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Jul. 5th, 2024 01:53 pmHumans are born with under-developed brains. Compared to the animal kingdom, if a human was born with a brain more in proportion to the size of it's body, if I'm remembering correctly from a tv documentary I once saw, then humans would need to gestate for almost 4 years. But no woman would survive birthing a child that size with an intact pelvis, or possibly at all, so we are born after just 9 months, with an under-developed brain, and spend the first few years of our lives developing that brain at a faster rate than anything else. But since our brains are under-developed, we are extremely vulnerable in that time. Mistreatment in various ways can cause us a lot of damage here. Now -- to a certain extent -- the human brain is plastic, is pliable, adaptable, so it can later change for the better, but that doesn't exclude the fact that what we are exposed to in our early years can cause some real long-term damage also. In particular, the way our emotional needs are met or not can form patterns that influence our relationships for the rest of our lives, and these are called attachment styles.
Secure attachment -- what it sounds like. Your emotional needs were met, you formed secure bonds with your primary and secondary caregivers, and you can go on to form secure bonds with many others throughout your lives.
Avoidant attachment -- if you weren't really allowed to have emotional needs, if your needs were always secondary to the needs of your parents, then you learned to cope emotionally on your own. You withdraw when you get overwhelmed, and you'd rather flee than have an honest conversation about emotions, because you feel so out of your depth. You can still form connections as an adult, just...not necessarily very close ones. You put up 'walls' a lot.
Anxious-avoidant attachment -- what it sounds like. A mix of the above two. For ease of explanation, I put them in this order, but in terms of lowest degree of damage to highest, this really belongs above Avoidant.
Disorganised attachment -- if you had very bad things happen to you as a child, if your early childhood was tumultuous, then it can impede your ability to make any kinds of healthy connections with people at all. Or you can be a bit all over the map, creating too much intimacy too quickly and then withdrawing at high speed, and then feeling sad that you're alone, and so forth. Maybe you trauma-bond with people more than form healthy connections with them.
From what I know of relationship counselling, mostly from youtube, people with secure attachment tend to find other people with secure attachment, whereas an anxious type and an avoidant type usually end up pairing up together. I'm not sure of the why of that, although I can see how they can potentially both make each other worse.
Secure attachment -- what it sounds like. Your emotional needs were met, you formed secure bonds with your primary and secondary caregivers, and you can go on to form secure bonds with many others throughout your lives.
Anxious attachment -- if your needs were met, but only some of the time; if your caregivers were a bit unpredictable, sometimes there for you, sometimes absent, or angry. Probably more good than bad, but enough bad that it has it's effect on you. When you grow up you will be able to form relationships, but you always want to know the 'status' of them. Daily. You will want visible displays of commitment, even with friends, and romantically, will probably be inclined to develop things fairly quickly.
Avoidant attachment -- if you weren't really allowed to have emotional needs, if your needs were always secondary to the needs of your parents, then you learned to cope emotionally on your own. You withdraw when you get overwhelmed, and you'd rather flee than have an honest conversation about emotions, because you feel so out of your depth. You can still form connections as an adult, just...not necessarily very close ones. You put up 'walls' a lot.
Anxious-avoidant attachment -- what it sounds like. A mix of the above two. For ease of explanation, I put them in this order, but in terms of lowest degree of damage to highest, this really belongs above Avoidant.
Disorganised attachment -- if you had very bad things happen to you as a child, if your early childhood was tumultuous, then it can impede your ability to make any kinds of healthy connections with people at all. Or you can be a bit all over the map, creating too much intimacy too quickly and then withdrawing at high speed, and then feeling sad that you're alone, and so forth. Maybe you trauma-bond with people more than form healthy connections with them.
From what I know of relationship counselling, mostly from youtube, people with secure attachment tend to find other people with secure attachment, whereas an anxious type and an avoidant type usually end up pairing up together. I'm not sure of the why of that, although I can see how they can potentially both make each other worse.
