Attachment Styles, Our Outer World, and the Inner Child Wound

These visual aids are an overview of the series I wrote a while back on our attachment styles. Three weeks’ worth of articles (which I will link as we go) condensed into “flashcards” of the main points. (Well, four if you count the fun one we did. When we analyzed The Break-Up movie (2006) as a cautionary tale of Anxious and Avoidant in love.) So, why bring this back now? It’s to lay the foundation for what’s next in our series on attachment disorders.

As the title of this article suggests, our attachment styles and our perception of the world greatly impact each other. And it begins in our childhood.

Visual Aids on the 3 Main Attachment Styles

Secure looks so easy!

Below is a “flashcard” from my article on secure attachment style here. A secure base for a secure attachment and its three basic requirements. What’s a secure base? It’s any person we can rely on for comfort in times of distress. Parents who act as a secure base tend to teach their children how to act as a secure base for their partner and expect it in return.

Non-toxic parents meet these basic requirements on autopilot. They also know that it is not the child’s job to act as their secure base. So, the child learns how to use the give and take principle with their partner based on the care they received from their parents.

However, when our parents are rejecting or terrifying, we’re forced to find alternate means of dealing with our distress. This is how we develop insecure attachment styles. If our own parents are unreliable, then how can we trust our outer world?

Insecure Attachment Styles

Now check out the opposite commonalities between Anxious and Avoidant attachment styles. Whereas the secure base has three basic requirements, the insecure attachment styles have “missing information” on having needs met. So, unsure of what’s missing, much less, how to respond to it, their needs get “funneled” into only one of the three.

Anxious has an unfulfilled hunger for confidence, which is why they idealize their partner. They tend to be attracted to partners who make them feel inferior. More often than not, they choose emotionally unavailable partners, which is opposite of what they need. In relationship conflicts or a break-up, all of the good times flood the brain while all the bad times fall to the shadows. This activates their attachment system, which brings out clingy or protest behaviors. But more on the activated attachment system later.

Avoidants are rarely present, which is why they idealize a phantom of the past or future. Anyone who is not in the Avoidant’s present life will do. Be it the ex-partner (past) or the so-called “perfect partner” (future focused) who’s out there somewhere, they just have to find them. So, in relationship conflicts or a break-up, they remember the bad times more than the good. This is one of many deactivating strategies which keeps them “safe” from getting too attached to their partner. Another one is their reliance on distracting activities, which we know as what, trauma warriors? Dissociation (Trauma Glossary 2). Avoidants have an unfulfilled hunger for peace and that’s why they cope by checking out so much.

Finally, our hormones. Anxious is to dopamine as Avoidant is to serotonin. But what does that mean?

Hormone Chart of Our Attachment Styles

Last week, we addressed oxytocin and vasopressin as our social bonding hormones. We proved that vasopressin is activated in group bonding, while oxytocin is concerned with social memory. So, social defeat memories, especially relationship trauma, has a major impact on our ability to connect and bond. These two hormones greatly influence our attachment styles when they join up with dopamine and serotonin.

In a secure attachment, we have good enough social memories to bond and connect with our partner. When our partner is our secure base, we are able to look outward into the world with improved confidence (dopamine) and peace of mind (serotonin). How interesting then that Anxious has an unfulfilled hunger for confidence and Avoidant has an unfulfilled hunger for peace.

Avoidant’s link with serotonin has been vague. So, I had to do some digging through some pretty dry science articles to get my answer. Turns out, one of serotonin’s receptors to the brain is signaling bad social experiences. And the information comes in vague, with no specific memory attached. The brain is receiving sensory and emotional language in real time based off old memories that it can’t even pinpoint. This dormant fear of engulfment explains why Avoidants feel drained by too much togetherness. That powerful urge to “relax” and “unwind” by checking out is a strategy for reestablishing the Self.

Wait! What About Disorganized Attachment Style?

Simply put, Disorganized is both Anxious and Avoidant but never Secure. Sometimes Disorganized will crave lots of intimacy with their partner and other times they need to be left alone. They tend to have an unfulfilled hunger for both confidence and peace. So, that makes it difficult for them to find one set strategy for meeting their needs. Since there is no “one size fits all” for Disorganized, it might be helpful to anyone who identifies with this style to scroll back up to the visual aid on Insecure Attachment Styles and see where you are Anxious and where you are Avoidant. And of course, where you might be both at the same time.

