What is Attachment Trauma?

If you ask someone about their personality, they may list various perceived attributes. However, the odds are stacked against them mentioning their attachment. One of the most powerful and enduring influences on our beliefs, thoughts, values, and opinions is typically invisible to almost everyone. This is not a case of blaming everything on the past. Rather, attachment theory is a crucial step in understanding the driving forces in your life.

For example, the role of attachment trauma can be massive. Every time you interact with someone, it will shape those interactions. Growing up with neglectful, unreliable, or abusive caretakers can leave you living an anxious and insecure life today.

What is Attachment Trauma?

It might be your parents, older siblings, close family members, or other caretakers. If they are offering reliable, nurturing care in your most vulnerable days, you likely formed a secure attachment with them. From that foundation arises the general pattern of your relationships, friendships, etc., over the years and decades.

Sometimes, however, the treatment you receive during childhood is downright traumatic. It may involve:

• Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• Loss of a loved one via death, divorce, incarceration, etc.
• Your most fundamental needs are ignored
• You lived in a home that was heavily impacted by a lack of boundaries, substance use, mental or physical illness, domestic violence, controlling tactics, and more

If the behaviors you witnessed and endured in your earliest days were dangerous and dysfunctional, it fulfills the criteria for attachment trauma. You’re left with unresolved trauma and without the basic skills you need to deal with it.

Children lack the cognitive skills to handle or comprehend the abovementioned scenarios. As a result, they struggle in school and with typical social interactions. They develop unhealthy coping mechanisms to survive. Those same tactics become even more counterproductive as a child grows into adulthood.

A Few Examples of Attachment Trauma’s Impact During Adulthood

Social Withdrawal and Self-Isolation

After what you’ve been through, there is a perceived logic to avoiding others. You were taught from the start that people can’t be trusted. This includes those closest to you. However, adults with attachment trauma will still try to connect, and that’s where you’ll find some red flags. They seem unable to sustain long-term friendships, romances, jobs, etc. This track record appears to “prove” that yes, it’s better to avoid deep connections.

Controlling Tendencies

When you were too young to control anything, you were neglected and exploited. Therefore, it’s not unusual for adults with attachment trauma to be called “control freaks.” They’ll go to any extreme to feel less vulnerable.

Unexplained Physical Signs

Trauma causes physical distress, but the connection is not always made. A person with attachment trauma may struggle with aches and pains with no apparent explanation. These often include headaches, digestive issues, sleep disturbances, and muscle tightness.

A General Sense of Numb Dissatisfaction

Someone with attachment trauma senses that there’s much more to life than the painful lessons they’ve internalized. Hence, they may dissociate in an attempt to numb this discomfort. This can sometimes take the form of self-medication in ways like substance use, risky behaviors, and other dangerous choices.

There’s Good News

You can change your attachment style. With the help of a trauma-informed therapist, you can take powerful steps to develop ways to connect securely with others. You can process and resolve attachment trauma and step into a life without self-blame, loneliness, and confusion. Nothing you did warranted the treatment you endured.

But now, as adults, you can develop ways to feel safe and connected. To learn more about this healing journey, I invite you to reach out to set up a free and confidential consultation.