Attachment Issues
by Charity, Tue Sep 4, 2018 11:02 am
We're having a great deal of difficulty in our life because of attachment issues. We did a search here on the topic and found a few threads on specific people's attachment issues, but none of these threads were more than a few posts long, and none stood out as "the" place to post about getting support for attachment issues in general.
So we're starting this thread. This thread is not intended to be a theoretical discussion on the definition of attachment or attachment issues, nor a focus on the clinical aspects of treatment. This thread is intended for support, as dealing with attachment issues can be a lonely ride that never seems to end. Knowing that we are not alone in our struggles, knowing that there are other people who can share their own experience and how they deal with their own struggles, can make a world of difference for someone who feels stuck.
In our case, being the firstborn child of an undiagnosed multiple placed us in a situation of being raised by someone with no parenting skills (and no real life skills either), a woman who married at 21 to get out of a dysfunctional home dominated by a verbally and emotionally abusive mother.
We were born a year after the wedding. In addition to our mother's unpreparedness, our grandmother repeatedly interfered in our parents' early married life, criticizing everything from the groceries they bought to how they cared for the baby (us). We felt the effects of our grandmother's presence (and our mother's somatized anxiety) when we were in utero, and nonstop thereafter.
All of this set the stage for our fragmentation and lack of healthy attachment. We've been through decades of denial and avoidance of this core issue, but we can't avoid it anymore. Twenty straight years of therapy have stripped us of all of our denial mechanisms. We're now left confronting this core pain, and we feel very helpless and alone.
Looking forward to hearing supportive feedback and shared experiences.
[2:01 pm, to Forum friend 1, who mentioned school and motherhood as being positive experiences that offset some of her issues with attachment.]
Thanks. With respect to your use of school activities, and being a mother to your outside children:
Because we came into the school environment (starting at nursery school) with no secure attachment, we were afraid of people in general, and we projected it, unfortunately, Thus we were a target for years of bullying by our peers. We grew up thinking of everyone else as more important, more powerful, and more valid than we were. Sort of like Cinderella to the nth degree.
And because of this, we never dated. Nobody was interested in us in high school, and only one person in college, and he proved to be....well, unhealthy for us. In our 20s and 30s, we only rarely received interest from anyone, and nobody we were comfortable with. We did miserably with dating services and personals. Factor in my (Charity) discovering when the body was about 38 that I identify as a lesbian despite being the one who did all the dating with men. (I am the only lesbian in our system; the rest are evenly split between straight and asexual.)
Add to the mix that one or more of us decided when the body was 10 years old that we would never marry of have children. We did neither. We didn't want to perpetuate three generations of dysfunction by adding another generation.
But this only served to stop the cycle of unhealthy attachment; it didn't solve the issue of our existing attachment issues.
[3:38 pm]
At least we're now aware we're like this... but have no idea how to change it, how to form better relationships, how to make friends at all. --Forum friend 1
Yes, this is the crux of it for me/us as well.
More later.
[11:19 pm]
I'm not sure we even know what healthy attachment looks like. […] We flit between different ways of feeling and experiencing our attachment and we used to be confused by that but now we realise its because we each have different relationships with [our spouse….] I'm not sure any of them are healthy and I don't know if I would recognise if it was.--Forum friend 2
We relate. We've read countless descriptions of the various classifications of unhealthy attachment patterns, and we don't fit neatly into any one of them. We pursue and avoid at the same time. We've probably done a lot more avoiding throughout the decades, but I (Charity as an individual) have a lengthy history of pursuing attachments that I couldn't have. I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say it was inappropriate.
The pursuit mentality does affect us in the present day in that we can't come to terms with the fact that our infancy and early childhood attachments will never be met in the way that we wish that they had. We deserved to have them met back then, but they weren't. I understand this on this on an intellectual/adult level, but the emotional me is still stuck in early childhood pining for a nurturing mom and wanting to stomp my feet in anger until I get what I want.
