Insecure Avoidant Attachment: A Closer Look (Part 4 of 6) {EP 37}

Robyn: If you listened to yesterday's episode on insecure anxious attachment, tell me what's it been like to marinate on the idea that insecure attachment isn't bad or wrong. The way that our minds adapt to not getting our attachment needs met, right? To be seen, or soothed, safe, and secure, like doctors Siegel and Bryson and talk about in their books. The way our minds adapt to not getting his needs met is nothing short of amazing. It also unfortunately, isn't without cost. So can we allow both of those things to be true? That there's nothing wrong with insecure attachment. It's brilliant, but at the same time, the protectors that we develop in order to survive when we aren't getting our attachment needs met, means hiding away our real true selves. And yes, unfortunately, this comes with a cost. So it can be true that there's nothing wrong with the parts of us that hold insecure attachment while also being true that we want to find new ways of being in relationships so that our real true selves can emerge. 

Robyn: Let's review a few of my non-negotiables when exploring insecure attachment. One: attachment, as you may remember from the basics of attachment, is about both physical and emotional survival. Physical. Two: Babies first need their caregivers to be present and regulated in order to simply just keep them alive. And three: but babies also need their caregivers to be present and regulated so that the baby can become themselves. Okay, so also remember from the basics of attachment or talks about how attachment has these two complementary forces: connection, and autonomy. Babies who develop insecure avoidant attachment, struggle more with the connection side. As babies need co-regulation to organize their feelings or like refill their connection cup caregivers with avoidant attachment tend to get overwhelmed. Though they tend not to notice that they're getting overwhelmed because the neurobiology of avoidant attachment often leads to a lack of noticing. When the caregiver with avoidant attachment gets overwhelmed, they unintentionally are sending nonverbal cues to their baby that their baby's needs are too much for them. The baby figures this out quickly. And because the primary concern in keeping their caregiver reg- their primary concern is keeping their caregiver regulated, right so that they can experience being seen, secured, soothed, and safe as much as possible. The baby learns how to ignore and down regulate the connection side of their attachment needs. So again, let me remind you. Insecurely attached caregivers, insecurely avoidantly attached caregivers, specifically what we're talking about right now, they're not doing something bad or wrong. They’re- They have their own brilliant attachment adaptations are doing the very, very, very best that they can and do exactly what their neurobiology has helped them to do to get their own needs met and stay as safe as possible in relationships. So this is a no shame, no blame podcast. Everything about me is no shame, no blame, right? So as we're holding this truth especially if there's any part of you that's resonating that like maybe you yourself as a caregiver fall more into like the anxious avoidant category. See if you can try to just notice that as a truth as opposed to something to be judged or to feel ashamed of. As babies grow then they become obviously toddlers and preschoolers who appear to have limited connection needs whereas the insecure anxious babies had a lot of connection needs and a really hard time getting those connection needs met. Insecure avoidant babies appear, and again that the key word here is appear, to have limited connection needs. They appear independent. And maybe cool, calm, and collected, right? They also may demonstrate limitations in empathy, cooperation, and creating close emotional connection with others. It's really important to remember that these babies do have attachment needs. They have the same attachment needs as everyone else. They appear to have fewer attachment needs. They asked for their attachment needs to get met less often. That's their adaptation. If I was going to make a Venn diagram of insecure avoidant attachment, and if you head over to my blog, you can see what this Venn diagram looks like. A Venn diagram of insecure avoidant attachment where one circle is you and one circle is me. These circles barely overlap. So in insecure anxious attachment these two circles overlap almost completely, right? So the we space the overlap of the you in the me insecure anxious attachment is huge. There's very, very little you without me. In insecure avoidant attachment the opposite is true. That there's very, very, very little we space, the two circles overlap hardly at all. So the you and the me exists very separate from each other without creating much of like resonant, alive, embodied we space. Parents and caregivers with their own neurobiology of insecure avoidant attachment have a hard time being emotionally and energetically present with their babies, especially when their babies need them. Now again, no shame, no blame. This is their own brilliant adaptation, right? 

