Authenticity Vs Attachment

What would you be willing to give up to stay in relationship with someone? 

For many of my initial sessions I review an iceberg diagram showing the main layers I believe underlie and keep propped up our addictive ways of numbing or escaping. I explain how many of us adopted a form of codependency in our lives where we have looked to the approval of others and success in our endeavors to seek validation that we are actually OK. We discuss the role of shame and how a “shame core” can be developed through lack of attunement or emotional connection.

The lowest level of the iceberg is also the earliest and can be the most difficult for many of my clients to understand. We name it “fear of abandonment.” What I mean by this is that as children one of our core fears is of being left or abandoned. As adults it may be difficult to connect to this…but as children our very lives depended on our parents and we are biologically wired to stay connected to them.

Children crave attachment to their caregivers.  They want to be seen and feel safe.  To feel that the connection to a parent is becoming insecure or distant creates significant distress to that child.  They will seek out either consciously or unconsciously why the disconnect is happening and seek to correct it for future encounters.

Sometimes as a child we learned to give up parts of our authentic self in order to keep the relationship secure.

If mom didn’t like it when we cried or were upset we may have tried to prevent ourselves from showing that. If sharing uncomfortable feelings was something our parents minimized we might begin keeping these to ourselves. Whatever seemed to make parents come closer we likely accentuated and whatever seems to create distance we suppressed.

We become comfortable hiding parts of ourselves in relationships. And oftentimes we begin to self-soothe or self-medicate around those parts that cannot be expressed.

As adults when we enter into marriage or a serious long term relationship we can often revert back to these early conditioned patterns. All those years of early conditioning still contain significant power.  We struggle to trust others fully or open up in any kind of vulnerable way. We’ve learned to function independently instead of interdependently. Worse of all we don’t know how to ask for help.   Secrecy becomes the norm and deeper intimacy is blocked. 

So what do we do with this?

We start retraining our nervous system by taking different actions toward people and situations that historically have made us feel uncomfortable. We take risks in sharing to another person or group. We discuss things we normally would keep to ourselves. We admit our faults and shortcomings. We discuss our fears. And most importantly…we work through the anxiety that naturally comes up from doing this.

So many of my clients have been stuck in shame because nobody has really known who they are! To the “inner child” within each of us being this transparent can feel like death. As a child being fully open and transparent may have resulted in feeling abandoned. As an adult we can not longer be abandoned like that - instead those risks are the only way out. Until we can actually talk about it all we will feel “separate” from others and therefore still in isolation.

Here are some steps to take which were shared with me many years ago….and I still continue to implement them on a daily and weekly basis (albeit imperfectly)

1) Be fully honest with yourself.

It starts with admitting to yourself how you actually feel and what are the struggles that keep you in isolation. You can use journaling, self-talk or prayer - but we need to first get honest with ourselves.

2) Be fully honest with one other person

The 5th step of addiction recovery is so healing because it asks us to share everything with another live, sentient human being. Oh how we don’t want to do that! What will they think? Yet, doing so releases so much shame and brings so much freedom - it takes courage to be sure but revealing all to another person brings us back into the human race.

3) Be fully honest with another group

I have long felt that therapy and recovery/support groups are absolutely essential for a full healing process from attachment trauma. As I heard a therapist say once “Individual therapy is for those not yet ready for group therapy.” And I would say that there is a lot of truth in that! Of course, even having a single person there to hear everything about you (such as a therapist or sponsor) will feel very validating. Most people I speak with though say that it is within a group that they experience the most growth.

Being part of a healthy group (vulnerable, safe, supportive) can be one of the most significant steps you can take to heal these wounds. In that place we can bring forth more of all of who we are and still feel fully accepted by others. This is what actually begins to build new neuropathways around attachment and acceptance. It will initially feel stressful or uncomfortable - and that’s a good thing! Healthy stress or discomfort of this kind usually means some sort of change is happening internally.

Connection makes us feel alive. Hiding parts of ourselves leads to suffering and a sense of being alone. While this defense mechanism may have saved us growing up it will truly inhibit our life going forward. Make it a goal to find this type of community for yourself.