The Attachment Issues Support Thread (TW)

But isn't this one of the reasons to have a T? That's a relationship that is ALL giving to the client. You don't have to worry about their needs--they don't want or need anything from you in terms of support. One reason for them to become a very important person temporarily in one's life is to serve as a template for healthy connections and to help one feel supported in taking risks and venturing out of one's comfort zone in the real world.

I don't know. That's how it's working for me, anyway. I just realized yesterday that the littles don't feel (as) angry and deprived anymore when they see children playing and being cared for by loving parents.

A year ago, I went to a kind of meeting where the grownups were sitting in chairs, and in the back were tables for kids to sit and color or do other quiet activities so they could involved but didn't have to just sit. I had only found out about parts a few months before that, and was much more aware of how angry and hurt all these little people were inside me. I was sitting next to my husband, and all I was aware of was how much upset and pain there was inside me that we couldn't go color with the "other" kids. After we left, I spent the evening crying. We were supposed to go back the next day, but I absolutely couldn't.

Yesterday, I was at an outdoor dinner buffet, and there was an area for activities that were pretty much for kids--only kids were doing them, but it wasn't exclusively for them. But I just joined in anyway and didn't even worry about it. We got to stick our hands in goopy stuff and interact with the kids that were doing it. And later when I was watching kids run around the tables and play, I wished I could join in, but more in a "that looks like fun" kind of way than a deprived and upset kind of way.

I was happy to notice that kind of progress, and the reason for it is that my littles know that I care about them and make time for them to play and do whatever they need, but ALSO they have their relationship with the T, who knows about them, cares about them, and responds to them (within limits). And we older parts have OUR attachment to the T, so we feel more supported also. That's a lot of "giving" and "filling" that he is doing for us. And in turn, we've felt more relaxed about interacting with other people.

Very much agree, Gang.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:But isn't this one of the reasons to have a T? That's a relationship that is ALL giving to the client. You don't have to worry about their needs--they don't want or need anything from you in terms of support. One reason for them to become a very important person temporarily in one's life is to serve as a template for healthy connections and to help one feel supported in taking risks and venturing out of one's comfort zone in the real world.

Yes. Our tenure with our current T (over 14 years) is probably far longer than many people. We'd like to be able to replicate what we've learned from her with other people, but we're still not able. I as an individual need to take things slow in general. That's the way I am. I don't do well in this fast-paced world, and I often feel invalidated for it, especially at work.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:I don't know. That's how it's working for me, anyway. I just realized yesterday that the littles don't feel (as) angry and deprived anymore when they see children playing and being cared for by loving parents.

I'm really glad for you, and for them. I really thought that I was doing a beneficial thing for our younger ones when I tried to unburden them from their painful feelings. But now I realize that I'm probably doing them a disservice. They need to learn how to heal. And I'm realizing that they may not be as pain-free as I'd like to think. We have at least one little one who's still struggling, much like your Oliver, though probably for different reasons.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:A year ago, I went to a kind of meeting where the grownups were sitting in chairs, and in the back were tables for kids to sit and color or do other quiet activities so they could involved but didn't have to just sit. I had only found out about parts a few months before that, and was much more aware of how angry and hurt all these little people were inside me. I was sitting next to my husband, and all I was aware of was how much upset and pain there was inside me that we couldn't go color with the "other" kids. After we left, I spent the evening crying. We were supposed to go back the next day, but I absolutely couldn't.

I hear you. We so often envy outside children. Especially ones who seem to have been spared the kind of pain that we've been through.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Yesterday, I was at an outdoor dinner buffet, and there was an area for activities that were pretty much for kids--only kids were doing them, but it wasn't exclusively for them. But I just joined in anyway and didn't even worry about it. We got to stick our hands in goopy stuff and interact with the kids that were doing it. And later when I was watching kids run around the tables and play, I wished I could join in, but more in a "that looks like fun" kind of way than a deprived and upset kind of way.

Joseph would have loved doing that.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:I was happy to notice that kind of progress, and the reason for it is that my littles know that I care about them and make time for them to play and do whatever they need, but ALSO they have their relationship with the T, who knows about them, cares about them, and responds to them (within limits). And we older parts have OUR attachment to the T, so we feel more supported also. That's a lot of "giving" and "filling" that he is doing for us. And in turn, we've felt more relaxed about interacting with other people.

Yes. Our younger ones know that they can speak to the T when they need to, and do so as themselves. Our system policy about inner parenting still stands, and our T knows this and respects it. She's there to help whoever needs it.

Charity and others

MakersDozn wrote:Our tenure with our current T (over 14 years) is probably far longer than many people. We'd like to be able to replicate what we've learned from her with other people, but we're still not able. I as an individual need to take things slow in general. That's the way I am. I don't do well in this fast-paced world, and I often feel invalidated for it, especially at work.

Charity and others

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days. It's not an all-or-nothing thing, right? There must be some ways that you've changed as a result of your relationship with your T that have in turn changed the way you relate to outside people.

I've found that if I don't expect to be rejected and disliked, then that's what comes across, and people are overall more friendly and accepting. When I was going around sending out signals that I mistrusted people and expected to be treated poorly, then that's what I tended to get back from them. I projected that I felt weird and unlikeable, and so random people I ran into weren't inclined to try to change my view of myself.

None of this may apply to you at all. These are just things I've been mulling over. Being less guarded has led me to make more eye contact with people out in the world, and to expect a positive or at least neutral interaction rather than a negative one, and then each experience builds on the next. So then it's slightly less effort to go out into the world and to interact with people, and then I'm less isolated because of that.