[11:27 pm]
The bottom line, I think, is that all the caregivers were trying - but somehow their own pasts are ALL marked by abuse and neglect... and their current lives marked by self-centeredness/struggle. That's not a good starting position, and they made grave "mistakes".--Forum friend 2
More than once we heard from our parents, "We did the best we could." Maybe they did, but it wasn't nearly enough.
As a child we kept telling ourselves, subconsciously if not consciously, "It will get better. If we wait long enough it will get better." We floated passively through life and nothing got better.
Thank goodness for the Internet. The last 20-plus years of reaching out to other people who share our struggles....it means the world to us.
And therapy. Five and a half years with our previous T, then immediately to our current T when the previous one retired. We've been with our current T for over 14 years.
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Attachment Issues, 9/5/18
by Charity, Wed Sep 5, 2018 1:54 pm
I can't work with a female T--I wouldn't be able to tolerate her NOT being my mommy. I can[…] tolerate my current (male) T not being my daddy because many of the littles think of the husband as their daddy.--Forum friend 1
We've always wondered what makes women seek out a male T. Even if we felt comfortable around men, which we don't, it's hard for us as someone raised in a generation where any male-female relationship only meant one thing, to reframe that thinking. So same-sex relationships, in our mind, are a lot safer. But I don't want to digress.
Beyond that, we see having a female T as necessary to our learning to form healthy attachments with females. But that's us. We've always had a firm system rule that no outside people, not even a T or an SO, is to serve as a parent substitute. The adults in our system are the younger ones' "parent figures." At least that's the way we're set up. Some of us older ones don't feel very parental.
When you say the emotional "me," do you mean of you as an individual, or the collective you with the emotional "me" being littles? Because for me, all that grief and pain is carried by littles--the ones who DIDN'T get what they deserved to get. -- Forum friend 1
I mean me as an individual. We never, ever use the words "I" or "me" to refer to us collectively. As a group of individuals, we are 47 "I"s. The collective is always "we" or "us."
I tend to absorb the pain of others of all ages within the system. I've always wanted to spare the younger ones from having to live with the pain. So I took it on. I got what I asked for.
So I need to decide what to do now. I don't want to be in charge, nor do I want to be a leader. I only want to be important to the people in my life.
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Attachment Issues, 9/6/18
by Charity, Thu Sep 6, 2018 12:14 pm
It's somewhere really deep in my mind other people mean responsibility, and because I struggle to keep good enough care of us, I just don't have any strength left to have a friend, and surely not love relationship.--Forum friend 3
Yes. Our way of explaining this is that "the well is dry." Relationships involve give and take. Many people have taken from us, but few have given. Fewer have given what we really need.
So we don't have anything stored within to give to others. And we need others to help fill that space within. The chicken and the egg. We don't know how to break the cycle of emptiness.
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Salute of the Day, 9/6/18
by Laura, Thu Sep 6, 2018 2:21 pm
Last year our employer decided to focus on building employee engagement and retention. Blah blah blah, we've seen it a zillion times before, and it goes nowhere.
This time the effort was more concerted, and people had a chance to give honest feedback. One big sentiment was that managers are poorly selected, poorly trained, or not trained at all. HR decided to run a series of trainings to remedy the problem.
But the C-Suite didn't want to make the trainings mandatory because of a bunch of priority work that became urgent. There's always something urgent. We complained to HR. The woman doing the trainings agreed with us, but there wasn't much she could do.
Today we found out that the manager trainings are finally being made mandatory. Finally.
Muahahahahahahahahahaha.
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Attachment Issues, 9/6/18, cont’d.
by Charity, Thu Sep 6, 2018, 6:44 pm]
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. [They] serve as a template for healthy connections and to help [you] feel supported in taking risks and venturing out of [your] comfort zone.--Forum friend 1
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.
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.
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[…] And we older parts have OUR attachment to the T, so we feel more supported also. And in turn, we've felt more relaxed about interacting with other people.--Forum friend 1
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.
