How Does Your “Attachment Style” Impact Your Adult Relationships?

I thought this article was very interesting.  

Which Attachment Style are you?

Your adult attachment style has developed as a result of repetitive interpersonal interactions with important caregivers or parents as children. These early interactions with significant others result in the development of expectations for how readily people are capable of meeting your needs and serve as an emotional blueprint for what to expect from other people. Over time, we begin to develop a sense of ourselves as an autonomous individual based on feedback and emotional containment from our caregivers. As adults, we take these attachment styles into our relationships with others, creating a complex interpersonal “dance” of emotions, motivations, and expectations.

Secure Attachment Style:

Adults with a secure attachment style tend to value relationships and are able to readily identify memories and feelings from their childhoods in non-defensive ways. For adults whose childhood held traumatic memories or unreliable/inconsistent parenting, they can still “acquire” a secure attachment style as an adult based on their willingness and ability to work through those unpleasant experiences and acknowledge their impact. For securely attached adults, they tend to not experience intense anxiety or fear when loved ones are not readily available, as they trust that they will be there when they need them. (This is an example of a relationship expectation learned in infancy/childhood.)
As you read the “typical statements” of adults with each of the four main attachment styles, consider how these statements were learned in relation to expectations from parents or primary caregivers. For example, “I know [my mom] will be there for me when I need [her].”
Typical statements of a secure adult:

• “I know he will be there for me when I need him.”
• “He is able to comfort me when I’m distressed.”
• “I enjoy it when she gets emotionally close, because I feel emotionally close to her.”

Dismissive/Avoidant Attachment Style:

A dismissive/avoidant attachment style is often marked by an adult’s inability to recall many details about his childhood. For example, when asked about family relationships or childhood, this adult may respond with a statement similar to, “My family… my parents… I don’t know. I don’t remember much about growing up.” There may also be a tendency to describe one’s parents in either overly idealized or overly devalued terms – seeing them somewhat dichotomously. This attachment style may impact current adult relationships by the expression of detachment and avoidance of emotional closeness. There may be great value placed on appearing self-reliant, competent, or independent, since as a child these individuals learned that showing vulnerability was unacceptable.
Typical statements of a dismissive adult:

• “I don’t care if she doesn’t love me / want me.”
• “I don’t tell him I’m upset because I can take care of my feeling myself.”
• “No problem. Everything’s fine.”

Preoccupied/Anxious Attachment Style:

A preoccupied or anxious attachment style may manifest itself in an adult appearing to be “all caught up” or ensnared in preoccupations about current or past relationships. It is almost as if these individuals don’t have room in their own minds for their own minds… they are completely filled with thoughts about other people and preserving relationships. The central theme of this attachment style is a fear of losing relationships.
You may guess that this attachment style tends to develop in children whose parents were inconsistently available or unpredictable. This can leave children feeling preoccupied with how to hold on to those important relationships, which were perplexing or unstable. Teyber and McClure (2011) note that “many preoccupied [individuals] grew up enmeshed (and often parentified) with an unpredictable parent who was too often caught up in his/her own emotional upheavals to be able to be a safe haven and provide containment and affect regulation for the child.”
Typical statements of a preoccupied adult:

• “I’m often wondering whether she really cares about me or not.”
• “I often feel dependent on him for emotional support.”
• “I turn to him when I’m upset, but it doesn’t really help me feel much better.”

Fearful Attachment Style:

Fearfully attached adults may display a wide array of symptoms, with some combination of emotions present in both dismissive and preoccupied adults. Two primary themes pervade the fearful attachment style: (1) they are likely to have suffered significant parental hostility or overt rejection, and (2) some have suffered physical or sexual abuse, but have not come to terms with the impact of the abuse. These adults may display a variety of acting out symptoms (e.g., drug/alcohol abuse or self-injurious behavior). These individuals desperately want to approach others and make meaningful connections, although they are terrified at the prospect of genuine relationships with other people because they have learned that relationships can be quite dangerous – even terrifying.
Consider the following “typical statements” as messages that the adult heard from the parent about themselves as a child. As an adult, they are likely to have internalized those hurtful statements and now believe them to be true about themselves. For example, imagine the impact of a parent saying to their young child, “What’s wrong with you?!?” These statements can have a lasting deleterious impact on the growing child’s self-esteem and sense of self-worth.
Typical statements of a fearful adult:

• “There’s something wrong with me.”
• “I don’t matter – I just hate myself.”
• “No one would want to be with someone like me.”

