Compassionate Avoidant
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Post by Compassionate Avoidant on Feb 24, 2017 2:57:08 GMT
In terms of this theory that attachment style often comes from our childhoods, does anyone really feel like they had a functional, healthy, stable childhood with reasonable parents, and no memories of any sort of abuse or neglect, and yet they still don't have a secure attachment style (and probably didn't as far back as they can remember)? I do have specific memories of my parents being warm and caring.
I was born when my mother was only 28 weeks pregnant so spent the first month in the hospital (and often in an incubator) so there's that, but other than that I really do think I had a healthy childhood. My parents seem kind of emotionally distant now that I'm an adult, but I think they were a lot more involved when I was a child. I don't have a lot of memories before age 5 though.
When I read these attachment style books I'm constantly annoyed by the whole childhood theory as it doesn't ring true to my experiences. I think I lean towards avoidant, particularly with a more anxious person, but will become anxious if I have feelings for someone even more avoidant than I am.
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Post by gaynxious on Feb 24, 2017 16:20:42 GMT
I feel my anxious approach was mostly in response to my later childhood rather than my early childhood. My mother was a very secure woman and was very emotionally available but she died when I was 13 and my father was completely incapable of providing for me emotionally on his own. I also had some friends abandon me completely and painfully when I was in middle school.
I recently found out that my mother had post pardon depression so that could also have been an early trigger.
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Zack
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Post by Zack on Feb 27, 2017 20:35:15 GMT
From everything I've read it seems your attachment type forms in the first 2 years. In the case of my wife, eventually we found out she had an undiagnosed condition that was causing her pain as an infant. She had 2 "relatively" stable parents at that time but they were both young and working. As a result she spent much of her first couple of years in a daycare with undiagnosed stomach pain and my theory is her needs were not met at all and she formed up a very strong dismissive avoidant attachment style. I almost look at it as a layer that forms in our psyche that helps protect your infant emotions from causing pain and mental suffering. The bad part is that protective layer stays with you for life.
I think there are a lot of conditions where this could accidentally occur even with well placed and well meaning parents who due to conditions did not meet the emotional needs of the infant. In looking back finding the root causes can be tough because no one wants to admit they messed up. If your parents seem relatively normal once you are old enough to reflect on this it becomes even harder. But from everything I've read the current belief seems to be that the conditions that surrounded us before 2 years old is what forms our attachment type.
Keep in mind that certain people can trigger and shift us some especially in extreme circumstances. It is a sliding scale on both axis and if we are close to one box or the other relationship conditions can push us into other boxes. For example a dismissive avoidant can very easily shift a secure person to anxious temporarily if the secure person does not realize what is going on and is already attached to the dismissive avoidant. Sub consciously I think the dismissive likes the end result because they have then created that push pull dynamic between the anxious and the dismissive that sticks around for a while and validates their ego. Then it comes to a crashing halt once they abruptly exit and the secure become anxious is left picking up the pieces of their self esteem.
The other thing to keep in mind is if you are truly a dismissive avoidant relationships just never seem to start with another dismissive avoidant person. No party is willing to give the signals necessary so things just tend not to start. That is why it is so rare for two avoidants to form up any relationship other than perhaps a casual sex encounter.
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