The unmentioned attachment style:- toxic

[river]

In some ways I have been lucky compared to many here.  I was niether abused nor neglected, in fact, me and my siblings were given everthing, in some ways.  So, full respect to those who have survived the unbelievably abusive situations they have come thro. 
Yet my mum was narcissistic and my life has been severley affected, as I've seen others' lives affected.    Only in my 50s did I discover the word narcissism and personaltiy disorder, and begin to understand the enormity of what had been driving my life.  It was the hidden currents that I'd got caught on and acted out in sef-destructive ways.  There was some,  relatively minimal physical violence in my fam of orign, yet I acted out in a relationship with  a man which involved physical voilence.  I arrived in my teens so nieve to the reality of the world that I put myself in danger. 
Phoenix asks this question:

   What I wonder is, what is it exactly in a relationship that nurtures this "secure" or "earned secure" attachment? Trust? Safety? In that there is an expectation of say - acceptance of self - that is met consistently enough that one "trusts" and relies - is secure in - that relationship. I wonder. Still working this one through, as you can tell. But the key seems to be that modulation or re-establishing equilibrium. An "it's OK" feeling between two people? Is that all it is?

I have come to belive that fundamentallhy the professionals .............

[river]

.............. or some of the professionals are missing something important when thier focus stops at the security given to a child and the comfort given to a child. 
Its this quote that has the underlying truth for me:

   .......where there is neglect, abuse, trauma, chronic misattunement, or persistent emotional pressure on a child to submit to a relational bargain primarily designed to serve the mother's psychological needs as opposed to the child's, a Disorder of the Self will result..... 

... its this part, 'designed to serve the mother's psychological needs'.  This is about a principle rather than a degree of attention and security.  This is a backwards connection, the whole thing is back to front.    I was 'sweet' and compliant until age 13, when anger and revulsion awoke within me, something in me was inconsolable since, and that inconsolable took me to eventually discover the understanding of all this which is about personality disorders or the 'disorders of the self'. 
Its hard to summarise, but living as players in my  mother's fantasy wold, the relationship with her was not for learning to cope with reality, it was for denying reality and living out her fantasies, her values.   The underlying betrayal only came out long into my adulthood.  I sensed, she would quite happily see me disposed out of life if it would help her to get what she wanted, that would be for example, the attention of a man or posetion of a child.  It was the hiddenness of all this, given that we had had this 'idyllic childhood', the paradigm of annihilation. 
Its ..............

[river]

.........I'm struggling  to really put into words and make meaningful, but what I'm trying to say, is it seems to me that its not only about the amount of attention, or the reliability of attention, but what is the intent within the attention, or the lack of it..... ie the priniples within....
and so often with an N theres ~ in varying degrees the projection, of an unconsious intent of projecting thier own shame or the attitude of ~ if you dont comply ~ youre worth nothing to me, therefor, annilhilation is the lurking, underlying intent.  Hidden in my history, shockingly blatent in others' stories here.  
Indeed my mum had some genuinely good qualities, I just happened to be one of the ones in my generation to be the toxic waste absorber.

I'd like to know if this makes sense, and how others see this here ?/.... responses appreciated.  

[swimmer]

Yes river, I lived in that idyllic childhood for the most part as well.  The only thing missing is.... On Leave it to Beaver, the kids had emotional attention and got to have positive learning experiences through life's annoyances.  This idyllic life I was brought up in was missing the emotional part.  That is emotional neglect.  And being berated and corrected constantly is a form of neglect and emotional abuse.

River, so much of what you say I can relate to.... Even the frustration that nobody will understand.  These things are believable and you don't have to experience physical abuse or the threat of it to understand the deep emotional pain of emotional abuse and neglect.

I think all parents fall short in areas, but strive in a whole sense to provide a dignified experience for a child.  Anyone parent or even stranger could take a child to an amusement park or even a ball game, but if the car ride is spent arguing about how to get there and pit downs.  This is where idyllic falls short, it's fake.  I remember about the times my mother and I would argue when I was a teenager, and I was always fighting for reality.  I became known as a friend who always laid the deck of cards out for people to see.  I was appreciated for my honesty among high school peers.  Then when I went home, there was another world of delusions at home.

[Butterfly]

 "but living as players in my  mother's fantasy wold, the relationship with her was not for learning to cope with reality, it was for denying reality and living out her fantasies, her values"

Yes, River, this makes perfect sense.  I can relate to the surreptitious abuse, the emotional manipulation to serve another's needs, the idea of being the emotional garbage can.  It is frightening, and I think about this a lot when I see how it affects every avenue of my life--no matter what goal I reach for, what work I do, what pleasure I anticipate.  The search for myself in these things is neverending.  Where am I?  if I can ask, I can find . . .

