Differences between infants who reject and infants who are rejected

The bigger point for me, is that the therapists keep blaming my mother/parents rather than considering that it was probably my rejection of my mother that caused some of the difficulties.
And I wondered, after the thread about bad babies (paraphrase) if others had discussed being bad babies either causing the parent to then reject the baby or if the bad baby was due to rejecting the parent.

I kinda see what Partless points out--that the thread is a big mixture of things and there really isn't a clear-cut answer.

I focused on attachment. Either someone had mentioned it or it seemed to be relevant. Just to add one note of exquisitely conducted research is the work of Beatrice Beebe (and colleagues). She has done micro-analysis of infant-mother dyads from early on to later and been able to accurately predict things. And it is not all that clear-cut either. Sometimes what is called "looming" (moving forward, being very attentive) which might seem to be a responsive type of thing actually has negative effects and longer term consequences. You really have to read the actual research to find out what behaviors of all sorts of types are considered and what is tolerated (regardless of temperament) and what produces confusion or negative response.

As far as the sense of an "attachment disorder," well, not really. Yes, attachment is very real and has tons of research now to back it up, but no, in the clinical language there are very few clinical disorders that are solely attachment based. In fact, really only 2 or 3. One is separation anxiety which has some sort of relation to attachment though is really thought of as anxiety primarily. The main two are really childhood disorders, both related and just the opposite of each other, with almost the exact same causes, which are listed as extremes of neglect, instability of caregiving, etc. Not necessarily direct abuse that would lead to a more trauma based type of thing, but these disorder are listed now in the trauma related disorders.

One is what hamster mentioned: reactive attachment disorder, which is the complete lack of seeking comfort, even rejecting attempts at comfort, seeming to be unmoved or uninterested in any kind of attachment based soothing. It is actually considered quite an extreme disorder. The list of what has to happen to cause it is very awful. It just doesn't sound like that is really in place for the OP or even for most if not all of the responders.

The other is the opposite--a disinhibited social inappropriate way of attaching. The exact same very disturbing circumstances lead to this behavior. And personally I can see some of the personality disorders coming from this more primary problem that may be overlooked when people are children.

What is weird is that all the traumatic things acknowledged for both of these attachment based disorders are NOT acknowledged in the current diagnosis of PTSD, even though they are in the same category and literally a few pages away from each other.

Clearly there is a problem with the overall understanding of the role of attachment and also early experiences.

Why are you still so invested in protecting your mother?

I don't think I have a negative reaction to the therapists I see. And certainly not because they are female. I did have an extremely negative reaction to the two male ones I interviewed. I find the profession squirrelly as a whole.
I loved my mother and I completely adored my grandmother.
I was not an easy infant by their descriptions. I walked very early, I would fling myself out of my crib if left there when I did not want to be before I could walk, I could disengage the straps to the stroller and would do so and escape, I did not often go to them if I hurt myself and so forth.

People mention the research, and i often do that too, but in research there are often outliers. Maybe Stopdog's situation represents an outlier?

Just a thought.

I know my situation does. My mother was an out and out liar ba-da-bum! I think its too late for them to show up at my door again today now, so i guess my asking ie texting my cousin not to chauffeur them over here again worked. Maybe i can begin living my life again.