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Attachment Wounds · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the System Speak podcast, a podcast about dissociative identity disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to longtime listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:02
  Okay. We have talked about attachment strategies a little bit, and I gave some examples by talking about my therapy session and how brutal that was. But when we put this together with trauma and deprivation, the intersection of attachment or what should have been healthy attachment. And but what is not, because we didn't have the opportunity, because our caregivers did not respond in ways that were consistent, congruent, or helpful. When that intersects with trauma and deprivation, what we get at the core of that is the actual attachment wound.
• 2:10
  You guys, my therapist said this to me last summer. You're going to hear it this winter. I'm recording it in the fall. It happened in the middle of the summer, where my therapist just threw out attachment wound like I should know what it is. I don't know, honestly, do not know, if I was just not prepared to receive this piece, and so had pushed it away through dissociation or whatever, or literally somehow it's a gap in my understanding or my learning, Like, that happens sometimes with deaf people, so I'm not kidding.
• 2:53
  I'm not being evasive. Hearing people have what is called incidental learning where you can pick things up along the way, but deaf people miss that because they're not hearing all the same cues and getting the same information. And we have visual fatigue, not even because Sjogren's, but visual fatigue because we're having to use our eyes. So even if I don't have an interpreter, I'm having captions, or I'm having to look up notes about what people said because I can't hear and also process the information at the same time. So there's also a delay.
• 3:31
  So all of this to say, it's harder for deaf people to get incidental learning because it's not incidental. It has to be intentional. And so, I literally don't know, Like, is this a dissociation moment, a deaf moment, just a gap somehow? I don't know. I know about attachment.
• 3:54
  I know about attachment styles that we are trying to emphasize be called as attachment strategies because they are the child's strategy to receive a response from a caregiver. And how the caregiver responds changes the strategy we use. So it's not an attachment style because it's not our preference. It's literally what works and what doesn't. Right?
• 4:20
  I get all of those pieces. They're unpleasant pieces, but I get it. Attachment wound, I had not even heard of. Ouch. What the wound is, like the actual injury.
• 4:44
  So when I broke my foot, the injury was the broken foot. When I cut my finger on the cardboard trying to open the package, that is a finger injury. Right? When I get sunburned, the burn is an injury to the skin. Right?
• 5:08
  So in English, we say attachment wound because that is where the wound is, is in the attachment experience process and development. So, you guys, here's why it's critical, and this we're going to get into this later this year. You guys, this is, like, the portal, if I if I can use that word and borrow it from Jules. I don't mean for parts, but in process, it is what connects memory time to now time. It is the doorway in which the invasion happens.
• 5:50
  Because the wound is in memory time, but because it is not tended to or healed, the wound is still with us in now time even though the injury is in memory time. So you have heard Jules and I talk about this very vulnerably in several recent episodes at the December. And before that, more coming. It feels like the crisis is in now time, but the wound is actually in memory time. So even when we talk about reenactments, which are not intentional or conscious and also happen because the wound is still there.
• 6:38
  This is huge. This has been, I am not kidding, the biggest breakthrough for us since now time is safe. Since NTIS, this has been the biggest breakthrough to understand literally what is the thing that invades now time, how memory time has power to even be present in now time. I finally get it. It is the attachment wound.
• 7:11
  Now depending on our attachment strategies, these may show up differently, and we're also going to talk about this later this year. But for today, just to get the concept of attachment wound as being a thing, let me explain. So if we're going to look at some of the attachment strategies, the patterns of how it all works together helps us see the clues that lead back to memory time that tell us what the core wounds are. So for example, if we have anxious attachment and we are feeling panic and fear, which shows up as hypervigilance about when others are not available or being extra clingy in relationships, we can understand about ourselves that because we did not have emotional regulation or coregulation with a caregiver, we received the message about ourselves that we are unimportant, which is in itself a form of abandonment. This is really important.
• 8:47
  I have thought abandonment meant someone went away and left you there. I have plenty of that I need to talk about, but to recognize this also can happen relationally when you are dismissed or treated as unimportant, that that also is abandonment When your needs are also not heard, when you are only taking care of other people, but it's not reciprocal, or you don't have space for your feelings as well, that is also abandonment emotionally and relationally. So with that information, it tells us the core wound is abandonment. If we have anxious attachment and, emotionally, we are experiencing jealousy, sadness, and fear, which looks like seeking out confirmation and reassurance, not feeling included, becoming afraid. We can understand that our identity was tied to external factors such as friendships and relationships and material possessions.
