[Perna]

I just found this article about shame, written by attachment disorder specialists that I found really helpful:

http://www.attachmentdisordermarylan...attachment.htm

[skysblue]

Perna, - the article was focused on the experiences of children and the treatment of children. Do you think much or any this article applies to adults - especially the treatment portion?

Fabulous article, Perna!
Thanks for sharing.

[Perna]

We were all children; one doesn't have attachment disorder as an adult really because it's about being attached to the mother but I think our history and how our lives played out and our attachment issues are always part of us?

I liked the description of shame and how it feels and manifests; I don't think, if we don't learn to work past it in childhood, that it just goes away or anything in adulthood. I believe that most things we learned or did not learn to do in childhood stay with us and impact us in adulthood. I figured out I was a mess when I was 20 and spent the next 30 years straightening that 20-year created mess out

My stepmother and I were not a good fit as a parent/child pair and one of the comforts I gave myself when my stepmother died was the realization that she was dead and I am not yet; by default I am the "survivor". What happens to survivors after they have survived? Usually they pick themselves up and keep moving forward? Yes, what they survived was important and part of their lives and changed them forever but. . .

[Velvet Cactus]

Learning Your Attachment Style Can Light Up Your Life
See how connections make you happy -- or not.
Published on May 4, 2011 by Leslie Becker-Phelps, Ph.D. in Making Change

Have you ever walked through your home when it's pitch black and stumbled over something? Most likely, you would have stepped over that shoe or walked around that box if the lights were on. But they weren't. The same thing happens for us psychologically; we trip over the things we cannot see. And, what's worse, we often don't know how to turn on the light, so we keep tripping.
One of the invisible obstacles that we don't see is our style of relating to others. It can create conflict, anger, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and a host of other kinds of distress. We begin learning right from birth how to relate to people. As infants, we respond to the expressions we see in our parents' eyes. Particularly through the early years of childhood, we form our understanding of who we are and how others will respond to us. Our style of attachment to our parents (particularly our mothers) becomes how we connect to others through our lives.
One way to think about attachment styles is based on the work of Kim Bartholomew and
involves people's levels of avoidance and anxiety. People can range from low to high on each of these. Four basic styles of attachment:
Secure Attachment(low avoidance, low anxiety): If you relate positively to others and yourself, you probably have a secure attachment style. Securely attached people are generally happy in their relationships, feeling that they and others are sensitive and responsive to each other. They sense that connection can provide comfort and relief in times of need. They also feel that they are good, loved, accepted and competent people.
Preoccupied Attachment(low avoidance, high anxiety): If you are always worried about what others think of you and don't really factor in your thoughts and feelings, this style of attachment most likely fits you. People with a preoccupied attachment style feel a powerful need to be close to others, and they show this by clinging. They need a lot of validation and approval. They are concerned that others don't value them, and they also doubt their own worth in relationships. So, they often worry a lot about their relationships.
Dismissing-Avoidant Style(high avoidance, low anxiety): Although the need for connection is biologically wired in people, those with this style of attachment deny it. They like to see themselves as independent and self-sufficient; and they minimize the importance of relationships. To keep their relationships unimportant, they suppress or hide their feelings. They also often think of other people less positively than they think of themselves. When faced with rejection, they cope with it by distancing themselves.
Fearful-Avoidant Style(high avoidance, high anxiety): People with this style of attachment tend to think of themselves as flawed, dependent, and helpless. And, they think they aren't worthy of loving or caring responses from their partners. As a result, they don't trust that others see them positively, and they expect to get hurt. So, although they want to be close to others, they also fear it. Understandably, they often avoid intimacy and suppress their feelings.
In thinking about personal connections in this way, you can naturally see how people often get in their own way of developing healthy relationships. Their established ways of viewing themselves and others are like invisible obstacles that trip them up. Although they know that their relationships are less than fulfilling, they fail to see that their attachment style is the problem - that it prevents them from moving freely toward the close connection they need.
Recognizing your style or pattern of relating, switches on the light, allowing you to see how you help or hinder your relationships. You can also decide to be different - or at least decide to work on changing your approach and step around that no-longer-invisible obstacle.

[ECHOES]

Great article, Perna! Thank you.
I have it bookmarked to go back to. There is so much there to take in and I know I'll want to read it more than once.

It explains so well for me why I "tell" on myself, to the person who is my superior at work.

[FourRedheads]

Thank you! And thanks for the info about attachment styles, Velvet.

[athena2011]

Wow - fabulous article Perna. Thanks!