As you read through these four adult attachment styles, consider the way in which the messages that you have internalized about what to expect from other people, relationships, and even yourself is intimately connected to the messages that you received from your primary caregivers. Imagine how differently two people might behave if one of them was raised by parents who provided consistency, stability, and love, versus one raised by parents who were self-absorbed in their own emotional dramas, yet deluded themselves into believing they did “what was best” for their children.
The messages that you received about your own self-worth/strengths and what to expect in close relationships with other people is imprinted on you as you grow into adulthood. However, even if you weren’t raised in a stable home that could provide a foundation for a secure attachment style, you have the opportunity to work through any losses, mixed messages, or traumatic experiences that you had in childhood now, as an adult. With adulthood comes the opportunity to cultivate the mindful wisdom necessary to heal any old wounds and to become the strong, loving, and consistent parent that you would like to be for your own children.  Written on February 19, 2012 by Laura in Individual Differences
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If you are interested in learning what your adult attachment style is, try this free attachment style quiz, based on the widely used “Experiences in Close Relationships – Revised” (ECR-R) questionnaire.

Teyber, E., & McClure, F. H. (2011). Interpersonal process in therapy: An integrative model. (6 ed., pp. 232-279). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Time slips along my path...

There have been several times in my life where I had such profound glimpses into my own future that I felt I was actually there witnessing what was happening from a separate viewpoint.  I mean, I was watching what was happening to me from a crowd. 

It’s happened a few times to me, the most profound time I can remember was when I walked out onto the football field for the first time as a freshman in high school on a bright sunny day back in 1977.  I stood in one spot and looked up at the stadium stands and suddenly it was dark, there was a stage and I was standing there under a spotlight being crowned homecoming queen.  I felt all of the emotions, but was shocked to see what I was seeing WAS ME up there.  I stopped for a second and said to myself, “No Way”. 

I didn’t even know what that celebration was since I came from the 8^th grade.  I looked around and the bleachers were full of people.  This was not some fantasy or dreaming thing, this was so real that I literally felt like I was there.  Then suddenly I was back at school and it was a sunny day.  I brushed it off as some weird thing.  The intensity of the experience stayed with me for a long time. 

4 years later that very experience actually happened.  I was crowned homecoming queen just like in the vision. I looked down into the crowd to see if I was standing there.  I didn’t see myself.  It was exactly like the vision I had experienced years before except I was standing on the stage being crowned. 

This happened again to me in 1985.  I had just finished my day shift at a job in Sausalito.  It was sunset and I was walking up the hill to my car and suddenly it was a bright sunny morning and I was standing in front of an old white haired woman.  She had her face turned away from me as she was talking about the garden in her front yard.  

I saw the side of her face she looked familiar and then I looked at her body and she was old and thin, she had long white hair all pulled up, she must have been at least 75 + years old.  She looked like she was living in a beautiful home, standing in her long steep driveway.  I looked again and could recognize her voice.  IT WAS ME!  Oh my God, I was seeing myself as an old woman.  I was beautiful, and I looked healthy.  I really stopped in my tracks and did a huge double take.  That was me?  Wow! 

This was not some profound celebration or anything like the vision I had before.  It was just a glimpse of me in my future again.  I took a step back to catch my breath, and then it was sunset again and I was looking up the hill to get to my car.  I remember sitting there for a long time.  It made me feel like I had a long life ahead of me.  At the age of 23 one doesn’t really think that is a big deal.  It was this very same year I started to go by Tré instead of Tracy.  At that time in my life, I felt sure that I would not live past the age of 30.  Don’t ask me why, but I never thought I would live very long in this life until I saw this vision of myself.  Why did I get to see myself like this?  

I didn’t know it at the time, but I think I do today.  Who would have thought that in the years to come that I would have a serious eating disorder?  Or that later I would suffer a head, neck and back injury and then have difficulty standing and walking and find myself overweight and living in physical pain?  So much pain and suffering that there were times I would consider ending my life?  There were times that I resented that vision because I didn’t want to live that long.  But seeing myself happy and healthy and what looked like in balance has given me comfort during my darkest days.

I haven’t had any visions of my life since then.  I’m only in my early 50’s, I have a ways to go and apparently still a long life ahead of me.  So apparently I make some good decisions in my near future since I end up there.  That sure is a mind fucker ain't it?

I think my highest divine self has been nice enough to give me some helpful hints along the way.  These visions or time slips, have really helped me along my path.  I just wish I could do one on purpose.