• 10:08
  And when we lose one of those pieces, we feel insecure. This also shows up for our hoarding friends where possessions and objects were safer than people or more consistent with us than people. So the core wound is I do not belong. If we have anxious attachment and our emotions are sadness, loneliness, and despair, which looks like being overly dependent on other people or losing our own identity in relationships or friendships, then what we know is that we received inconsistent soothing from our caregivers. And when they did not soothe us, it felt like rejection.
• 11:06
  So now in now time when people are not available, it feels like rejection. So the core wound is I will be rejected. If we have anxious attachment and we feel hopelessness, loneliness, and despair, that looks like clinging on to others through fear of being left or abandoned. It looks like looking for behaviors or evidence in others that suggest we are about to be left or abandoned. So, again, that tells us that through inconsistent parenting, there were times where we were forced to be alone, and it felt scary because there was not the consistent security from our caregiver.
• 11:59
  So the core wound is I am alone. If we have anxious attachment and our emotions are sadness and anger, and it looks like saying yes to others or bending over backwards to please other people at the expense of our own needs or neglecting our own desires, then it tells us that our own needs were not taken into account by our caregivers. And so we are more likely to display the same behavior with others, putting our own needs last in now time just like in memory time. Like, that is the reenactment. So the core wound is I am not worthy, I am unseen, and I am misunderstood.
• 12:56
  In avoidant attachment, if our emotions are shame and fear and it looks like criticizing ourselves or walking on eggshells or being overly vigilant about other people's needs and having to tiptoe around, then it tells us we were criticized a lot by our caregivers, and making mistakes triggers that criticalness in ourselves. So it's an internal reenactment sometimes reinforced by external reenactments with others. So the core wound is I am bad. If we have avoidant attachment and we feel guilt and sadness, and it looks like not engaging in relationships, seeking out confirmation from others that we're a burden, then we know our parents were unable to provide comfort when we needed something, and that is what triggered the rejection or abandonment. So the core wound is I am a burden.
• 14:11
  If we have avoidant attachment and our emotions are resentment and anger, and it looks like not trusting others or questioning other people's motives or struggling to have consistent friendships and relationships, then it tells us we were unable to rely on our caregivers to provide care and comfort. So trusting anyone is difficult. And the core wound is I will be betrayed. If we have avoidant attachment and are feeling guilt and sadness and it looks like taking on too much to try and prove that we are good enough or overcriticizing ourselves, it tells us our caregivers were not able to provide comfort in insecure moments, leading us to feel not good enough, which is the core wound. I am not good enough.
• 15:16
  With avoidant attachment, if we feel fear and anger, which tells us about injustice, and it looks like entering a discussion, feeling like the need to defend ourselves or like we're being interrogated, it tells us our caregivers were volatile and abusive, and no one defended us. When that gets reenacted in now time, others have been volatile and abusive towards us, and no one stepped in to defend us. The core wound is I am unsafe. So with disorganized attachment, when we feel sadness and shame and it's showing up as withdraw in relationships where if someone gets too close, we worry they may see how faulty we are, it tells us due to the lack of the strong bond with our parents, we always felt like there was something wrong with us. We never could get it right.
• 16:21
  Sometimes because of direct aggression, even if verbal aggression or passive aggression through silent treatments. The core wound, I am faulty and unlovable. With disorganized attachment, when we feel lonely and empty and it shows up as avoiding getting too close to others, withdrawing and isolating ourselves, deliberately keeping ourselves alone because there's some comfort at least in that, it tells us that we assume this will happen long term because we were shown signs of not being wanted in childhood, and we don't believe we will ever be wanted. And, again, that core wound, I am alone and unwanted. When we have disorganized attachment and feel fear, agitation, and irritation, It looks like being on constant alert and difficulty resting, forming strong attachments with work, money, or animals because those are the only things we can rely on.