Robyn: Oh, and also this reminds me a quick note here again about adult attachment. We talked about it in the anxious episode as well. But adults with avoidant attachment are actually labeled in attachment research as dismissive, but in this episode, we're sticking with the same terminology here when I'm talking about adults or babies simply just to kind of decrease confusion with a topic that's already honestly confusing enough. Okay? So also it's important to remember that research indicates that babies mirror their caregiver’s state of mind with regard to attachment approximately 85% of the time. Y’all, that's a huge percent. Also remember that research indicates babies mirror their caregiver state of mind with regards to attachment approximately 85% of the time. Y’all, that's a huge percentage. So we are going with the assumption here that babies with avoidant attachment mostly had caregivers, who also would be classified as having avoidant attachment. In avoidant attachment, these parents and caregivers learned themselves a very, very, very young age that feelings felt bad. They didn't get the co-regulation that they needed when they were really small. And in fact, they learned that turning to their caregiver with the expectation of co-regulation caused their caregiver often to do the opposite. Their caregiver would emotionally retreat, maybe while offering the physical care that the baby needed like- like a bottle or getting fed or having a diaper change. Without a lot of like embodied, resonant, emotional presence and co-regulation. Avoidant attachment, though, falls into the organized categories of attachment. So we know that these babies developed an organized predictable way of coping with their caregivers' difficulty in being present and providing co-regulation. Their organized strategy of coping means that they stopped asking for their emotional needs to get met. They stopped expressing emotional needs. They often stop even realizing that they had them though again, let me emphasize they do have them. We all have them. It's just that we stop realizing that we even have them and babies with avoidant attachment learn then to be very autonomous. On the outside looking in, these babies and kids may look like they actually have exceptional self regulation. But it's really just an illusion. This attachment adaptation involves down regulating their attachment needs, and figuring out how to soothe themselves. Unfortunately, though, it's not real soothing, because a real soothing real the neurobiology of soothing comes only first from co-regulation. Babies and kids who are categorized as having insecure avoidant attachment are sometimes described as being really mature and independent. They often aren't very emotionally reactive until they are. And then it tends to be in like an explosion of rage. 

Robyn: Remember, of course, that the primary goal of these attachment adaptations is for the baby to keep their caregiver regulated enough that they can get as much being safe, and seen, and soothed, and secured as possible. The strategy of insecure avoidance is to keep their caregivers regulated by not turning toward them for emotional support, connection, or co-regulation. These babies have a hard time feeling their caregivers as a safe haven. As a place that they can flee to and they're overwhelmed and need their feelings organized. They look like babies who don't have a lot of needs. But again, this is just an illusion. They have a lot of needs, because y’all, humans have a lot of needs, especially emotionally. This is not something to be embarrassed of or ashamed of. This is what makes us human. And babies especially have a lot of needs, especially emotionally, right? We now know that these babies do truly still have these needs. They have the distress that typically prompts a baby to cry or ask for their needs to get met. These babies however, don't notice these needs. They're not feeling- they're not tuned into the feelings and sensations of distress and so they don't know that the distress exists. It's almost like the highway of information and sensation from the body to the brain has a traffic jam. These babies and kids miscue their caregivers into believing that they have very few emotional needs. Misqueuing is a language- the language of circle of security where I have learned so much about attachment. I think miscue is a really lovely way to look at this. But let's remind ourselves it's just a miscue. We know that they actually do have a lot of emotional needs because well they're human and a baby. Humans, and especially babies, have lots of emotional needs. And this is great that they do. 