Our Outer World

For this section I created some images that represent perspectives of our outer world. This is known as our internal locus of control. It’s how we see the world as a welcoming or threatening place. How much space do I have in this world and what can I do in it? Is this a challenge or is it a threat? We all have an internal “landscape” of our world which influences how we meet life’s challenges and achieve our personal goals. Which of the images best describes your internal landscape?

Secure Versus Insecure Foundation

Below, we see Shadow Person (on the right) ready to take that first “leap of faith.” There’s a group of people on the left who are facing Shadow Person and appear to be encouraging. They are doing one more thing, and that’s leaving room, or “holding space” for Shadow Person’s final leap.

Below, Shadow Person (on the left) is surrounded by hot lava. One misstep spells imminent death. There is no room to make a running start for the other precipices. Besides, those precipices that Shadow Person must jump on to get to the other side look far more precarious than the one our person is standing on. Even worse, the crowd of people on the right all have their backs turned and there doesn’t appear to be any room if Shadow Person can (miraculously) make it to the other side.

Trust Issues or Somewhere in the Middle?

Is your perspective somewhere in the middle? In certain situations, you feel confident and welcome. And in other situations, fear is triggered and you feel like an island unto yourself. We don’t always live in one extreme or the other in every aspect of life.

Or do you have problems trusting those who say they care? Does their welcome feel insincere? Does their encouragement feel like it’s masking hidden motives? Perhaps they’re trying to bring you down or worse, trap you.

Below, we just reversed the images. Now we’re seeing Shadow Person in the blue background who is obviously being conned by the encouraging crowd.

None of these perceptions are entirely accurate. The whole world is not cheering us on and waiting to throw laurels at us (first image). We can always recover from our mistakes and there are those who will make room for us (second image). Everyone, traumatized or not, has their own interpretation of the world. So, where do all these differing perspectives come from? Our childhood programming.

The Inner Child Wound: Ask the Rat Pups

In the book Attached by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller, they talked about an experiment with rat pups. The rat pups were separated from their mother and then they were warmed with a heating pad to imitate their mother’s warmth. Next, they were fed, and then finally, gently brushed to imitate the mother’s licking action. Each action helped with only one symptom of their separation distress. But only one thing relieved all their symptoms at once, and that was the reunion with their mother. This experiment proved that the bond between mother and child is crucial in our development.

Now, let’s use our imagination based on what we’ve learned from this experiment. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that the rat pups are never reunited with their mother and they grow up under this manufactured mothering. Without the one thing that will provide all their needs at once, the pups have to learn how to improvise. Over time, they respond best to one of the three while growing less responsive to the other two, based on the “missing information” in their development.

The one who responds best to the heating pad isolates because the warmth of its nest is the closest it has to understanding comfort and security. It only leaves its nest for food because it understands that’s key to survival.

Maybe one will respond best to the feeding. So, this rat develops an addiction to food, or eating its needs and feelings.

The one who responds best to the brush becomes a chronic groomer. Constantly licking itself for self-assurance. If allowed to procreate, it may well exhaust its mate with over-licking and its nudges for returning the favor.

“Missing Information” and Insecure Attachment Styles

Our hypothetical rats represent an overreliance of one need due to the “missing information” of their unmet needs. When we find one thing we can rely on in a “cruel and uncaring world” we tend to lean on it more. This is not to say that everyone with insecure attachment styles have attachment disorders.

What I will say is that I have noticed a pattern in the Complex-PTSD community over the years (myself included). And that’s how when we find a new interest, or something that brings relief to our system, we tend to go “all in” with it and neglect other areas of our life. Is this what it means then to have an attachment disorder? Well, if you are able to come up for air and add balance to your life, then no, not necessarily.

An attachment disorder is an obsessive need for one thing that’s rooted in survival. Without it, we feel completely untethered in a world we’re unsure how to connect or relate with.

Many therapists see Cptsd as an attachment disorder. This means that as a child the survivor grew up without a safe adult to healthily bond with.

Complex-PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker (Chapter 3)

If this is true (and Pete Walker is most certainly a reliable source) and our attachments influence so much of our life, isn’t this worth exploring?

Adult Attachment Disorder is in Trauma Glossary 2. We will be exploring each one in depth in the upcoming weeks. What’s going on, and what can we do about it? Think: person, object/s, or dissociative activities. Believe it or not, prior to healing, I spent twenty-two years of my adult life with two out of three of those very disorders.