The Tragedy of Disorganized Attachment (Part 5 of 6) {EP 38}

Robyn: Why hello, hello. today's podcast is part five of a six part series on attachment. So far, we've explored the basics of attachment, then secure attachment, and then both insecure anxious and avoidant attachment. If you haven't already, you're definitely want to go back and listen to those previous episodes. Today we are going to be looking at the tragedy of disorganized attachment. I'm Robyn Gobbel. And welcome to the Parenting After Trauma podcast where I take the science of being relationally, socially, and behaviorally human and translate that for parents of kids who have experienced trauma. I'm a psychotherapist with over 15 years of experience working with kids who have experienced trauma and their families. I'm also a self diagnosed brain geek and relationship freak. I study the brain kinda obsessively and even teach the science of interpersonal neurobiology in a certificate program. I started this podcast on a whim with the intention of getting free, accessible support to you as fast as possible. So this podcast isn't fancy and I do very little editing. Sometimes you'll hear cockadoodledoo in the background, although it's the middle of the afternoon and blazing hot here today. So I'm not sure the chickens are out much right now. If you love this episode, add Parenting After Trauma to your favorite podcast player and share with your friends and colleagues. Be sure to head over to RobynGobbel.com to discover all the free resources I have for you including a free 45 minute masterclass. On the three questions we should be asking ourselves when faced with challenging behavior from our kids. Is this child regulated, connected, feeling safe? You can grab that masterclass at RobynGobbel.com/masterclass. And while you're over on my website, poke around, discover all the other free resources I have available for you. And then of course, check out The Club. A virtual community of connection co-regulation and, of course, a little education for parents of kids impacted by trauma and the professionals who support them. Earlier this month, I released a brand new feature in The Club. All of The Club content masterclasses, Q&A’s, guest presenters, everything that happens in The Club on live video, now has the audio uploaded into a private podcast feed just for Club members. This will dramatically increase the ease at which Club members can access all of that content. The masterclasses, the guest presenters, the Q&A. Everything. When I made the announcement about the private podcast feed, one member sent me a message and said they were so excited to be able to listen and re-listen to all of The Club content right on their phone. They went on to say ‘I can't even tell you how wonderful The Club is and how much I am getting out of the content. The space and connection with others dealing with similar challenges. It is really decreased isolation and increased hope’. The Club opens for new members approximately every three months and if you're listening to this podcast when it airs in June 2021. The Club is reopening very soon on June 29. Each month we have a monthly theme. So in July, August, and September in The Club, we're going to take everything from this six part podcast series on attachment. And just go deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the felt sense of the neurobiology of attachment. And The Club through the connection and the co-regulation that we have, we'll be able to really lean into it and embodied and the live exploration of attachment. Opening up the possibility for real changes in our own neurobiology, and of course, for our kids, as well. 

Robyn: Alrighty, so you're ready for today's podcast? Disorganized attachment is the only attachment style and I put that in air quotes, if you could see me air quoting attachment style. Because I've already talked about how I don't love the word style when it comes to talking about attachment, but the researchers are using it, so I'll use it too. So disorganized attachment is the only air quote attachment style that is both insecure and disorganized. So, do you remember from parts three and four, where we talked about insecure anxious and insecure avoidant attachment? And then part two, where we talked about secure attachment. So those styles air quotes of attachment fall into the organized category of attachment, because those babies develop a predictable way of getting their attachment needs met. With disorganized attachment, there is no predictable or organized solution for the baby in order to be able to get their attachment needs met. Because disorganized attachment is underneath much of the bizarre, baffling, confusing, and overwhelming behaviors that lead us to like Google searches on the internet looking for help with our parenting and our partnerships and our friendships, relationships in general. It can be really, really easy to lose sight of the truth. That our attachment patterns aren't good or bad. Sure, the behaviors that emerge from them are challenging relational behaviors, without a doubt. But attachment itself isn't good or bad. It's simply just is. And the same is true for disorganized attachment. Even though I know, I know, in my bones, that disorganized attachment can feel like absolute anguish for both the child and for the adults. Right? But even disorganized attachment, even with the truth that it's such a tragedy, even with the anguish involved, it's still protected. It is of course not without great cost. 

