To begin a discussion about attachment trauma, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of attachment theory. We learn how to form our attachments precisely when we are most dependent on others. These lessons can play a role in our lives well into adulthood when it comes to creating relationships, friendships, and any other kind of connection.
As a baby or young child, your parents shape your perception of security. In such a vulnerable state, you need love, reliability, nurturing, and safety. Unfortunately, even the best-intentioned caregivers can struggle and leave our needs unmet. If you’re raised in an environment that features dysfunction, neglect, or abuse, for example, you can experience attachment trauma that lingers for years or even decades.
Some Common Causes of Attachment Trauma
- Neglect: A young child whose needs are ignored can grow up feeling afraid, unworthy, and angry. Long before they can articulate their feelings, they believe that no one will be there to help them.
- Abandonment: Sometimes, a caregiver passes away. However, abandonment can arrive via divorce, incarceration, or having parents unable to rise to the occasion due to factors like illness, injury, disability, addiction, or poverty.
- Abuse: There are far too many versions of this issue, for example, sexual, physical, domestic, and emotional. Whether a child is directly targeted or forced to regularly witness such horrific events, they can become traumatized and carry these scars with them. When a loved one betrays a child’s trust, rebuilding that trust can be daunting.
- Lack of Boundaries: On the other end of the spectrum, some caretakers can be controlling. They perceive a child’s independence as dangerous and unintentionally teach unhealthy lessons to that young person.
But how do we recognize such dynamics in action?
6 Signs of Attachment Trauma in Adults
1. Classic Trauma Symptoms
The underlying causes of trauma vary widely, but the signs and symptoms are almost universal. For example, flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, avoidance of people and situations, emotional numbness, hyper-vigilance, being easily startled, blaming oneself, and more.
2. Problems With Any Kind of Relationship
When a person has an insecure, anxious, avoidant, or preoccupied template, how can they connect with other adults productively? Your earliest memories are brimming with examples of loved ones hurting you, ignoring you, and invalidating you. Unless attachment trauma is resolved, it can feel impossible to trust anyone deeply.
3. Feeling Like an Outcast
There’s so much growth designed to happen during childhood. However, trauma can negatively impact the kind of development we all need to thrive in the complex climate of adult interactions. If your parents or caregivers impeded any of this development, as an adult, you may feel emotionally lost at times.
4. Self-Sabotage
Childhood trauma teaches us to not expect the best. It challenges our sense of self-worth. This can lead us to make self-sabotaging choices as adults, like social isolation, self-criticism, or lack of self-care. After all, if we currently believe that nothing good will happen to us, we can turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
5. Unexplained Symptoms
Whether such symptoms are emotional or physical, if something seems to have no obvious source, it could be a lingering aspect of attachment trauma.
6. A Need to Control
Feeling so out of control as a child can result in an overwhelming desire to control everything as an adult. When this tendency sabotages friendships and relationships, it reinforces your negative self-image.
Here’s the Good News
Your attachment style does not have to be permanent. No matter what you endured as a child, you can process, resolve, and eventually thrive. Trauma counseling is a proven path toward healing. Let’s connect and talk about this soon.