It's all very incremental--I'm not suddenly going to be able to do something that's always been difficult, but it can get a tiny bit easier at a time.

This is a great topic, thanks, MDs. Really fundamental for us. I'm looking forward to reading others' observations.

It seems to me that attachment being the connection between two individuals, healing attachment issues needs to be take place in relationship with others or another. This can be a T, a partner, or our children. I believe it can also take place in relationship with friends, a mentor, a pet, or one's alters. The latter, though, probably needs some guidance, either from a T or from active learning about DID and from hard work. If you think about it, we weren't able to form complete, safe attachments with those we needed to in childhood and we also weren't able to attach to other parts of ourselves.

We had disorganized attachment in childhood. The parents both had DID and their alters' behavior ranged from pretty good parenting to monstrous physical, mental and sexual abuse, so DID (or insanity) was a given. From the good behavior, we achieved functional attachment. Through life we had friends, some relationships, decent jobs (interspersed with not being able to work), and a lot of what looked like normal behavior. Although we always knew something was way off somewhere, we couldn't figure it out until the DID became clear.

Our tendency has been to be as trustable as we could afford but to trust others only so far. So we appeared and functioned fairly normally but romantic relationships were off because the sexuality was so damaged. Still, we wanted a loving relationship and kids so as the years passed, we couldn't bear being so alone. And the prospect of being alone for the rest of our lives was absolutely horrific for us. So we took a kind of instinctive action and brought a young guy with DID into our home, and eventually adopted him.

We have a huge drive to protect vulnerable people and beyond that, to save them. This was in part due to protecting a younger sibling but it also seems hard-wired. Saving someone and not being alone, in fact being around someone who could actually understand and accept our being more than one, met some key needs for us. Our system attachment issues are healing within the bounds of a parent-child relationship. Watching our son's alters heal -- attach to us -- helps my alters sort of heal vicariously and retroactively, though it's imperfect because we can't regain lost decades.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:It's all very incremental--I'm not suddenly going to be able to do something that's always been difficult, but it can get a tiny bit easier at a time.

I agree. I think attachment happens and heals with practice. Connection to almost any degree can be healing. When I was most depressed and isolated, I recall how incredibly important it was to have even a brief but pleasant interaction with someone working at a store or restaurant.

I try to train my son in how to go about being social. My suggestion to him, in this case at a party, is to start by approaching a person who seems only as skilled as you, preferably less (!), someone who needs connection too. I think this can work when looking for attachment practice. Yeah, I'd actually suggest experimenting and practicing with connecting to others, in the tiniest ways at first. Pushing beyond the limits of current behavior and the existing comfort zone.

If attachment is the connection between oneself and the people and world around us we would have to say our connection has been, well, for the most part, poor until recently. We could start with discussing attachment, or the dramatic lack thereof in our earliest years. My research suggests (and yes, I'm being deliberately dispassionate - Aloysius) that since we were not exposed to healthy attachments when they were so desperately needed we never learned how to make them in later life. It was also when we began surviving by fragmenting a part of ourselves apart from the greater whole.

We have been reading and contemplating this thread for a while now. Throughout our life we have seldom made a close connection with, well, anybody. Our elementary school years were a horror really. In high school we learned to be invisible.

Strange thing though; when it comes to connections we are pretty naive. and strangely loyal (to a fault) to those we call our friends. (yes, we have friends, but nobody truly close to us)

So, of course what goes along with this is a desperate sense of isolation and alone-ness, as though we were some sort of alien visiting earth and lost to boot. We have often felt so strange and different than those around us we have despaired of ever having a long-lasting true connection with anyone ever again. our friends do, of course, care about us and we can recognize that.

Only since coming out as Transgender have we really began to even try to socialize, with success! We would describe ourselves as too trusting, too kind, too empathetic, too easily affected by the feelings in those around us; we have paid the price for doing so too many times.

we feel like we are just rambling nonsensically so we will stop here.

littleDaria wrote:we feel like we are just rambling nonsensically so we will stop here.

Just thought it worth mentioning that I got no rambling or nonsense from your post. I think many people here can relate.

Thank you our perception is often skewed .

littleDaria wrote:So, of course what goes along with this is a desperate sense of isolation and alone-ness, as though we were some sort of alien visiting earth and lost to boot. We have often felt so strange and different than those around us we have despaired of ever having a long-lasting true connection with anyone ever again. our friends do, of course, care about us and we can recognize that.

When I began reading a lot about early childhood trauma and DID last summer, and read that a lot of people (all?) with DID feel that way--like an alien, that made such an impression on me because that's what I've always felt like, most of the time. Just not of the same species as all these human creatures that I see--always on the outside looking in. Finding out that there are OTHER PEOPLE who feel this way was kind of earthshaking for me.

"...always on the outside looking in" Yes this. We can be in a crowd of people and feel so very alone. We stand there wondering if anyone can tell we're different.

Thank you to all who posted recent comments.

Our T reminds us every so often that our progress is indeed incremental. I can't stand process. I just want to get from A to B quickly and without the pain. Preferably like the Transporter in the original Star Trek, although we'd always be afraid of having our molecules scattered throughout the universe.

My point is that my discomfort takes on many related forms. I/we have always had the intellectual capacity of an adult but the emotional perspective of a preverbal child. We agree with everyone who said that opportunities for healthy attachment can come from different settings, but we're simply terrified to take that step. The process of becoming un-terrified is...well, another process.

Charity and others