Robyn: So maybe you're thinking, because a lot of people do and learning about insecure avoidant attachment, is like, well, so what's- what's kind of the problem here? Like what's the cost that goes along with insecure avoidant attachment? Because I've described things like mature, and independent, and can kind of take care of their own emotional needs, which in Western culture, we really highly value, right? But the thing is y'all that having emotional needs and experiences is just about the most glorious part of being human. If we spend a lot of energy trying to dissociate or ignore that reality, we lose some of our ability to be relationally connected with others. Insecure avoidant attachment leads to a decrease in empathy. It’s hard enough to make a mental map of their own experiences and emotional world, let alone make a map of somebody else's experiences and emotional world and then care about it, right? Cutting off the felt sense of having needs because it's too painful to have needs and have them go unmet is brilliant. But again, just like in anxious attachment, isn't without costs. So once again, can we hold these two seemingly conflicting truths in mind at once? The attachment adaptations are both brilliant and have a cost. Attachment adaptations are brilliant, and they're stable, but they also can change. Remember how in insecure anxious to talk- attachment we talked about the conflict between hope and expectation? So there's always, always, always the hope that somebody will finally see our true selves. There's always the hope in insecure avoidant attachment that somebody will finally see our needs as valid and worthy. And as not too much and not too overwhelming. There's always a hope that someone will want to be with us in times of distress. That someone loves and adores those parts of us too. Not just the often high performing, I have no need part, right? We all want all of our parts to be loved and adored. Simultaneously, though, with insecure anxious- with insecure attachment, whether it be anxious or today when we're talking about avoidant, we also are holding the hope with the expectation that our needs will not get met. And we're very, very likely to behave in ways that match our expectation. And then we evoke from others exactly what we expect, but not what we hope. That our needs aren't going to be seen, and that they don't matter. And we're expected to just make it through emotional life all on our own. 

Robyn: So again, let's just gently remember that it's very, very normal. When we learn about attachment for our own pockets of that part of attachment to become alive and stir. We start to feel these experiences of attachment in our own neurobiology. Because again, we've all- all had experiences of insecure attachment, even if we primarily had secure attachment experiences and caregivers with a secure state of mind. But none of us ever experienced perfect attunement and co-regulation. None of us experienced being seen, safe, soothed, and secure 100% of the time. So we all have in our implicit memory stored in our bodies, all of the different streams of attachment. So I'm wondering if you're noticing that as you're listening to this podcast that it feels just a little bit different than listening to the anxiously attached podcast. Maybe it even feels a little bit boring or flat. 

Robyn: Oftentimes, again, just learning about avoidant attachment can lead to a decrease in our own resonance, even a little bit of emptiness feeling. Because the neurobiology of avoidant attachment is a little bit of emptiness or nothingness. My mentor Bonnie Badenoch- Badenoch and remember, you're staying tuned for a podcast interview with Bonnie at the end of the month, describes that felt sense of avoidant attachment as an emotional desert. And y'all remember this is such a brilliant adaptation. 

Robyn: I'm going to end this podcast the same way I ended the podcast on anxious attachment like literally I'm going to say the same words. Attachment is quite stable throughout our lives unless we are lucky enough to get into close attachment- close relationship with someone who is able to offer us experiences of secure attachment or, if we are lucky enough to become aware of our attachment expectations, and then start to put in the hard work to shift them. So while attachment is quite stable, it is also quite malleable and changeable. There is always hope, y'all, I promise. I hope we'll be back next week when we explore disorganized attachment when this six part series is done at the end of next week, because we're also going to explore how attachment shifts and changes, so don't worry at all we're going to end the series with hope. I am going to have a really special surprise waiting for you. So if you haven't already, hit subscribe to this podcast, make sure you do that now. Thank you for taking the time to connect with me today and for caring for kids impacted by trauma. I am so, so, so grateful for you. If you are new here after you hit subscribe on the podcast head over to RobynGobbel.com/masterclass where you can watch a free three part video series on what behavior really is and how to change it. Please take a moment to share this podcast with your colleagues, friends, grandparents, teachers, everyone. I mean no sooner the whole world understands the neurobiology of being relationally, socially, and behaviorally human. The sooner our kids will live in a world that seems them for who they really are completely amazing, sometimes struggling. Thanks for tuning in today and I will see you next time.