Adult Attachment Disorder & Treatment

Thanks for stopping by.

I have been relating with my two adopted kids seeing some RAD patterns in them. Scary stuff when passed on and innate to their own journey. Made me stop and look at it. I have really been aware of the effects of some of this. Felt bad about the way I responded to the world. Understanding is the beginning of the knowledge needed to make that change. It is not about feeling bad about myself it is about identifying why I am this way.
Fondly
Donetta


Childhood attachment issues leave an adult vulnerable to difficulties
in forming secure adult relationships. Patterns of attachment continue through the life cycle and across generations.
New relations are affected by the expectations developed in past relationships. There is a strong correlation between insecure adult attachment and marital dissatisfaction and negative marital interactions. If an adult does not feel safe with others, he/she will tend to be either rejecting of their partner or overly clingy.

Attachment problems are often handed down transgenerationally unless someone breaks the chain. As a parent, an insecurely attached adult may lack the ability to form a strong attachment to their child and provide the necessary attachment cues required for the healthy emotional development of the child thereby predisposing their child to a lifetime of relationship difficulties.

Depending on the genetic personality style of the individual and the early life events experienced, insecurely attached adults fall in one of two categories of insecure attachment:
Intense anger and loss
Critical of others
Sensitive to blame
Lack of empathy
Views others as untrustworthy
Views others as undependable
Views self as unlovable or "too good" for others
Relationships feel either threatening to one's sense of control,not worth the effort, or both
Compulsive self-reliance
Passive withdrawal
Low levels of perceived support small
Difficulty getting along with co-workers, often preferring to work alone
Work may provide a good excuse to avoid personal relations
Fear of closeness in relationships
Avoidance of intimacy
Unlikely to idealize the love relationship
Tendency toward Introjective depression (self critical)
ANXIOUS/AMBIVALENT
Compulsive Care giving
Feel over involved and under appreciated
Rapid relationship breakups
Idealizing of others
Strong desire for partner to reciprocate in relationship
Desire for extensive contact and declarations of affections
Over invests his/her emotions in a relationship
Perceives relationships as imbalanced
>Relationship is idealized
Preoccupation with relationship
Dependence on relationship
Heavy reliance on partner
Views partner as desirable but unpredictable (sometimes available, sometimes not)
Perceives others as difficult to understand
Relationship is primary method by which one can experience a sense of security
Unlikely to view others as altruistic
Sensitive to rejection
Discomfort with anger
Extreme emotions
Jealous
Possessive
Views self as unlovable
Suicide attempts
Mood swings
Tendency toward analytic depression (dependent depression)


GOALS OF THERAPY


Identify early losses
Mourn the loss of that which never was but yearned for deeply
Provide closure to the unresolved relationship longings with parental attachment figures
Reorganize belief system and physiological reaction to attachment relationships


Gratefully, attachment styles are not fixed in stone and with either positive life experience or appropriate therapeutic intervention and a strong desire for change adults can alter their relationships and experience true intimacy and closeness.

The Versatile Blogger with a Sunshine award

The "sunshine award" ... well just pass it on to 12 of your favourite bloggers...

Thank you from "My Mothers Always Being Me (Being Me)for the award the 'Versatile Blogger' and sunshine awards.
You have to do some 'soul searching' for this one ..

 The rules for " The Versatile Blogger" award are:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.

2.. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers whom you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!

4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

... 7 things about me

1.  I have a true passion/compassion for all things living (even my enemies). A desire to see it all thrive. It grieves me to think of those who harmed/harm me getting what they deserve. I would rather see them turn and face the consequence of what they have done/do. Perhaps change coarse through sincerity. Stopping the cycle.
2. There is an insatiable thirst for creativity that merges with the core of who I am. I MUST be beading, sewing,gardening, cooking, parenting intentionally, learning at all times. My education was robbed me in youth so I must gain it. Not just intellectually but spiritually and physically as well. What ever it is that interests me it is that I will intentionally study. I believe that everything matters.
3. The delight found in intentional parenting is so profoundly successful. To make every effort to learn everything wholesome about early childhood development. Well... it leaves me with a real good sense of self that I like when seen through my kids. I can often even see it in the mirror of who I have become.
4. Being self sustaining to the greatest extent reasonable brings me mission and leaves me feeling confident (not something I ever knew growing up). I live intentionally.
5. Threw some amazing force bitterness has not filled my heart. This is choice yes...but even so a miracle in my estimation and I am grateful so very very much so. It fulfills a sense of belonging not to separate myself through hardness of heart.
6. When I am confronted or exposed in error it usually leaves me very angry inside. I use this as a pretty accurate indicator that they are right. Now, I can find humor in it most days. It is so funny to me now how child like it is. I find great beauty in the innocence of child like simplicity, even in myself.
7. I thrive on good wholesome foods. Home made from scratch. Organic homegrown produce. We have a few chickens for eggs as well. Cooking is a skill developed over many years and has always been of great interest to me. The main stay of my food is a huge variety of herbs and spices. I love sociology and cook culturally like visiting a new country every meal. Eating pure well prepared foods is one of the first things I began doing so many years ago to take care of "ME" physically.

oh this is a bit overwhelming tonight I will try to get back to it soon.