• 17:36
  And that tells us that due to emotional neglect, we receive the message that we're unable to trust our caregivers to receive adequate love and care, including protection. So that wound, because of relational or emotional deprivation, the core wound is I am unsafe. When we have disorganized attachment and feel frustration and fear, and it presents as being less likely to check-in on our partners or being less likely to show how we are feeling with others, it tells us that forming a close emotional bond with someone else is scary because by doing so, our emotions are in someone else's control. The core wound is I am trapped and powerless. With disorganized attachment, when we feel disconnected and sad, and it looks like being hesitant to bring up emotions through fear of these being rejected by the other, it tells us our caregivers did not pay attention to our emotional needs, so it became difficult to communicate what we needed from them.
• 18:58
  And the core wound was I don't matter and I misunderstood. And if you notice this pattern, these all lead to I am alone in my pain and no one is helping me. So if we use anxious attachment as the example, where the strategy is to focus on the caregiver, to approach the caregiver, to cling to the caregiver, because the only way to receive care is through proximity, then it also tells us where the wound is, which means we are being pushed away from care. So maybe it's literally you have to go play outside. Maybe it's like the door is closed.
• 19:55
  I I have shared on the podcast before. I have very vivid, very frequent memories of my mother just closing the door and not coming out. And it wasn't like we had been tended to and were settled. Like, I have teenagers now, and they're like, let's have lots of conversation, give us lots of food, and then we just want our screen time because we worked hard for it. Okay.
• 20:18
  Okay. You do you, boo. This is different. This is instead of care. There is a closed door, so I cannot have proximity.
• 20:28
  So the only time I can receive care is when I am closed. So that means I have to be very in tune with when the door is open and when it is not. Y'all, this is getting too real too fast. But do you see? That is what anxious attachment is.
• 20:46
  The strategy is watching for the window of proximity because those are the only moments we receive care. But the wound is that we are being pushed away from care. We're not supposed to have to watch for a window of proximity. Proximity is supposed to already be there. So the wound is the unmet need of care, which means our needs have to be denied, which means the only way to have attunement is to not need.
• 21:38
  So then, because we get so good at not needing anything, which we will talk about more in coming weeks, or being invisible, or things like this, then that wound stays open because we do not even show up for ourselves. So let me give some examples just to break it down because I know this stuff is so painful and so hard. I literally have been trying to talk about this for three months. And every like, this year on the podcast is going to be so intense, at least the coming months. And I keep saying that partly to warn you and partly as not intentional avoidance, but I'm aware of the avoidance because saying the actual things is so painful.
• 22:38
  Okay. So an example of how this plays out with anxious attachment. The core wound, for example, just an example, the core wound would be I don't belong. The need is being understood. Right?
• 23:01
  Because when we are pushed away, excluded, sent to the child's table, I'm minimizing, but you know what I mean. The message is you don't belong here, which means we feel the misattunement, which means we feel misunderstood, which means we are having to defend who we are so that we can be understood enough to be included. We see this happen all the time online or in all kinds of different communities when there is drama and people are excluded or people are or people get clicky. They are attachment wounds of trying to belong so that we can feel understood, ultimately, so that we can feel loved. So it is so, so important that we are inclusive and also healthy and boundaried and flexible.
• 24:04
  This is complex stuff and nuanced stuff. So when that gets activated of feeling misunderstood or not belonging, it's important to look for the evidence that we are understood by some people in our lives some of the time. Making lace, being less binary. Right? We also can ask why are we not understanding ourselves?
• 24:39
  Because as children, it is our caregiver's responsibility to tend to our wounds. But whether they do or not, as adults, it is our responsibility to attend to our wounds. Now let me be clear. We can still feel sad and mad and all the things of grief, that here we are still having to care for ourselves when we have always had to care for ourselves. That's entirely valid.
• 25:09
  And, also, we are adults with adult resources with other adult friends and adult therapists, and support systems we can create together even when sometimes lots of us, many of us have to be creative in doing so. And, that may look different for everybody. I have one friend who is super isolated because it is what they need, and they stay connected through one Zoom group a month and one recovery meeting a month and one therapy meeting a month and one coaching meeting a month. So they need four different kinds of care, but can only do one of them a month. So every week, they get a different piece of care, and that works for them.
