It All Forms You

REMINDER: the stuff that happens to you in the first five years of your life builds the foundation for your adult self.

It may all be preconscious (meaning you don't remember it) but it all forms you.

This includes attachment to primary caregivers, and whether that attachment is secure or insecure.

Healthy, secure attachment can be formed via attuned caregiving, where the person(s) responsible for you are responsive to your needs and make you feel safe. It includes having safe adults around in your early childhood that you could go to and be soothed.

Secure attachment is formed by being picked up and held as a baby, and taught to self-soothe via attention and care.

On the other hand, causes of insecure attachment include traumatic events, neglect, illness, etc. But also just...misattunement and/or unresponsiveness.

Your primary caregiver did NOT have to be actively harmful to you to have caused you to have insecure attachment.

Like, if your primary caregiver(s) didn't attend to your needs, or pick you up when you were crying as a baby, or teach you to self-soothe in a supportive way, you may have ended up with insecure attachment.

Maybe they had a bunch of other kids, were super busy, you "seemed fine" so they just left you alone, or maybe your primary caregiver(s) just didn't know much about childhood development and did what "felt right" by letting you cry it out or whatever in infancy.

All of that went into programming your nervous system.

But especially if you experienced physical abuse in your early years, it is important that you know that all of that lives inside you now as an adult.

You may think you "turned out fine" but it is likely you're not as fine as you may think.

(Anytime I hear someone say "I experienced xyz objectively harmful thing but I turned fine, I want to say NO YOU DID NOT" but since we don't have a time machine I can't show them what it looks like to be Actually Fine so there's no point in arguing that which cannot be demonstrated or proven. Just...trust me. You'd be 'more fine' if you had safe and secure attachment.)

Let's say 50-60% of adults are securely attached. They had responsive caregivers and basically trust the connections they have to other people.

That leaves MANY other people out here in the world living out their core wounds over and over in their adult relationships, often without even knowing it.

Here is what that can look like: trying to get needs met in ways that are manipulative, unrealistic, and unhealthy because you didn't learn early on to trust that your needs can and will be met by those who care for you.

Being reactive and quick to push people away because your body doesn't feel safe being close to people. You assume you'll eventually be left to self-soothe alone, which speaks to an old childhood story that you play out anytime you feel abandoned in the slightest. Regardless of what your adult self is actually experiencing.

Many people don't know how to have love without strings attached or how to communicate about what hurts in a productive way because you get so triggered that it activates your core wounds and you revert back to childhood coping strategies.

So you're just out here floundering and harming people, yourself included. Yelling, name-calling, getting defensive, manipulating, gas-lighting, lying, escaping, self-flagellating, and in myriad other ways basically tantruming like the wounded child you are.

I don't say this to shame you. It isn't your fault at all.

So please be gentle with yourself if you have a core wound that is showing up in your intimate partnerships. Full stop.

But for the love of god, get help and work to heal that shit. Stop re-enacting your trauma and forcing other people to live it with you.

I watch folks loop around the same triggers over and over with each other and it's so frustrating because I know the reaction is encoded from years ago and they don't even know it. You can work on this!!!!!