Robyn: Let's review really quickly Bowlby’s three attachment behaviors that we talked about way at the beginning of this series in part one. So Bowlby identified, right, these three attachment behaviors. Number one, the seeking, monitoring, and maintaining of proximity to the caregiver. Number two, using the attachment figure as the secure base. And number three, fleeing to the caregiver when afraid or fearful. Right? So with those three attachment behaviors in mind, what happens then, when babies flee towards their caregiver when they were afraid, but it was the caregiver who was causing the fright? 

Robyn: Do you remember how these- there are these two opposing forces in attachment? So in disorganized attachment, what happens is that our fight/ flight, Danger Danger system gets engaged, right? The system that says, whoa, whoa, this isn't safe, go away, get away from this. And then the very next system that's comes online is our seeking safety system. Right? And that was identified by Bowlby. That an attachment behavior is that babies flee to their caregiver when they're afraid. So the Danger Danger system goes off. And then the seeking safety system becomes alive, right? And an attachment an inborn system that is first and foremost about physical safety. So when that Danger Danger system becomes engaged, the attachment sister kicks in- that attachment system kicks in next, in order to encourage promote look for survival. And those babies flee to their caregiver looking for the safety and co-regulation that they need in order to be safe and then soothed. This, right, is a safe haven behavior. The baby is seeking both safety and co-regulation. The baby needs a safe, regulated adult to organize- co-organize their feelings of fear and fright. Imagine then, that a baby experiences a fright, and turned towards their attachment figure for safety and co-regulation, but that that person is the same person who caused the fright. At the very least, this becomes a terrifyingly confusing experience. The baby's experiences are you here to help me or hurt me? And on top of that confusing terror, when the caregiver, who is supposed to offer co-regulation, is instead causing dysregulation. This situation leaves the baby all alone with huge, terrifying feelings. Their baby is frightened, and dysregulated in need of co-regulation in order to be safe, seen, soothed and secure. But instead receives more fear, terror, and loneliness. Their fright isn't co-regulated, they aren't see- soothed and seen. They don't receive help co-organizing their feelings. This then reactivates their Danger Danger system again. And then what happens? They flee toward their caregiver because their Danger Danger system was activated, except that their caregiver isn't available to soothe them and in fact, the caregiver may continue to be the source of their terror. Right? So then their Danger Danger system gets activated again, and they flee towards their caregiver except their caregiver isn't available to soothe them in this. Danger Danger activation flee towards their caregiver but caregiver can't soothe. Danger Danger flee towards caregiver can’t soothe, right? That cycle then continues to go, and go, and go, and go. If- if just listening to this podcast feels intolerable, just in this moment of listening, imagine this happening over, and over, and over, and over, and over again in real life. For me this like spinning sensation emerges turning in circles a frantic, go toward, go away, go toward, go away, go toward, go away sensation. All while being all alone. Disorganized attachment is disorganized because there is no solution. It's an unsolvable dilemma. The baby's nervous system remains in a state of chaos. Chaos is what embeds into their nervous system, and then becomes a part of the implicit memory of attachment.

Robyn: The circle of security, which is one of the most brilliant frameworks. I mean, y'all I've trained in a lot of different things. And circle security, hands down, remains like one of the top two trainings I've ever taken. The circle of security talks about distorting- disorganizing experiences for a baby as times when their caregiver is mean, weak, or gone. And really, I've never found a more helpful way to quickly conceptualize and then easily remember the types of experiences that can lead to disorganization. So let's go through those: mean, weak, and gone. 