Forgive me.

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Partial Memories

It has been a while that I have stayed back from discussing things on my mind and spirit. But yesterday was so utterly profound that I do not want to ignore and respect the effect of it. When flash backs are only a single flip of a memory they can be a thorn in the side. You know those thorns that are felt yet search as much as you like they remain an enigma elusive and disturbing. Then comes a day that it comes (the thorn) to a head as they say and you run to get the tweezers to delicately put it out and relieve infection. Often the infection has left misunderstand and often the effects on others go unnoticed.

Being the youngest of more one hand full of siblings the realities of elder siblings and the view from the eyes of their experience can open ours and clarify a matter. There have been three of them who have joined me in knowing and opening up to the truth of what we have known. some do not it is the past period. So here begins such a story that unfolded after 45 years of dormancy.

For many years now an occurrence has haunted me and left me wondering just what happened that would make me respond the way I had. That response came like so...

I was 19 at the time awaiking from an emergency surgery to my reproductive system. The first of so many many I have endured until finally when I was 38 the whole thing removed due to end stage endomeitrosis.( the inside of my uterus forced into my abdominal wall do to child po*n abuse and torture).
As I awoke from surgery some one handed me a phone. It was an elder brother. It was one of the very  very few times I had spoken with him since early childhood. I was stunned to here his voice. Under partial anesthesia came from my mouth was "how could you hurt me like that?". It was the last time I spoke with that sibling for many many many years. I have always wondered why in the world I sad that to him. I found and still find it amazing that it is left so clear in my recall. Always it has felt undone.

After the EMDR sessions of the resent past, the time line of childhood was coming up to the age that a flashback involving this sibling has been repeating over and over and it is just that blip I aforementioned.



This is the flash back

I am standing half way down on wooden steps that lead up to a bright room behind me. It is a strange thing where I was there and then as if the film of memory went into rewind back up into the room, then down the steps again. At the base of the steps there stood this brother. In the flash back I kept saying "How could you do that!"



This flash back has been so troubling so very disturbing of late that just three days ago I was in a shower praying and begging God to show me why and tell me what it was all about. I am courageous like that.

Meanwhile life goes on and the CPAP machine had arrive and the first nights sleep had afforded me a morning of great energy, clarity of mind just overall JOY! I had walked around the block and tended to a yard said meeting new neighbors. Just a real enjoyable busy morning. I was more like my old self than ever having had sleep. It was not a full night but non the less more sleep than many years have offered me in one night. When I returned home there was a message on my phone answering machine.

After 13 years it was my Brother.  Now mind you this just two days after falling onto God shoulder weeping wanting to understand. Silence is a wonderful conversational tool to understanding. He spoke to me of the events of his memory when it was right I asked him if had such an outdoor room with steps during the time I was 4. He confirmed. A deep breath as I listened more to his words. He said that there was also a switchback concrete step that led down to an apartment. In his recall he spoke of the best friend of my mother living there and her husband bill (lower case intended). He said that "what a nice woman she was "...
"no she was not I declared"...(this being the woman who lay on the other side of me as her husband fondled me between them in their bed) Yet I said nothing of that to my brother.
 Unsolicited..My brother spoke ... "OH! it was during that time that he (bill) was accused of hurting you two girls"...at that I was stirred and fired up.
It was at that moment yesterday that I heard for the first time confirmation from anyone in my family that those memories of "the moron bill" .
At that I cantered, "who accused him?"
"you girls did" he said...

Do you see the plural? GIRLS?  For all of my life I thought that I must have been his only target. It has always left me feeling crazy because the heinous acts against me seemed so unbelievable what human being could do such things.

Now my brother continued to share and the wonderful intimacy flowed. He and I had connected some 13 years prior when I sojourned to my home city of my youth to learn and gain understanding. He and I then were at peace.  It though was all overwhelming. He had driven me to all of the childhood sights and homes of youth. Some were parking lots one had a woman kind enough to let us inter and see the home of childhood memories (the event of the old woman is lost to me for I do not remember). I am sure I was there but as I said it really took me for a loop around emote.

It was again as before we have a mutual faith. All of that had been stirred up for several weeks ago after joining face book I saw his name on my other brothers site and offered to become a friend. This I did not recall doing either. Hence a contact yesterday after all these years. After that time so long ago life was a blur of tending to needs and we had lost contact.

