I Don't Bond

[Valentino]

I wonder if that creepy reaction is part of an inborn reaction to the unfamiliar (ie. hard to understand or decipher) face and behavior of the mother?

So, for the minority of people who don't naturally socialize or fit in, often because of abnormal bonding styles. If they don't 'fake it' one way or another, they automatically get socially excluded by majority of population.

This is a video of more recent development research from the "Yale Baby Lab" which shows that babies have a natural bias for likeness, but also a natural bias to punish unlikeness.

We are predisposed to break the world up into different human groups. Based on the most subtle and seemingly irrelevant cues. And that to some extent is the dark side of morality. ... I think that we are built to at a drop of a hat to create Us & Them.

 

[scout86]

In my own case, the creepy reaction has a lot to do with recognizing what my own mother is like and speculating on what my own life may have been like at that age. I didn't quite get that that sort of thing can have that kind of impact. And, to ME anyway, the mother didn't look "neutral" she looked "angry". I'm not sure why I'd interpret it that way, but I did. My reaction was that the kid was in danger, even though I know that not to be true.

 

[Valentino]

The response to emotional neglect is very similar if not the same as to emotional abuse.

I wonder if your creepy reaction is triggered because of identification with the baby's confusing and fearful reaction, or if it's triggered by the mom's blank distant coldish face and still body language. Or maybe it's a combination of both?

Here's a video with other variations of the still face test, these don't have the mom over-blinking her eyes like the other video.

“What’s really striking about the still face experiment is that the infants don’t stop trying to get the parents’ attention back,” Tronick said. “They’ll go through repeated cycles where they try to elicit attention, fail, turn away, sad and disengaged, then they turn back and try again.

“When it goes on long enough, you see infants lose postural control and actually collapse in the car seat,” he continued. “Or they’ll start self-soothing behaviors, sucking the back of their hand or their thumbs. Then they really disengage from the parent and don’t look back.”

Some infants, however, become so distressed that that they’re unable to console themselves. Tronick and other researchers have found that neglect leads to increases in the heart rate, a flush of the stress hormone cortisol and to cell death in key regions of the brain.
...
“Infants, like all humans, are designed to be in interaction with other people,” Tronick told me. “When I began doing these experiments in the 1980s, we just didn’t have any idea how powerful the connection with other people was for infants, and how, when you disconnected, how powerfully negative the effect was on the infant.”
--- Washington Post 9/16/13
Dead Link Removed

 

[scout86]

wonder if your creepy reaction is triggered because of identification with

This is fascinating!

Trying to sort it out, I'm surprised by the babies' reactions. Surprised by the intensity, I guess. It appears that they expect their efforts to pay off, which seems kind of interesting. A mother looking away and refusing to look back doesn't bother me at all. It's the mother staring at the baby with that grim expression that bothers me. It's kind of like looking at a dog who's glaring at you before it bites. Weird!

 

[NovemberStar]

I can relate although I do form some relationships with others - namely work, becasue it has clearly define boundaries, is time limited, and I also manage to gain some sense of emotional fulfilment through the relationships with those I work with.

Like you, I 'did trauma work' with a few T's over the years. Like you - that felt pretty easy as I didn't (allow myself to) get attached to the T's I saw.

But that didn't work, not long term anyway. More trauma triggered the old trauma and I've been stuck in the PTSD hell for almost 4 years this time.

This time, with this T I've done something different - I've allowed myself to trust her, and form an attachment.

Now the REAL work has begun.

My T calls it relationship trauma; and it's only by working through it with her, I believe true healing will occur.

It's quite possible you have the same thing - and the answer to healing lies in doing the very thing you're most afraid of - forming an attachment - with a trusted, very skilled (!!!!!!!) T.