion of that paragraph is particularly unpromising.

What I'd find really helpful is an example of someone who had the sort of experience I had who found some way through this. I've seen autobiographical stuff by people who started off similarly but they got put into a very different environment while still young, which I wasn't. Anyway, I'm not in a place to read misery memoirs and I think I'd prefer a more general, therapeutic viewpoint since this is particularly relating to therapy. Do you happen to know if Pete Walker has written anything else about treatment of Freeze types, beyond how difficult it is?

 

[Valentino]

Thanks for addressing such an interesting and complex topic. In many ways I can relate, in other ways it feels quite foreign. I really appreciate the courage it took everyone to share such personal insights.

16 years ago I came to a dramatic realization that I was naturally and unusually emotionally detached from my family, friends & people. That was maybe the start of a recognition of my unique empathy blindness. At the start of this year I finally discovered and self-diagnosed myself with Aspergers Syndrome (high functioning side of the autism spectrum). From that foundation it led to many pieces of the puzzle falling into place, I can now recognize my natural born limitations along with unique talents, and adapt property to my genetics. In the past I typically defaulted on environmental/upbringing/family causes on the nurture side of nature vs. nurture. Which never adequately explained my behavior and history. Most psychological therapies often focus too much on environmental effects, healing past wounds instead of helping a person to discover and adapt to their unique brain genetics and chemistry.

@Hashi
It seems like you might also be dealing with aspects of empathy challenges or blindness. Autism spectrum is one cluster of sufferers, often with difficulties with social communication and thinking. Axis 2 Personality Disorders (Borderline, Narcissist, Sociopath, etc.) are another cluster often with relational attachment challenges. I have found wrongplanet forums, sociopathworld website, and Karla McLaren's empathy educational work all useful resources to understanding concepts of empathy and the various forms and expressions out there.

I have found the 3 core emotions of Fear, Anger, and Grief to be very useful with understanding human behavior and matches well with the 2 other models discussed in this thread. With the attachment types it's: Ambivalent (Fear), Avoidant (Grief), and Disorganized (Anger), secure points a healthy balance of the three. With Pete Walker's 4F trauma topology it's Fight (Anger), Flight (Fear), Freeze (Grief) and Fawn is pointing towards codependent behavior, which I see as a learned response from long term exposure in an overly manipulative relationship, not really an in-born instinctual response.

It sounds like you identify the most with the core grief emotion (Avoidant and Freeze).

Grief can be a bit loaded or abstract word, maybe it's better to think of it as an emotional cluster which includes: depression, sadness, shame, numbness, emptiness, loneliness, emotional fatigue, denial, dissociation, overwhelmed, shock, dazed, repression, covering up, depersonalization, unconscious, reactive, avoiding, etc.

Grief can be seen as an Avoidant Spectrum going between Acknowledgement to Avoidant to Abandonment:
Healthiest is fully acknowledged, in the present moment, honoring self needs, wants and desires (self-realized).
Less healthy would be towards self-abandonment, unconsciously reactive, emotionally numb or towards dissociation.

Maybe the work of Dr. Margaret Paul called "Inner Bonding" might be useful for this? She focuses a lot on healing the inner child, shame and self-abandonment.

I identify myself most towards the anxious/fear/flight/ambivalent type of response and personality, but I can see some aspects of grief/avoidant/freeze in my history. A regular meditation practice and physical breathing awareness techniques were very useful for my grief issues. Often tears will fall from my eyes while meditating without any attached story or emotions.

Also there are many spiritual teachings focused towards: acceptance, surrender, acknowledgement, devotion, service, honoring, compassion, which I think would be useful for stuck unresolved grief issues.

The etymology of "compassion" means: co-suffering or to literally be with suffering.

Or to stay conscious to strong powerful emotions (passion).

Strong emotions can be quite confusing, scary, and overwhelming to deal with, but learning to be with, work with, and understanding the language of emotions has been transformative in my life. They're still a bit confusing at times, but not so scary or overwhelming anymore.

I apologize if my post was a bit disjointed or came across preachy, this is a challenging subject to talk about, and I'm still in the process of understanding all the mechanisms of grief, there's still a bit of a mystery to it all, I'm better and more experienced with talking about fear or anger.