Coming round the bunny trail...sorry

Yesterday at 11a.m. was the first EMDR for three months. It took me that long to regain my health. I have had many health challenges so far this year. The very morning that I was to return to EMDR,... after 13 years of silence my brother who was the center of the flash back, to be addressed called me!

I attended my EMDR appointment only to get there 30 seconds before she came out to get me. I had ended the call with my brother pulled away only at the need to attend the appointment. As my head spun at the events of the morning and the cries of this child of Gods heart only two days prior.

When I returned home I called my brother back asking him to tell me about the room where he was when he threw my dad out of the house and the police arrested my dad at the curb. He confirmed saying you weren't there unless you were upstairs. My mother had called the police and was hiding in the bathroom getting away from my dad who was violating a restraining order. No one knew that...

I was hiding behind the sofa...

 in the living room. The very place my brother recalls I played hid and seek. It was my favorite hiding spot. I saw the whole thing. My brother is 11 years elder than I. He was protecting our mom. But to me a four year old child that day I lost not only my dad but the only other father figure I really ever had...my brother. The police kicked and hit my dad and handcuffed him placing him in the car and driving him away.
The Flashback...I was trying to get to my dad and my brother was holding me back to protect me...I got loose from him and ran through the house out that bright closed in porch down the steps only to have my brother there and I...I said to him "how could you do that!"...I ran back to try to get past him but by then my dad was gone. The next time I saw my dad I was 9 years old.

In that operating room at 19 coming out of general I said to my Brother so many many years after the event "how could you do that... how could you hurt me like that?!...Held withing a little girl for 15 years (until the day of surgery) that hard question she had no answer to.

Those many years ago my Brother had reached out to me at a time when his toddler son had just drowned he came out of his grief to again be my defender only to had had that asked of him. Anger and hurt left a wide sea of agony between us. Unspoken. Now after all these years this poor man who was under false suspicion of abusing us girls (this he stated) had his name cleared . He accepted the forgiveness and love that I offered him.

Again here he is after 45 years taking care of his little sister. I never really lost him.

When the severity of PTSD is so deeply blinding it is God who will ultimately open our eyes to understand the truth. History forgotten repeats itself.

Tell me something brave...

In the evening hour here my son will often pull me into his room with a sweet invitation after the lights turned off brings a quiet eyes closed heart open moment in time. Last night was another opportunity to receive his invitation. I have found that often his inquiry is one of veiled curiosity something he himself is struggling with.

It is at these times I often have to remind myself to listen to the spirit within me as to what wisdom to share, just what his heart is ready to know.
He loves to ask of stories of my childhood a hidden method of asking "what should I do or how could I handle it.

Last night my child asked me " Mom, tell me something brave...when you were courageous.?"

The image that flashed gave me pause to consider his developmental stage when it was plain that it was where "the goose" was flying...I began.
Son...when I was a teen perhaps 16-17 years of age during the years my parents had the gas station an event happened that really set me to have to use courage. You see I told him . My step dad well he was not my birth dad, he married my mom and adopted three of us. Well he had never had kids and he was an old tired man. He had a very bad temper. I think perhaps that is a part of where my ill behaved temper began.
Well during these times stress was high times were tight my parents struggled that my mom was in the hospital. She had had too much life struggle and was sick within her mind from the effects of life and her own childhood.
My step dad well he had left the station and it was time for me to relieve the teenage employee of her shift and work my own shift covering my moms as well that night. With my mom in the hospital (a nerves breakdown) I had to work more. Well the girl who was working had a boyfriend who sat in the office where my mother naively left cash to make change with. The girl and her boyfriend had been stealing from us and when I walked in there was the boyfriend in the office with the drawer open helping himself. The girl also was in issue because she was selling herself out the station window. this came to my attention for we both had similar coloring and a customer had slipped and it became known to me a 16 year old kid managing my parents gas station. I fired her on the spot.

Well her boyfriend stood at the looked door as the customers watched through the glass windows while she beat me up and took my lights out with a brick that was used to hold the door open. It struck me across the head. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital room and my step dad was calling me a dumb shit "what the hell were you thinking"  "do you want to kill your mother?"
Then he walked out.
The nurses had to keep it a secrete. This town was a geriatric town. A tourist trap in California.
My Mother was just doors down the hall in a fragile state and so no one could let her know I was there. My siblings all were moved away and I had no one. The customers had called the ambulance and cared for the business until help arrived. I do not know if the girl was even ever charged. It was when my memories of childhood stopped for several years. I may have injured my brain from that event.

My boy said. "mom...I am not very brave".
I asked him why he would say that. He saw me as brave in that.

I then explained that I should have never been in that position. It was stupid and foolish of me yet I did not know any better than to do it.

This child of mine then said to me..."mom it was not your fault it was your step dads for leaving you in that situation and not teaching you giving you lessons."