[river]

Thank you for these answers!   Much poignancy for me in what you've both said. 

Butterfly:

The search for myself in these things is neverending   

swimmer:

  but if the car ride is spent arguing about how to get there and pit downs.  This is where idyllic falls short, it's fake.   

  Yes.  On the outside you went to the park - nice thing, but on the inside, the experience is quite different. 

   I was a teenager, and I was always fighting for reality.  I became known as a friend who always laid the deck of cards out for people to see.  I was appreciated for my honesty among high school peers. 

That sounds really interesting, makes me want to ask lots of questions, but dont know what exactly ~ yet. 
This is the contention I have with most theories and even the addiction recovery theories.  I think my acting out was at some level a search for reality, not a way of numbing pain, after all, I was drawn to painful, emotionally dangerous relationships like a moth to a flame, and at the heart of that I think I was trying to 'out' what had got stuck inside me.  I couldnt live normal, couldnt be loved by as it would cover over this inconsolableness, so I externalised it with a man who did behave abusive, as if he acted out the hidden, denied agenda of the original N. - of course its not a good thing to do, but the driving motive eventually lead me do discover understanding, and a possibility of real healing at least.



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[teartracks]

Hi river,

but what is the intent within the intention

You said it well and I understand the point you're making.  Hope you'll keep adding your insights into this.

tt

[river]

Thanks tt, actually that should have read 'what is the intent within the attention', but you  understood anyway. (altered in now).

[SilverLining]

Hi River.   I can identify with much of what you say.  On a material level my parents were adequate caretakers.  They provided food, clothing, shelter.  They attended parent teacher conferences and signed report cards.  The problems didn't become apparent until I started to think about the emotional invisible things they didn't provide, such as validation, reinforcement, mirroring, appreciation.  The offspring were treated as "extensions of themselves" and no provisions were made for our emotional development.  I went through my entire first 18 years without a single discussion about my independent future.   I could count the positive comments I heard about myself from my father on one hand.  As long as we were physically well, they assumed they had the job of parenting covered and they could focus all emotional attention on themselves.  Their own narcissistic issues were and are all consuming. 

It's tough to see through the processes since the type of emotional neglect we experienced isn't easy to identify as abuse.  Anybody from outside would assume all is well. 

[Portia]

'what is the intent within the attention'

Oh yes. What happens if a very young child has someone else, a major caregiver, to compare primary caretaker's attention with?

They know something is amiss with PC, maybe they feel it's their responsibility to fix that problem. No of course, they feel that they are the source of that problem with PC. And so on. Especially if the intent in any scant attention given is to make the child meet the PC's needs.

[HeartofPilgrimage]

I hear what all of you are saying ... and agree, some of what you experienced as children was present in my own childhood. However, with regard to "attachment style" the term, as it is normally used, refers to the CHILD's behavior, not the parent. In other words, the parent has his/her OWN attachment style (and that's why some studies can use the parent's attachment style to his/her own significant others to predict what kind of attachment style their child will have). Also, a child can have a different attachment style with different people. You can have secure attachment to one parent and insecure with another. There are some studies out there that suggest that secure attachment to one's father or grandparents can mitigate the effects of maternal postpartum depression ... which tends to produce insecure attachment to the mother.

When an investigator researches attachment security/insecurity, they don't look at the behavior of the parent (who could behave differently based on being watched). Instead, they look at the behavior of the child (usually around 18 months old, for the Strange Situation investigations). It is assumed that the behavior of the child is adapted to what he or she has come to expect from the parent. Securely attached behavior = the child is upset when the parent leaves the room, but is quickly and easily comforted when the parent returns (after a couple of minutes), and the child after being soothed returns to exploring the toys in the room. Insecure takes several forms: ambivalent/resistant = the child is not easily soothed, and "ramps up" crying and clinging behavior to insure that the parent continues to pay attention ... avoidant = the child pretends not to notice or care that the parent has returned ... disorganized = there is no clear strategy for handling the parents' return (freezing/sidling up to the parent with gaze averted).

Anyway, I explain all this to say that people who research attachment do recognize that all is not always as it seems between parent and child ... and take their cues about the parent/child relationship from the child's behavior. The child's perceptions and understandings about their own relationship with their parent is going to drive his/her behavior regardless of what the investigator thinks about the parent.

