Healing Through Disorganized Attachment Styles
Disorganized attachment styles are the rarest of the 3 attachment styles — and the most complex to handle.
For a long time, my relationships left me confused. I so desperately valued connection and wanted a relationship but the moment someone came close, I pushed them away.
And this would occur cyclically.
On a psychological level, it would occur like this:
I found someone attractive, actively pursued them, and would take them on a few dates. I’d feel happily content until an emotional bond would start to form — then I’d freak out. “What if I lead them on or hurt them?” would be my common thought. I’d come across aloof and distant in my affection whilst I battled with my inner conflict — eventually severing the connection and claiming I wasn’t feeling it.
But the moment they’d admit defeat and leave, my mind would switch. Suddenly I was anxious and was wanting them again. I’d even confess to my change of heart and bring them closer — only to repeat the cycle.
This would occur 4 or 5 times in some instances with the poor person who had to endure my, for lack of a better word — disorganization.
Relationships sent me into a complete frenzy and I had no idea where I stood in my own mind. Did I want this person, or not? If I did, then why did I doubt myself so much when they were close and push them away? If I didn’t want them, then why did I suddenly feel the desire to bring them back when I’d let them go?
Luckily for me, I was going through a short bout of therapy with an incredible therapist I’d love to work with again — when I have the money — in which we concluded what I’d originally thought:
I had a disorganized attachment style — a mixture of both anxious and avoidant tendencies, and incredibly challenging to manage.
A Brief Overview: Disorganised Attachment Styles
Disorganized attachment styles arise in more chaotic and distressing upbringings. They’re common styles to be found in sufferers of neglect or abuse growing up but can also be found in other, less severe, households or in individuals suffering mental health problems.
I never suffered abuse nor neglect but did suffer badly with coming to terms with my sexuality which meant all my relationships were a source of danger to my wellbeing — should anyone have found out —. I’ll clarify that no one would have harmed me for being gay but what your mind says and what reality says are two separate things. I also suffered from what I know now to be pure OCD which debilitated my self-worth. FUN!
In the iconic and popular attachment theory experiment in which parents leave their babies in a room to observe the infant’s reactions to being left, those infants that grew up to be “disorganized” showed the most erratic behaviors of all insecure attachment styles.
Whilst anxious infants show distress until the mother returns (desiring connection for comfort) and avoidant infants show ambivalence to their mother's absence (not requiring connection for comfort), disorganized infants were distressed when their parent left AND when they returned.
In short, the disorganized infants both craved AND feared connection. This is what gives rise to the pendulum-like swings in mood that disorganized individuals experience in adulthood. It doesn't matter if their partners are close OR far, there is distress regardless. In my own experience, this pattern is highly emotionally taxing AND confusing. I had no idea what my body truly wanted.
If you’d like to read more about the origins of disorganized attachments, check out my accompanying article.
Treating A Disorganized Attachment Style
As is clear from the infant’s reaction to the mother leaving the room, there is a battle on two fronts went it comes to treating a disorganized attachment style: The distress we feel when someone is close to us and the distress we feel when someone is distant.
It’s almost like we have anxious and avoidant attachment styles interplaying with one another. Whereas anxious individuals find comfort in the presence of their partners (which leads to their characteristic “needy” behaviors), and avoidant individuals find comfort in the distance (giving rise to their emotionally vacant behaviors), disorganized individuals have a mixture of both patterns.
In order to talk through healing the disorganized attachment, then, it’s best to look at the two patterns separately.
Healing The Fear of Distance (Anxious Attachment)
In terms of anxious attachment (I.e, anxiety caused by distance), there can be many reasons why we experience anxiety and crave connection. In my experience, and what I’ve researched, feelings of low self-worth and beliefs that a relationship can fix this are the driving force — but these reasons vary.
So my first question to you would be, what are you seeking in a connection that you can’t give yourself? We all turn to relationships for comfort, security, and stability, but if we are suffering from low self-worth and have beliefs that we NEED a relationship, this desire for connection will increase TENTH-FOLD. Not unlike starving in the desert, the hungrier you are, the more appealing the food looks.
In my experience, my anxious healing has come in the strengthening of my self-worth. When we’re able to satisfy and comfort ourselves, our desire to reach out to others will subside.
It’s also important we don’t choose individuals who trigger this anxious side. Whilst we will of course rub up against old patterns during our healing journey, if you’re anxious and you’re pursuing someone avoidant or indecisive of you, they will trigger you. If you suffer from any insecure attachment style, you have to be aware of who you’re choosing to invest your time in. It’s difficult to heal self-worth wounds when someone is inconsistent or uncooperative.
Inevitably healing our anxious side means becoming stable in our independence. In order to do this you will also need to practice emotional regulation techniques to combat anxiety and seek calm when you are triggered. For more on this, read the below.
Healing Our Fear of Closeness
Whilst avoidant individuals get a bad rep for being aloof and distant, we have to recognize that habits of pushing people away are a reflection of trauma. Deep down we all want connection; it’s a part of human nature. Avoidant individuals experience great loneliness in the fact their fears of connection push them to abandon love and whilst they find comfort in the distance — there is little satisfaction.
So if your avoidant or experience distress in closeness, why is this? I find there are two options:
- The fear of others hurting us
- The fear of us hurting them
I believe the latter is rarely spoken of as we often interpret fear of connection as being led by a fear of being hurt — but this is only partially the reason. In my experience, I’ve never run from love out of fear of being hurt but from worrying I’ll hurt someone else. I believe my experience with OCD led to this — but this is outside of the scope of this article.
Whether you fear being hurt or fear hurting someone else, the path to healing runs through TRUST. In the former, we have to learn to trust someone else’s ability to love us, and in the latter, we learn to trust our ability to love someone else.
But this can only happen through engaging in the connections we fear the most — which brings an additional challenge to this. Whereas healing anxious tendencies lies in being more independent, to heal avoidance we have to experience and withstand closeness.
This brings into the frame again the importance of choosing the right partners who can support you and not intentionally trigger you. It means building relationships with individuals of equal emotional intelligence whom you can trust and can grow with. It also may require working with a trained professional who can assist you as you challenge yourself.
Final Thoughts
Disorganized attachment styles are not easy to manage or heal from — but as is the case with all insecure attachment styles, you CAN heal. Your attachment style does not define your future relationships — though it may have defined your past ones.
I believe some of us can see attachment styles as a death sentence to all of our relationships, “well I have this attachment style, therefore, I can’t succeed”, we may say to ourselves. With that mindset, you won’t.
There are so many variables as to why you may suffer from a disorganized attachment style and each of us has our unique experiences. This means that I will not have covered, nor will know, all of the reasons why you behave the way you do — this is your work.
Additionally, if you’re finding this work challenging please seek help from a professional who can work with you. Depending on the trauma experienced, the feelings that come with insecure attachment styles can be incredibly strong. Learning to manage these will take time and effort but I believe in you.
Thank you for reading this article. I appreciate the support so give this article a few *claps* if you enjoyed it and follow Above The Middle for more like this. If you want to keep reading, here are some related articles for you to check out.