Recently, I came to an important understanding of the human attachment system and why we as avoidants struggle so much in relationships.
The attachment system is like a built-in GPS navigator designed to continually steer us back to safety, connection and belonging.
When an infant feels a lack of safety, for example, she cries out for soothing and comfort. Ideally, her caregiver responds to those cries and the child is soothed and comforted. Her sense of safety and belonging is restored.
But what if the caregiver is misattuned or rejecting or unavailable? The infant cries grow louder and louder. Until one day, overcome with futility, she falls silent. She learns to ignore her own distress. She no longer cries out for connection.
The infant’s deepest needs are suppressed and lost to her. She settles for the bare minimum of connection – whatever is sufficient to ensure her survival – but little more than that.
Now suppose this infant were later transplanted into a more nurturing environment, where all her needs could be met.
Tragically, her deepest needs STILL would go unmet, because she has lost the ability to even feel them, let alone cry out for them to be satisfied. From this infant’s standpoint, the world remains as it has always been: unsafe, unresponsive, unfulfilling.
This is the plight of avoidants in adulthood.
We don’t feel the full depth of our attachment needs and so we don’t express those needs or seek for them to be met. As a result, those needs are in fact not met.
As adults, our partners might reach out to us, saying: I’m here, tell me what you need! But our honest response is: What are you talking about? I don’t have needs. Please just leave me alone.
We don’t know – we don’t really know – that our environment has changed, and that, as adults, we can safely feel our deepest need for connection, love and belonging – and get those needs met.
It took a long time for me to actually begin to feel the vulnerability buried beneath the defensive layers of my avoidance.
My attachment needs did not come out directly, vulnerably.
They bubbled or erupted to the surface in the distorted forms of rage, frustration, judgment, self-righteousness, hatred, contempt.
I had to learn to slowly feel the pain and distress, the unmet needs, animating and driving those painful feelings.
And what I found when I felt those feelings more fully was the pain of a young boy, alone, desperate – absolutely desperate – to be loved, accepted, seen, comforted, appreciated.
Feeling those innocent needs was a revelation. It was the start of a new chapter on my healing journey.
For the first time since I fell silent as a young boy, I started to ask again for comfort and emotional safety. I asked my partner to come closer to me, not farther away. I shared more of myself so that I could be seen and known and loved.
Just as important, I began to feel when my needs were not being met. I started sensing ruptures in emotional safety and connection as they occurred. And in sensing them, I began to turn towards my partner to repair those ruptures – with and through connection.