• 26:02
  I have another friend who has a whole team of people. Right? But instead of it being like hair and makeup, it is heart and soul, and I think it's amazing. So what I need is gonna look different than what you need. What you need is gonna look different than what I need.
• 26:19
  I have to go to therapy twice a week, and that keeps me alive. I'm okay with that, mostly. It's hard. It's painful, but that is what I am doing. But, you know, there were years where I didn't have that.
• 26:33
  Other years where what I needed was to drive four hours to get to a safe therapist, which to this day, I will say was still good for me because it was the best that I had and I can keep the good. Right? It's not about being disrespectful to that therapist. It's not about disrespecting my own work in that therapy. I get to keep that as my work.
• 26:56
  I did that work. So when we feel I don't belong or we feel misunderstood, really, we are questioning our own worth and so can look at what would it take to understand ourselves better and accept ourselves better. The very public example of this would be me accepting littles and tending to littles differently than just avoiding them altogether. Okay? So let's walk through another example.
• 27:39
  Another example of attachment wound would be, I am alone and unwanted. You guys, I almost can't say these words out loud. I literally spent the entire year of 2024 in therapy on the theme of I am hurt and alone. We did eye movements. We processed for months and months and months.
• 28:07
  It kept coming up over and over again. I am hurt and alone. This example of of acknowledging the hurt being the attachment wound and digging deeper into the aloneness. Why am I alone? Because I am unwanted.
• 28:27
  That is so deeply painful, and we are going to talk about it, like, for the next ten weeks on the podcast. I'm not even kidding. So if the core wound is I am alone and unwanted, what the need is is to be wanted. I know that seems mind blowing and overly simple. And, also, when you are not supposed to exist, when you are supposed to be invisible, when you are not supposed to need anything, to deign to say something as bold and daring as I need to be wanted, seems over the top ridiculous, perhaps even dangerous in some cases of us.
• 29:23
  Right? Except also being wanted, being connected, being not alone is actually a need at a biological level because we are mammals. And specifically, because we are humans, needing to be wanted is not a bad behavior. Needing to be wanted is not selfish. Needing to be wanted isn't even fawning or codependent.
• 30:04
  It's codependent when we try to be wanted by making other people feel wanted. It's fawning when we need to be wanted at the expense of our own existence. But it's not that binary. Needing to be wanted is because you are alive and a human mammal. So when we feel unwanted, it is important to ask what is missing, what am I avoiding, what am I not wanting in myself.
• 30:46
  These are painful, painful questions that will reflect to us what happened in memory time that led us to the attunement trying to match the caregiver by not wanting ourselves. This is so painful. This is so painful. If you look on YouTube back at the still face experiments, the video with the baby in the high chair and the mother, I know it's so painful. Lots of us can't watch it, but that's what I'm talking about.
• 31:25
  I can link to it in the show notes. The as part of the experiment, the mother turns away and then looks back at the baby with a completely flat expression, the still face, not smiling, no eyebrows up, no big eyes, no sounds, no sweetness, no touching, nothing. Just completely flat. Right? And the baby goes through all the trauma responses and all the things trying to get away from what feels like not the mother, trying to push away what doesn't feel like the mother, and then freezing.
• 32:08
  So from flight to fight and then into freeze of if the only way I can have attunement with my mother is to agree that we don't exist, then I will also have a still face. I will also have a flat expression. I will also not notice my own existence. That's what happens in that video. The only answer to this is daring to be vulnerable enough to exist, to take up space, to dare to be alive.
• 32:56
  And the way we do that is by connecting with others, opening up to others, exposing ourselves in healthy ways to vulnerable experiences of connection and discussions, that is what soothes the wound. That is why we feel better after groups even though it seems scary to go. So I know this is so hard, but there is hope, and there are things we can do to tend to those attachment wounds so that we can have healthier strategies for healthier connections and heal those wounds. I know it's so scary and so hard, and we're gonna talk about some really hard things in coming weeks. So please pace yourself listening to the podcast.
• 34:00
  Pace yourself talking about it with your therapist. And also showing up for yourself, connecting with others about it is what heals us. We are surrounded by the Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemspeed.com.
• 37:23
  We'll see you there.