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Salute of the Day, 9/6/18, cont’d.
by Laura, Thu Sep 6, 2018 10:28 pm
Dear Department Store Customer Service F*ckwits:
No, you do not have our name or phone number. We want you to stop sending catalogs to our address. The previous occupant was the customer, not us.
Whoever legalized sending junk mail to "or Current Resident" ought to be b*tch-slapped over to the next planet.
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Body Name
by UnspecifiedAuthor, Fri Sep 7, 2018 12:03 pm
We hate the body name and always have. Never have identified with it. None of us. In fact, it took us more than two years after self-dx to realize that we didn't have to have anyone named Bodyname in our system, so the system member basically created to be Bodyname, and who actually didn't exist, disappeared.
We have never had a desire to actually change our name, because (1) there would never be a name that we all agree on, and (2) it could not be the name of any individual in the system. So there's no point in even considering a change.
We have had two therapists since realizing that we were multiple. Neither would even think of referring to us purely as Bodyname, or insist that we have a host. We've explained that because the word "host" has negative meaning for us, we use the term "fronter" for anyone who fronts, regardless of how often.
As to how we self-reference with our current T:
In person: By individual name of whoever's fronting
By phone: As Bodyname, because we usually present collectively during phone calls
By email or text: By individual name of whoever's fronting
[3:37 pm]
We've always believed that those who are farther from the front can see and hear what's going on. (Although much to our usual fronters' dismay, those at the front have less awareness of what's going on farther away.)
So, much like the ripple effect, we all reap the benefit to one degree or another.
[3:44 pm]
PS:
The reason that we reference the collective as MDs rather than as MD (singular) is because of the I/we distinction that we mentioned in another thread. Our collective is a group of individuals.
So when we post as MDs, we mean to convey that there is more than one individual writing, and that we do not experience this confluence of individuals as being unified. If you put 47 marbles in a jar, they're still 47 individual marbles, not one big marble.
Somewhere between 2-4 of us....we think
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Rain, Rain, Go Away
by Middles, Sun Sep 9, 2018 8:37 pm
It is raining here a lot. Our bigger people say that it is because it's hurricane season. We are in New York so we are not near the big storms, but it rained all day today. We hope everyone who has bad weather is safe and okay.
Our bigger people bought a wrought iron patio table and two chairs that go with it. The chairs fit into our car but the table wouldn't. No matter what. The store didn't want to deliver them cuz they were on sale. Which is dumb. Our bigger people said they would pay the delivery money, so who cares if the stuff is on sale or not. It took three store people before they all said it was okay to deliver the stuff.
So tomorrow we are staying home all day. We were going to see our pdoc in the afternoon anyway, but now we get to stay home all day and wait for the patio furniture. We hope that we won't miss the pdoc because of it.
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Just Another Sunday
by Unspecified Author, Sun Sep 9, 8:46 pm
Today was another one of those depressing Sundays when we didn't want to get out of bed. But we managed to get up by 1-something PM. It was raining all day, but we got more stuff out of storage and brought it home. Hopefully we'll only need two more trips before we clear out the storage unit. The prices go up at the end of the month.
We also went grocery shopping. And we got a patio table and two chairs, but the table wouldn't fit into our car. We're having the set delivered tomorrow.
So the day wasn't a waste. But we wish we could stop feeling depressed so often.
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Attachment Issues, 9/11/18
by Charity, Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:32 pm
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.
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Car Repair Update
by Laura and Allegra, Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:56 pm
We finally took our car for repair this morning.
First we had to deal with moving, then we had to deal with the insurance company, then we had to get an estimate....and get back in touch with the insurance company. [Laura: The people at our insurance company have the emotional intelligence of a tree stump].
Our agency (another company that serves as a middleman for obtaining coverage) is fine.
