Suffering from disordered attachment is a wound that can be hard to recognise or trace until significant relationships fail later in life, I came across a lot of interesting notes on attachment styles in an old journal that I unpacked last week to take along to therapy this afternoon.. the major styles I identify with are avoidant, resistant and disorganised, all are responses to mothers with their own wound and styles, all profoundly affect our body and desire to engage with and connect or bond to others and so often the deeper roots can be hidden.
I identify with turning towards substances in the absence of someone being there, its still a pattern and I see how, from the age of 40 I disengaged from my husband and turned inward with a negative preoccupation but all for the purposes of finding myself. Who knows how things would have panned out if I trusted a sponsor in AA as it was I connected with someone who also had avoidant attachment when really I needed a strong secure, available consistent presence. I left AA when we moved to England in 1999 and sought out my first decent therapist, Wendy that year. It took a while to build up trust and for the walls surrounding my sadness and pain over lost attachments to come up and at the same time, back in Australia my sister and Mum were going through so much, I felt the tearing to be with them and the rest is history, when my therapist left to go on a months leave and left me with no ‘holding’ and Jonathan, my husband went away with a friend, things came unstuck. In the end he left me all alone after I left him for 6 months to try to go back to therapy with Wendy a year later. Wendy was upset I left Jonathan all alone to go back to therapy in another country, telling me my marriage was more important.
I cannot change a single thing now. After Jonathan left me, two years later, I sustained a head injury trying to go back to the UK to be close to him again and pick up the threads of my missing life, only to end up in an ashram where he visited to tell me the painful news that he had found someone else. The sad thing was at this time other family wanted me close to them but due to all the trauma of my past I could only avoid that. So sad now as I am super close to this side of the family even though we live in different states of Australia.
I did eventually come back to live with my Mum after my next relationship failed. I see how he battled with my avoidance of life, and I have compassion for us both now. Getting my dog, Jasper in 2012 helped me to have some attachment to a living being and slowly through going to the dog park from then on we made some new friends. These were the people who I don’t see any more but at the time of my cancer treatment stepped into help along with my very very special friend, Jules from childhood. My other sister had a suicide attempt throughout this period due to her own broken attachment trauma.
I now see how much hurt I buried after the trauma that happened to my oldest sister unfolding from 1980 onwards. This is the time of year she fell to the ground one afternoon with an aneurysm and was found by her oldest son… I read my blog and played the song She’s Like The Wind in therapy today with Kat bawling my eyes out… I recognised the link to the poem I wrote about my older sister and surrogate Mum going away when I was only 3 years old. I remembered too how during the last part of the reading of my eulogy I spoke of how I felt her spirit had finally been freed from the painful prison and entrapment of her last immobilised years in the care home. The flood of grief was intense and I am quiet tired now.
Slowly I am making new connections. Miracle of miracles I have finally been invited to my living sister’s oldest son’s birthday dinner this weekend but I am anxious about if I am wanted there by him. He was not happy me sharing about his children here and I tried to honour that and not mention them much, he told my sister it is her party as her friends are going while his friends will be away at another 40th. I hope I am wanted. I am very much looking forward to it even though I have apprehensions I wont be drinking alcohol and everyone else but one will. I will pray before it.
I am grateful for my growing connection with Chahir with whom I can share love and respect. I am glad we moved through a clash a few months ago after I had my dental surgery. I do worry about him coming here this year and leaving his own family behind, but I have promised him we can travel back to his home if things work out. One of the reasons I moved back to the UK with my ex husband 6 years after we married was I felt him missing family but he seemed to be happier at that time away from them. In the end they told him they thought I wasn’t enough fun not drinking. Possibly true. Jonathan once told me I ‘killed his spirit’. Maybe it was my unresolved grief or my sobriety but I can’t drink just to fit in and numb out… I have been through too much. In the end there is pain over so many broken attachments in my life.
I read a book a while ago called Addiction As Attachment Disorder. I had no control over the way I was treated or handled in childhood, the truth is it left scars I am working my darn hardest to address in therapy. At times I see real change in me, when my fear and avoidance finally loosens up, and for any change and movement towards healthier connections, I am grateful.
Emerging From The Dark Night 