Let’s talk attachment disorders today, basically, about how we form attachments or how we limit ourselves from forming any.
Through the pandemic, we all have been close more than ever, and trust me when I say it has been overwhelming at times. And it’s okay to feel so. It’s natural. It’s human. However, your stay home, with so much going around, unpredictable and trying times might have cost our sanity at times, and this is important that we talk about attachments theory today because what you do today, with yourself, and your loved one will shape how they feel today and tomorrow.
Attachment Disorder in adults is common as being adults we grow up into the lifestyle where we make professional or personal relationships and try to make a stronger bond between our families and loved ones. Being an adult is a phase where we learn the maturity factor or the understanding of things around us in a more sensible way.
How we share the emotion or the quality of emotional care from our childhood days shapes our quality of attachment in our adult days. As a kid, if we’ve gone through some traumatic experiences or abuse or seeing the separation of your parents is what changes the whole structure of the attachment phase in our adult days.
As we grow up, we develop different attachment styles, and sometimes we have no idea that we are developing an attachment style for all of us and for the people around us with whom we share an intimate or emotional bond.
Reasons why an adult goes through Attachment Disorders
Limiting your kid by not allowing them to do things that they often find interesting can cause your kid to grow as an adult with a mentality of limited feelings about almost everything even in the sense of attachment.
- This can prevent them to not be open in the sense of sharing emotions.
- As an adult, it only gets awkward every time he/she/they tries to have a relationship with someone.
- Like I mentioned earlier if a kid goes through a traumatic experience as an example seeing a brutal, haunting accident of their loved ones can cause a fear in them of losing someone they love in their adult phase.
- Being physically or sexually abused during childhood can cause crucial issues in their adult life as they become apprehensive or afraid to have an intimate relationship with anyone, which ultimately causes them to have a detachment.
- As a kid watching your own parents fighting or a divorce can also be a traumatic experience that eventually turns the kid into a type of adult that doesn’t allow any attachments.
As the person goes through attachment disorders, they eventually develop a specific style which also causes the person to have a hard time making relationships.
Nervous Attachment Style
- In this disorder, the person might feel nervous or anxious about the relationships she/he/they are having.
- Will feel a need for reassurance from the people you love that they also love you back or care about you.
- It will make the person more sensitive about his/her/their feelings towards the person they love.
Unenthusiastic Attachment Style
- A person will lose the tendency of depending on people like on family or partners.
- Will think of having a relationship is a waste of time and investing feelings in someone else is not worthy of.
- Will prefer to be alone in the manner of living which causes to have a detachment from others.
Fearful Attachment Style
- The person will lose interest in experiencing their feelings for someone in the sense of avoiding them.
- And even if you’re in a relationship, then it might make you think that you’re not good enough to be in a relationship as you start seeing flaws in you.
- And the person also starts feeling incompatible in the relationships they are in.
Attachment Disorders in adults can happen due to other reasons like trust issues, anger problems or control issues. As you develop these attachment disorders at an early age, it starts creating a stronger statement in your upcoming life which causes you to have detachment with everything around you.
Our attachment styles affect everything from choosing a partner to how well our relationship progresses to, unfortunately, how it ends. That is why understanding and recognising our attachment patterns can help us address our strengths and vulnerabilities in a relationship.
Attachment disorders can be treated with psychotherapy or CBT as therapy allows you to work on your emotions and your feelings in a much more personal way. You can express yourself in front of people in the way you want which might give you a chance to break the whole “not able to attach with people” cycle around you and the people you know.
But as the disorder takes a stronger toll on you, breaking it and allowing yourself to attach will take hard work and a much stronger commitment to it.