Robyn: We'll start with mean. This is typically what we think about when we imagine what happens to create disorganized attachment, right? Like that- that's a caregiver who is abusive or humiliating. That caregivers, likely have an implicit awakening of their own terror of being terrified or have a caregiver causing them harm. And this implicit awakening floods their own nervous system, moving them into a state of extreme fear. And then, you know, behaviors emerge that are experienced by the baby as terrifying, right? Abusive or humiliating. Now the child is terrified and has nowhere to flee. Right? They've lost both their safe haven and their secure base. That one typically feels the clearest to understand with regards to disorganized attachment. But the other two caregiver behaviors that circle security calls weak and gone are also experienced as terrifying and therefore disorganizing to a baby. 

Robyn: So let's look at weak. The weak caregiver from a circle security standpoint is- is a caregiver who has become flooded with dysregulation and fear and is no longer able to provide a secure base or a safe haven for their child because they have energetically collapsed. They're so terrified that their nervous system has collapsed and the infant that the baby would experience this as a loss of safe haven and secure base and a sense of weak. Right? So the caregiver is in a state of fright themselves, most likely because of their own experiences in the past, maybe of being abused or victimized. And because their past experiences are of- terror flood their nervous system, then they move into a state of fear. This is terrifying for a child because the parents collapse and fearfulness, which is sometimes even of the child, a fearfulness of the child. When the child loses their safe haven and secure base, a parent isn't available to co-regulate that child's feelings of fear and terror. The child is left all alone with their own experience of terror. 

Robyn: And then gone was the third way that the circle of security describes parenting, caregiving behavior that can lead to a disorganizing experience: mean, weak, and gone. So in gone, the caregiver is either physically or energetically gone. The child may be left literally all alone for a very long time, like longer than a baby should ever be left all alone. And event- inevitably, of course, babies have needs right? They coo, or they cry, or they fuss. They do something to alert their caregiver that they need to be safe, seen, soothed, and secure. But what if the caregiver is actually physically not there? What if nobody comes? What if the caregiver isn't frightening mean, or frightened weak, but actually not there at all? And then sometimes caregivers, due- due to their own significant histories of trauma and terror, are physically present but energetically gone. They may become swept away in their own state of disorganization and ultimately, dissociation. The child turns toward their parent to have their- their experience co-regulated. The caregiver is physically present, but unable to be the safe haven. The caregiver can't see the baby, nor can they provide the safety, or the soothing, or the security that the baby needs. 

Robyn: So it's important in this moment for us all to take a breath together. [audible breath] And remember that caregivers, who could be considered mean, weak, or gone, are themselves swept away in their own implicit experiences. Their caregivers with their own history of attachment disorganization, and they're extremely vulnerable to the past intruding upon them. The past when they had experiences of being terrified because someone else was acting terrifying toward them. Disorganizing experiences embed into our nervous systems as chaotic and confusing. They lack coherence and organization. So these children become chaotic and confusing. They are extremely difficult to care for because they send very mixed signals about what they need and want. They may adapt to this disorganization by developing a protective part that decreases their reliance on others. This may cause them to behave in controlling and manipulative ways. The disorganization remains because connection is a biological imperative. And there's a part of their nervous system that continues to desperately search for, long for connection. So their nervous system is tied into like these metaphorical knots. They're exhausted. These children remain in an almost constant state of arousal, without any authentically developed self regulation and without any trust or willingness to seek out co-regulation. They remain in this proverbial spinning circle of disorganization like a tornado, and regretfully their caregivers are dysregulated too. Because it is highly dysregulating to care for a child with this level of disorganization. 

Robyn: You might be intimately familiar with that truth. That it is highly dysregulated to care for a child with this level of disorganization. Just like the babies with insecure anxious and insecure avoidant attachment, babies who develop disorganized attachment remain hopeful that they'll get their needs met. But they continue to expect to be terrified and all alone. They behave then in ways that match the expectation and evoke from their caregiver what they expect. Terror, rejection, and more disorganization. They remain convinced that the world is unsafe, that they are all alone. And they must rely on themselves to be okay. 