[unaluna]

Self-critical statements or self-injurious behavior are offered as “gifts” to the adult, and the attachment is repaired in the distorted view of an AD child. what a great article. this statement and others really fit me. You might want to post this article in some of the other forums here on PC?

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by Perna

I just found this article about shame, written by attachment disorder specialists that I found really helpful:

http://www.attachmentdisordermarylan...attachment.htm

Whoever wrote this article seems to have no sympathy at all for the patient.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

Whoever wrote this article seems to have no sympathy at all for the patient.

Did you read all the way to the end? Cuz I thought the writer demonstrated good awareness of how the patient - an attachment-disordered child - would likely react, in describing how even a mild compliment could cause a child to feel shame, and how to gently work around that. Helen Lewis, the reference for the article, is a leader in the field. I admit, it's a difficult article to read - it cuts close to home.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

Whoever wrote this article seems to have no sympathy at all for the patient.

I saw a lot of sympathy for the patient in the article. Great sensitivity to his or her perspective. I feel like if I read this regularly I'll come to a better understanding of myself.

[Rose76]

I don't think, if we don't learn to work past it in childhood, that it just goes away or anything in adulthood. I believe that most things we learned or did not learn to do in childhood stay with us and impact us in adulthood

I hope I did the quote thing right. (I don't really get how to do that.) Mainly, I am just burning to say that I so very strongly endorse what Perna expresses in these exact words. I particularly like the bit referencing "things we . . . did not learn to do in childhood . . . " I relate strongly to that, as I am socially avoidant, due to failure to learn social skills when I needed to be learning those. I grew up under a parenting style that was sternly shaming, at times. A sibling of mine was the main target. It is occurring to me now that, perhaps, witnessing a sibling being emotionally traumatized must do something not very good to the witness. My sib was always being told, "Why can't you be more like Rose?" It would seem (to me) that this had me thinking, on the conscious level, that I was being left off the hook. Somehow, though, I don't think that was really true. At some level, I was probably being impacted negatively . . . along the lines of being very excessively glad that I was not my siblilng. I can't figure out the dynamics, but I ended up being very inhibited - proud of what I could do well, but frightened to death of doing anything that I did not think I could excel at. (perfectionism, as the article points out, being a marker) Meanwhile, my sib seemed to always be under-inhibited. (rage?) I would love to understand this better than I do.

Thanks for exploring this theme, one that interests me - but - one that I have a hard time understanding.

[Perna]

I think any extreme in one direction (shaming of your sibling, for example, Rose) means there has to be a gap in education the other direction (teaching good self-esteem habits). It's kind of like the children we all have seen who appear to be "brats" because their parents never say no? If we were abused, we learned certain things because we did not have any way to check them out but, having learned those incorrect things that come with abuse, we obviously didn't learn the opposite, "good" skills because our parents didn't know those to teach them to us and, likewise, we usually did not have any way to acquire them.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by hankster

Did you read all the way to the end? Cuz I thought the writer demonstrated good awareness of how the patient - an attachment-disordered child - would likely react, in describing how even a mild compliment could cause a child to feel shame, and how to gently work around that. Helen Lewis, the reference for the article, is a leader in the field. I admit, it's a difficult article to read - it cuts close to home.

If a writer triggers me early on, I don't read to the end.

Am I alone in that?

P.S.
That applies to threads, too.

[critterlady]

Nope, you're not alone, Can't. I stop reading as soon as I'm triggered.

[veez]

Perna and Velvet Cactus, Thanks for the great articles you shared. I did not want to be able to relate to "pre-occupied attachment" but, I do and I believe that it contributes to the difficulty I have in developing healthy relationships. Bringing this information to the fore is a good thing I suppose, but, acknowledging that I struggle to relate naturally with others is sad as well. I hope for change.

[Rose76]

Thanks, Perna, for the interesting and enlightening comment. I literally feel, with this subject, that I am trying to see in a room that is too dark.

I also think it is more than a coincidence that I happen to have another sib who has told me about absolutely turning the page and refusing to read things that are about anything scary, or related to child abuse. Sounds like that would be an example of a person getting triggered and dealing with it in a very specific and consistent way. This sib is quite successful in life, though so consistent in responses to things, as to seem somewhat robotic, at times.

As for me, lack of consistency is, perhaps, my most life-destroying flaw. I'm all over the map on everything. Plus, if something disturbs me, I just delve deeper into it. Kind of stupidly, at times.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

If a writer triggers me early on, I don't read to the end.

You're supposed to keep reading, but just peek from between your fingers until the scary parts are over and it's safe again, just like a scary movie