[HopeForChange]

Anyone else here in therapy with an attachment disorder? I have been diagnosed with disorganized attachment in the past and just started with a new therapist.

To put it briefly, disorganized attachment occurs when a person is capable of bonding with others and very much wants to, but is terrified to do so. It comes from the type of trauma where a caregiver is sometimes very nurturing and sometimes very cruel.

I desperately need consistency in order to feel attached to someone, and my therapist is extremely consistent. I feel very comfortable with her. But I don't want to get too attached. She is on vacation this week and it's harder than I expected.

I have a full life - I work, I have a couple of close friends I care deeply about, I have a pet, I have a spiritually fulfilling life - so why is my brain complicating things by getting attached to someone new? It seems very dangerous and threatening.

Can anyone relate to how I'm feeling? Any words of advice?

[Omers]

Yes, I have a disorganized attachment style. Currently I am very isolated. For the most part I only have T and H in my life in any real way now. I struggle with attachment to H a lot. He worries that I don’t love him or that I am going to leave him because of how the attachment style is impacting our relationship. T is working very hard at (and doing a very good job of) building my first strong, healthy attachment. Yes, I get scared a lot. I wonder what is the point in attaching to a T, to your doctor. I wonder what the point is. For me I am very attached to T despite all the fears, doubts and confusion. T has said from the beginning that he has to be very careful to protect my heart as we work.
What keeps me engaged is seeing T having things and doing things I want.

[Quietmind 2]

Yup, I've disorganised attachment, as well as avoidant personality disorder, both of which mean I desire connection but am terrified of it.

It gets better, though I wouldn't say I'm "cured". I'm starting to form an earned secure attachment with my therapist and others. Your attachment style may differ with different people in your life, but it's common for therapy to bring up unresolved attachment wounds.

Everyone here has messed up attachment stuff, that's why we spend hours and hours, comment after comment, discussing our therapists and the incidental details of our therapeutic relationships. My most effective strategy to date is to routinely cause ruptures in order to break my heart and make her angry - has the additional benefit of ensuring inconsistency and volatility which means I never allow myself the chance to build a healthy attachment. Isolation continues, I feel wretched - job done!

[Lemoncake]

I also have a disorganized attachement.

Two sessions ago- I deliberately said things I knew would make him angry. He told me that he was annoyed, but he didn't react the way I expected him. So he had passed my "final test"- but here I am still running away from him simply because things were going very well and I feel close to him. I'm better than when I first started but hey not fixed yet-I think like anything it takes time and it's important to go at your pace.

[susannahsays]

I too have a disorganized attachment style. For me, this means that I am very distrustful and suspicious and I would not describe myself as someone who very much wants bonding. That seems terrifying to me and like a recipe for emotional annihilation. I get angry, resentful, and anxious when I feel any sort of attachment towards someone. Well, I veer between angry and dismissive of the attachment figure and inwardly (and unfortunately sometimes outwardly) clingy/needy and preoccupied. It's exhausting.

As others have mentioned doing, I also deliberately provoke the therapist sometimes. Takes the heat off of me emotionally. I guess that's part of the pushing away strategy. I've been doing less of that lately but instead just been unable to talk. Just realized I have sort of switched being inflammatory for not talking as much lately. I don't know what that's about. I'm not doing it on purpose.

Sorry, I don't have any advice. But you can't help it if you get attached to somebody.

[LonesomeTonight]

I have anxious/preoccupied attachment. I want the attachment and can feel really connected to people (including my T, but also friends, my H), but also keep worrying they're going to leave/abandon me. I tend to sort of test them, like, "Will you still accept me if I say/do this?" Not in the sense of intentionally provoking them, but something like sharing that I love them, telling them about something negative I've done in the past, etc. I can feel good about the connection but am scared it will go away, so it's hard to feel secure in it at all. Something I'm working on in therapy...both regarding the relationship with my T and outside relationships. He tends to tell me that we've had conflicts before and have worked through them, so we'll work through them again. And he's said he wouldn't just kick me to the curb. I'm doing better accepting that, but it's still hard to truly believe it.

[Lonelyinmyheart]

I'm the same as LT. I form very deep emotional attachments very easily but they are riddled with anxiety about abandonment.