Anyway, getting the front bumper replaced is supposed to take three days. Our car is an Impreza. The rental is a Corolla. Rental coverage is never enough to get the same size car as the one that's being repaired. The daily allowance doesn't even cover the full cost of a smaller car.
We just want this to be over. And we want the replacement bumper to look as good as the original did before the accident. Two cars prior, we had similar repair, and the replacement bumper never looked the same.
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Attachment Issues, 9/11/18, cont’d.
by Unspecified Author, Tue Sep 11, 3:53 pm
We're trying to be more open and receptive to friendly overtures from co-workers in general. Our department's office manager asked if we had finished unpacking from the move. We said that we'd unpacked everything but books.
Looking back, this isn't entirely true, since there are also a couple of boxes of nicknacks, but our point was that we intentionally saved the books for last, since they're not essential to everyday functioning, and there about 11 boxes of books total. We've only unpacked one, which had our baseball books. Those books are displayed prominently in the living room, on the same shelf upon which they were less prominently displayed in the dining end of our living room in our old apartment.
Again, we didn't go into detail with the office manager. But we tried to act like we appreciated her asking (and we hope we said so).
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Our Wallet’s Adventure
by Laura and Allegra, Thu Sep 13, 2018 4:04 pm
We take the commuter train to work in New York City. Yesterday morning, we took a cab to the train station because our car was still in the shop. We gave the cabbie $20.00 and asked for $16.00 change, which he gave us. We got out of the cab quickly so he could drop off his other passenger, and we had the change in our hand until we got onto the platform. It was then that we noticed that our wallet was gone.
We spoke to the dispatcher, we spoke to the cabbie after he came back....the wallet was nowhere to be found. We spoke with a police officer, but he said that because the wallet went missing on railroad property, the county police had no jurisdiction, and that we should contact the transit police outpost, which was located in a remote neighborhood about three miles away.
So we took another cab home. By then we only had $12.00, no ATM card, no credit cards, no license or registration, and none of the other documents that we kept in our wallet. But there was a message on our home machine. A young woman said that she had found our wallet. So we called her immediately and arranged to meet her back at the railroad that evening at 5:30.
In the meantime we contacted our bank (debit card), our Visa card, our MasterCard, and American Express to cancel all of our existing cards and order replacements. We also contacted the cable company because we're on autopay with them. They said we could suspend autopay for as long as we needed and just pay month by month.
We also called the car rental, who said that they would be able to charge the rental under the existing "hold" that they had placed on the MasterCard. The "hold" would just transfer over to the replacement card, since it's the same account.
We met the woman at the railroad in the evening, and she was very nice. We wanted to give her a reward, but she refused, saying that the same thing had happened to her a few months ago.
And then we went to therapy.
[4:53 pm]
Where did she find it?--Forum friend 1
On the ground in the parking lot, near the steps up to the platform, where we got out of the cab. She didn't get more specific than that. We're just glad that someone honest found it and contacted us right away.
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The Black Cloud of Self-Loathing
by Charity, Fri Sep 14, 2018 11:08 am
Does anybody relate to this?
It's how I and a few others felt when we woke up this morning. It felt like it was going to ruin our whole day, and perhaps our weekend. The only think that got us to go to work was the fact that we had locked one of our department's portable hard drives in a cabinet for safekeeping, and others might need access to it during the day.
We think we know who's holding the majority of the dark, difficult feelings right now. There are several candidates, each of whom may be involved to one degree or another, not in intentional coordination, but separately on parallel tracks, because the feelings are so overwhelming that no single person can handle them.
We really need to know that someone understands this. And we need to feel validated.
[Response to a forum member, 2:20 pm:]
Thank you for your support, and for sharing about your system. We do believe that it's important for us as a system to support each other. In recent years, though, we've experienced a series of life stressors.
At the same time, the natural progress in our healing has taken us to the point where doing trauma work is unavoidable. So we're having a much harder time being present around each other, let alone supportive. Some of us are more affected by this than others.