Robyn: All right, let's take another breath together. [audible breath] It's possible that even if disorganized attachment isn't a primary experience, and attachment relationships that you really resonate with, that you very likely had some disorganizing experiences during your earliest preverbal experiences. None of us. None of us had perfect parents. Sometimes disorganizing experience happen despite the parents best attempt to avoid them. For example, like maybe in medical trauma. I even myself really clearly have a memory of a time when my son was sleeping in a different room, which was unique and probably already somewhat disorienting for him. And the baby monitor was unintentionally not turned on. It was an accident. We'd- we'd accidentally not turned it on. And I woke to him crying. But it was clear when I finally got to him that he'd been crying for a very, very long time. He had been all alone with his fear, and nobody was there to help co-regulate him. This one experience definitely wasn't enough to create disorganized attachment as his primary attachment pattern, but the memory may still live in his nervous system. And that is true for almost all of us. If you're parenting a child who has bizarre behavior, and you know that some of their previous attachment experiences would have been considered disorganizing. You also know the felt sense of disorganization, because of being with them. When their own pockets of disorganization have come online in their nervous system, which then often results in bizarre and baffling behavior. 

Robyn: Okay, another breath. [audible breath] So, disorganization is a tragedy. Seeking connection is how we develop regulation. It's how we develop our sense of who we are. Attachment experiences lay our foundation for how we see and view our worlds and ourselves. Children with disorganized attachment, then,  significantly lack the ability to regulate themselves, and they lack the trust to turn to others. Their attachment system propels them towards the very thing that they're terrified of. And this system is innate, it doesn't go away. So they're in this constant chaos. Go toward, go away, go toward, go away, go toward, go away. And just swirls. And there are no- in their neurobiology, there is no way out. 

Robyn: If you're parenting a child who has a history of experiences and attachment that would have been disorganizing you likely also recognized in them pieces from the podcast on anxious attachment and avoidant attachment. Most children, and even adults, who would be classified as disorganized, and in adults, we call it something different and we're going to stay with that pattern, right, of calling attachment, something different once we get to adulthood. And when typically when we're talking about disorganized attachment adults, were talking about- we use the word unresolved attachment. So most kids who would be classified as disorganized also demonstrate behaviors of anxious attachment may be extremely clingy or possibly indiscriminate with attachment and engaging in intense connection behaviors with almost anyone. Or behaviors have avoidant attachment right behaviors that have them appearing extremely aloof or behaving as though they don't need anybody, or don't care about anybody. We definitely need to be clear that there is hope, even when looking at the tragedy of disorganized attachment. That there are ways- there is hope to think about untangling the neurobiology of disorganized attachment. Children with insecure attachment need to receive now, what they should have received then.

Robyn: In the next and final podcasts on this attachment series, we're going to be looking more closely at what that means. What did a child who developed anxious attachment need but not receive? What did a child who developed avoidant attachment need but not receive? What did a child who developed disorganized attachment need but not receive? It isn't easy to give children what they needed but did not receive, particularly because they evoke in their caregivers what they expect, not what they hope for. Mostly what they need is to be seen, safe, soothed, and secure. Particularly in those moments where the insecure attachment is alive or the avoidant attachment was alive and we're- we're feeling it in their behaviors. When their disorganized attachment is alive, and we're feeling it in their behaviors, that's when they need to be seen, safe, soothed, and secure. This is, of course, very, very hard to do for a child who has behaviors that emerge from insecure attachment. Very hard, but not impossible. 

Robyn: So stay tuned for part six, in this series on attachment. In part six of six, we'll be looking at now what? How does attachment change? Thank you. Thank you. 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're new here, make sure you hit subscribe to the podcast especially because you don't want to miss part six of six. And then after you hit subscribe, 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. The sooner the whole world understands the neurobiology of being relationally socially and behaviorally human. The sooner our kids will live in a world that sees them for who they really are. Completely amazing. Sometimes, sometimes a lot of the time struggling. Thanks for tuning in today. I will see you next time.