Did you grow up in a chaotic environment?: a peek into the disorganized attachment style

Happy New Year! I hope you are slowly easing into the year and taking good care of yourself.

One of the things I share with clients all the time is the reminder that we come by our attachment patterning honestly. When we dig more deeply into this idea, we can recognize the importance of the family dynamics we experience when we are young and how those patterns shape our relationships as adults. So often, the stress of daily living becomes the soup we swim in as children.

I am much more cognizant of this now that I am a parent, and I am able to see how easy it is for families to slip into patterns of arguing, yelling, blaming, engaging in the silent treatment, putting children in the middle, and shutting down. I also want to remind you that there is NO SUCH THING as a perfect parent or family, and that we are not striving for that—if you are reading this, I trust that you are trying your best, striving to learn, and practicing doing better as much as you can. That is good enough, my friend.

That being said, chaotic family dynamics still exist in family systems, and unfortunately they do come with cost in our adult attachment patterning. If you grew up this way, you can expect some of the following in adult relationships:
—feeling both excited and interested in relationships and also a bit afraid of them (or maybe even terrified)
 —noticing both a push and a pull feel in your body, your actions, or your words
—feeling deeply triggered in your relationships when you come up against tension or stress
—having very strong narratives about yourself (“I’m better off on my own”, “I’m not meant to be in a relationship”, “relationships just don’t work out for me”, “I’m stupid/inept/don’t know how to do relationships”, etc.)

Chaotic family dynamics can be a result of various situations, but the thing I see most often as a theme is that there is an imbalance of power somewhere in the family system. One person may have more sway than others—maybe because they are drinking or using substances or they have a terrible temper or they threaten to hurt themselves or their mood is unpredictable—and this throws off the dynamic of the entire family. When this occurs, the other members of the system are “required” to try to balance out the power differential (which is quite impossible) and usually end up over-correcting, tending toward codependency, hyper-vigilance, and living in fear.

I also want to note that sometimes it's hard to tell if you grew up in a chaotic environment because relational "chaos" isn't always loud. Chaos can be subtle and insidious, looking more like undertones of never quite getting it right or feeling like you have done something wrong constantly. It can take a while for my clients to understand and acknowledge the disorganized aspects of their upbringing because as I mentioned before, we are swimming in the soup--and we are used to whatever dynamics we experienced day to day in our childhoods.

Over the course of my work, I have heard repeatedly about how few resources there are for disorganized attachment style. In my opinion, this style deserves just as much support as the more common styles (although I would argue that this style is actually much more common that we have been taught). I’ve waited to provide more information about this style because it’s complex and it’s important to me that I do it justice.

This year, I’m excited to share that Monica Leblanc and I will be addressing this style in our new HELD offerings: three classes about the disorganized style specifically, ranging from the basics to the deeper aspects of disorganized attachment. If you have any aspect of the disorganized style or are in relationship with someone who does, these workshops will support you. Our first workshop is completely free: Chaotic Family Dynamics. We will be exploring common family dynamics that create disorganized patterns of relating. Emotionally immature parenting, role reversal, and family homeostasis will be discussed to support you in developing a deeper understanding of disorganized patterning (and what to do when faced with these dynamics!).

We will then host two additional workshops later this winter: The Foundations of Disorganized Attachment and Shame, Rage, and Disorganized Attachment. These low cost classes ($25) will dive much deeper into this topic and will include somatic and corrective experiencing practices.

You can learn more and register here. I would love to see you there! (Also, if for some reason you have difficulty affording the cost of the second two classes but feel a pull to take them, will you let me know? I want to get you this information).

As I’m taking a big picture view of the year, I’m feeling into the joy of sharing more about what’s so important to me: developing deeper and more connected relationships with the people we love the most, and understanding and having compassion for ourselves and our experiences.

I’m so excited to share more with you soon. If you have any questions, you can reply to this email. I’m looking forward to seeing you soon!

Warmly,
Elizabeth