Add to this the frequent lack of clarity of who's present, whose feelings are whose....these are issues that we now know are common for multiples. It's not just us, as we believed earlier. But knowing this doesn't make it any easier to go through the process.
We feel a little calmer now. The negative feelings are still there, but they're simmering at a lower level. We still believe we need to be careful of letting the feelings overwhelm us during the weekend, as is common for us. It's a peace of mind issue, a sleep issue, a rest issue, a health issue....a quality of life issue.
[Response to another forum member, 2:26 pm:]
Thank you, for letting us know that you relate. We're sorry that you go through this as
well. We feel validated, though, in knowing that the "black cloud" image resonates with you.
Shame is definitely an issue for a number of us. So we agree with you that it's at the root of all this. And since we mentioned trauma work in [an earlier] response here, we also wanted to let you know that we recall that you're spoken and written about the need to balance trauma work with more grounding, everyday experiences. We're still learning how to do this. It's a very slow process.
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Our Wallet’s Adventure, cont’d.
by Charity and Mary, Fri Sep 14, 2018 2:32 pm
At the moment we misplaced the wallet, we were exiting the cab. We were uncomfortable about being in a confined space with two strangers (the cabbie and the other passenger). And we felt awkward at the moment that we had to say thank you and goodbye, so we rushed through it and, as a result, didn't pay enough attention to our belongings.
It would be very easy to just say, "We have to pay better attention." But there's an element of blame and shame to that approach. If feelings of awkwardness are at the root of our behavior, then we need to address those feelings. And pay attention to our belongings.
[7:47 pm]
None of the banks said there would be a fee to replace the cards, so that's good. As for the cost of cabfare, a small portion of our community is an incorporated village, and the cabfare is lower if the entire ride is within that area.
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Does Containment Ever Make Things Worse?
by Mary and Allegra, Mon Sep 17, 2018 4:38 pm
Those of us with experience in therapy are familiar with the term "containment," which, as described on GoodTherapy.org, "allow[s] the brain to set aside distressing information for the time that it is optimal to address the material."
We can probably all agree that this is a helpful technique, one that's at time necessary for someone to remain stable while in distress. But what if containment seems to make the distress even worse? It's been said that a multiple system has a way of letting us know when we're ready to deal with something specific. What if the distress in question is the signal that it's time, and containment causes further distress by delaying attention to the matter? How does one balance out the need to process trauma with the need to remain stable?
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Our Wallet’s Adventure, 9/17/18
by Allegra, Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:28 pm
New debit card, check.
New AmEx card, check.
Two down, two to go. The Visa and MasterCards seem to be taking longer to replace. One of them's from a very large national bank, so you'd think they'd be quicker about it. Ohwell. We have to remember how fortunate we are that things aren't worse.
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The Black Cloud of Self-Loathing, contd.
by Charity, Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:28 am
It might be helpful to express [the feelings] if you're an artist… The creative mind can help process some of the stuff, or at least make it more bearable. I also find it helpful to care for plants or pets. They need your attention but they're not threatening or demanding. I think it can help the dark parts connect to life in a positive way--Forum member 4
You make a good point. I (Charity) am not an artist, though I used to write poetry. My poems were highly dramatic and emotional, perhaps melodramatic. Or maybe I see myself that way because our mother used to say that we were.
I'm reluctant to try anything creative any more. I don't want to re-live those feelings of rejection and shame.
We have others who are artists but don't practice their art, because the body's physical talent level doesn't match the intensity of their creative vision.
And then there are those who only envision creativity as performing on stage, where the results are very demonstrable and the reaction immediate. There's more of an audience for performers than for artists or writers. We were a stage manager for seven years in the mid 1980s to early 1990s.
We rarely performed, and only in "bit parts." This satisfied to some degree but by no means completely. We haven't gotten over the feeling of being "less than" the performers.
I've digressed a lot. But the bottom line is that the shame and self-loathing are very deep and complex.