[river]

One of my issues is that I dont feel right about calling my childhood experiences as neglect or abuse.  It would make nonsense of the word, and it would make it meaningless for those who actually did suffer neglect or abuse.   
What there WAS    was a kind of hidden intent some of which I absorbed and then, not understanding what was driving me, I proceeded to act  out in addictive, abusive relationships,  as, I think an attempt to externailise it and thereby to bring resolution.   
I think it was these extremes we lived in, me and my sibs were 'given everything', except normality.  We had holidays in the mountains, went swimming, had wonderful books and stories etc.   You just cannot call this neglect or abuse, it simply isnt the same thing.  I think if one tries to cram everything under the same label, the power of a hidden dynamic is missed.  Thats why Im drawn to words like 'toxic'/ 'poison', ~ because these show the hidden, non-trauma non external - and yet ultimately corrosive quality, it seems just important to me to be accurate, and that these different types of dynamic whether the shocking neglect and abuse, or this more hidden thing come from the same route, the NARCISSISM, - that word explains the DYNAMIC, and the MOTIVATION that is hidden underneath.
 I think this is important for many reasons, partly that these distorted patterns of human motivation are structured into society all over the place anyway.  What is environmental destruction?  - but extreme irresponsibility combined with consumer greed and denial, all these things surely are linked at the root with the disorders of the self amongst humans, whether enacted in the world, or within the family. 
I think for me, my issue is no longer my childhood, but the continuatin of the dynamics that I see perpetuated, yes, even in therapy institutions, where they have failed to understand these things, so much opportunity to help is being missed - from what I can see.  This is what keeps me in so many ways feeling unresolved not at peace within myself.

 

[CB123]

River,

I understand exactly what you are talking about--I grew up in a situation like yours.  The neglect was the sense of not being heard, the abuse was being asked to take care of my own needs--to be shamed for having needs.  This hardly qualifies as the kind of neglect and abuse that others here have suffered.  But, yes, it does affect how I relate to people now--sometimes in very dysfunctional ways. 

For me, the only real help is mindfulness.  I have been through therapy numerous times and that helped me clarify the issues.  But I really needed to replace the tapes in my head and I could never figure out how to do it until I learned to detach myself from my responses and look at them.  It has taken me years to learn to not react immediately to something (even my own thoughts), stand back and look at what is happening, and ask myself what I WANT to do about it.  Most of the time, my first response is not at all what I WANT to do.  This sounds simple, but I cant tell you how tiring it is.  I feel as though it is only in the last six months that I havent had to wrestle that first response to the ground so I can look at it. 

We just plain learned our attachment style when we were too young to even know what we were doing.  I dont know if I even have words to express what is happening in my head sometimes--that would make me think that it was pre-verbal learning.  I think that, realistically, we have to do a fair amount of acceptance about who we are and how we attach.  I think that only some of what we do is to change.  I find that I have actually changed very little, I have simply chosen to ACT slowly so I can process everything before I act.  Perhaps I am very, very slowly laying tracks down for change.  A couple of times I have seen myself act uncharacteristically--but the way I would have chosen if I didnt REact.  Maybe I am getting somewhere.  Maybe I would make faster progress if I was younger than 56.

Just wanted you to know that I understand what you are saying here.  Also, that you can have sincerely dysfunctional people raising you that are not Narcissists.  Everyone who is self centered and non empathetic is not personality disordered.  To a small child, the distinction may be lost.  But it helps to know that, in my own life.

Love
CB

[swimmer]

River,  I see some of what you are saying here in your last post.  I think with N's and other personality disorders it's hard, typically these people are never professionally diagnosed.  In that way, it's hard to know how to proceed.... Can this person help themselves?  Does this person have an awareness of the destructive nature of thier behavior?  I think because children rely so heavily on parents it really makes no difference.... It's the end result of what's happened, and the repeated nature of it that makes a difference.      

If a parent is not an N, and just self centered like CB referred to, perhaps they are easier to relate to as an adult.  One thing I see as a definate distinction is N's have no self awareness or desire/ability for self awareness.  Someone who is self centered may know this about themselves and modify behavior based on hurtful experiences.  N's don't see other people's pain as a priority, EVER. 

 

[Butterfly]

"detach myself from my responses and look at them."  CB

Yes, CB, I know about the wrestling.  Although I am a bit younger than you, I still struggle with my first response.  And, slowing down is the hardest thing for me to learn to do.  Sometimes, I literally stop in my tracks and force myself to process so that I don't react.  Frankly, it has taken me this long in my life to even just find out that I needed to respond differently.  Now that I know, I am still struggling with the doing.  For me it is really hard, and I have to work on mindfulness at all times.  Please tell me it gets easier. 

Joy