Then I seized the moment and explained that what might seem brave is not always the wisest thing to do. It is for us to teach you wisdom. It is why the counsel of those you respect is so important to seek.
Your father and I ..I told him take it very seriously to teach you your path and to help you to learn the difference. For often courage and bravery look very different than one might expect.

It is what it is and that is REAL

I wanted to write tonight . A couple of things . Suppose it is hard to know where to begin. Last Tuesday, 8 days ago I did a EMDR session on a most difficult event in my life. As a child of 4 I was sold for a price to be filmed in child hood --rn. I was torn up tortured and left broken of body soul and mind. That was some 44 years ago. I held it in all of those years. When I was in hospital 15 years ago I told on them but I never told myself all of what happened in detail. Last Tuesday I recalled every single detail while the EMDR process was occurring. It was like a movie before my eyes. Oh My SWEET LORD it was so hard and so painful a sight to recall within my minds eye. My physical eyes open the whole time.
I have been rather head spun these last several days with anger that could rip apart a stone. I have had to increase the medication for a few days. The other MD Phyc said "you are so blessed" so few ever make it to this point where the things forced into us are released in a healthy freeing way. Man what a roller coaster these last 8 days.

At one time the anger hit rage.
The rage triad of ...anger...loss or fear of  loss... shame /guilt -hit me and for the first time the anger was mine the loss was mine HOWEVER the shame/guilt was NOT MINE! All of those many surgery's I suffered through. All of the stirrups my feet were in, all of the years childless longing to conceive. All of the years of rectal bleeding I suffered through in silence. The surgery in my 20's to repair the torn flesh. Torn was normal I did not even know I was not suppose to bleed. Torn form a childhood on through early adulthood. I thought hemorrhoids, that is what mom always said. Hasseled by my mom about it. Afriad to tell my family. My own sister knew she died in January this year. She knew about it, not the details.
It happend when my sibblings were gone at school and my mom was at work as was the wife of the **********dog bill who sold me. Living in our basement. He drugged me as the men laughed at the table as I nodded off. The other man reassuring bill that I would not remember.He called me rug rat and acted as if he was going to take me to nap. Held like a kind parent would at his shoulder against his chest.
Then HE BETRAY ME ONCE AGAIN! or I do not know if it was after this that the other event happened.
AT any rate I have had such rage in me or better said anger justified loss and mortification at the physical logistics of what was done to me. I am sicked literally by it physically.
A rollor coaster is in front of me and around me as anger hits, weeping begins and ends, then the anger.
The sickness in my belly.
 You can try to forget the past but with the PTSD you will most likely just be going to a pretense a state of denial that will one day find itself crippling you into addictions or taking your own life like so many I have known before me.

The last two sessions of EMDR have set me to freedoms door. For I am having the scales that kept me under water swimming for the surface are falling off as a mermaid gains her legs.
NO ONE will ever make me hold my tears again!

All my life I have never been able to let ANYONE brush my hair, now I understand. Even after 28 years married to the same wonderful husband he knows to take care to come up and hug me from behind. It is almost impossible not to cringe before melting into his arms.

I see how all the violence that was forced into me by this deviant evil moron has been left as if I deserve little more. I KNOW know that I DESIRVE to be treated with respect and kindness. Even IF I might make a mistake, I do not need to tolerate unkindness form anyone~
I am teaching this now calmly to the kids when they mouth me, It is not alright with me to be treated unkindly and I will stand up to you if you do.

I have a sleep study coming up and I panicked today as the appointment was made. I snore badly and it could be hard on my heart and stroke is at issue as well.  I could not breath and it was one of the most powerful panicks I have felt in a long long time.
I asked a very dear and trusted girl friend to go with me so I might be able to have ease. There will only be two patients but the technician is male. I can not be out of control asleep anywhere. Just can not. She was so kind she said "I find it amazing that you hold it together as well as you do".
This one thing really left me in a panic. That was the first time in years that I was in such a panicked state.

The EMDR is kicking me hard and healing me profoundly.
The binging at night is lessened. However today when panicked my lunch was enough to feed two and it left me sick. Over eating the panick. The feelings of not being understood. My husband thought it should not be any big deal. Strang that he actually said that to me.

It is what it is and that is REAL. I feel so much better knowing she will be there however I feel a bit concerned that something could come up and she would not be able to keep her promise.

my emotions are real intence and very much a roller coaster.
Did you know I scream my fool head off when I ride roller coasters like it defuses me. Happened at Disneyland. My Goodness screaming is even at the base of my chest as well.

aurora borealis

Grandfather hold me near. 

Cover me in the colors of the Heavenly Sphere. 

Wrap me crestfallen... I am here.

crest·fallen (krest′fôl′ən)

adjective

1. with drooping crest or bowed head
2. dejected, disheartened, or humbled

EMDR was tough today

I am grieving such a terrible terrible event.