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Salute of the Day, 9/21/18
by Laura, Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:19 pm
[To a forum member dealing with a rude neighbor:]
Sorry your neighbor was rude. When we were still living in the upper floor of a house, our neighbor (a macho, overly confident guy in his early 30s) one day decided to park his car in our driveway because he was renovating his house and there was a dumpster in his own driveway. His aunt was the neighbor on our other side, and his aunt was best friends with our landlord's daughter growing up. They all consider themselves one big family.
So because our landlord was no longer living onsite, Neighbor Guy asked his aunt, not us, if he could park in our driveway. It was hard to conceal our annoyance, but we confronted him in the presence of his wife and asked them to please not park there. His wife was visibly uncomfortable. Good.
To this day we have no idea why he asked his aunt and didn't ask us personally. But we moved a month ago, so it no longer matters.
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Attachment Issues, 9/23/18
by Charity, Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:51 pm
Us: We ourselves (that is, 75 percent of our system) are very introverted. Our trauma history and our life stage tend to make us even more so.
Forum Friend 1: What about the 25% that isn't introverted? Isn't it really hard for them to not get the chance to interact and be more socially active?[…]I'm asking because I have one part (with support from a couple of others) who loves to perform, and many others who have a lot of fears about that.
We're not sure if we mentioned our theater days in this thread, although we know we've mentioned it in other threads.
I/we mainly wanted to say that even though 25 percent of our system [Mathematically, that's 11.75 people, and what do you do with .75 of a person?--Laura] is extraverted, not all of the extraverts are close to the front on a regular basis. This may or may not make a difference, but I feel compelled to mention it. Allegra and Joseph are the only extraverts who are at or near the front regularly.
Allegra handles many of our social interactions at work. Joseph simply enjoys life.
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Need Support, 9/25/18
by Charity, Tue Sep 25, 2018 10:51 am
There's a lot of internal chaos right now. Mary is trying to help, and I appreciate that, but the stress is so widespread and so disabling that one of us can't handle it alone. Allegra is keeping her distance, and I don't blame her for that, since I asked her to not interfere with discussions between Mary and me. Allegra is reachable, though, and is helping us get things done at work.
We're in a great deal of pain. A mixture of us are stuck in trauma time, all mushed together like wet clothes in a washing machine that won't stop turning.
Just need to connect here.
[11:38 am, regarding a recent headcold:]
We're physically better enough to come back to work, though it's a raw, rainy day in the NYC area, and that's not good for our congestion. We're wearing one of our office cardigans over the one that we put on at home.
We have T tomorrow night. We suppose we could have called her during these past two days of distress, but we were too "out of it" to even think of doing so. Right now we hope we don't empty out our little cube-shaped box of tissues, because that would mean going out in the rain to buy another one.
At least our manager is working from home today. She has a three-month-old baby and is gradually transitioning back from maternity leave. She postponed a couple of meetings to later in the week, which is good.
Mary keeps saying, "Take a deep breath." I try. She keeps trying to be supportive, but those of us in the rinse cycle aren't having an easy time of it.
[With Mary, 12:25 pm:]
In this case, all of our attention was on the internal conflict and on our physical illness. Difficult to think straight, or think to call our T.
We are beginning to "rebalance" now. We prefer that term to "grounding." Our dislike of the latter term is subjective and perhaps irrational, but at least we have a term that works for us.
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Update, 9/28/18
by Laura, Fri Sep 28, 2018 11:34 am
Woke up feeling 47 kinds of cranky this morning, and we're still not over it.
It was raining when we left the house to go to the train station. Steady rain, but not heavy. But as soon as we parked our car at the station, it was coming down in buckets. Just enough time for us to get soaked before the train arrived.
Then in the city it felt cold and raw, and while the rain had stopped, we didn't feel warm enough even wearing a jacket. Just when we were starting to get over our cold. We bought a roll of cough drops.
Fridays are supposed to feel better than this.
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