Is Trauma Impacting Your Relationship? The Lasting Effects of Trauma on Your Attachment Style & Relationships

Have you found yourself wondering why you do the things you do in relationships? Or found yourself falling into the same patterns, even in new relationships? Patterns that feel like they’re making it hard to develop or sustain a healthy relationship? Early childhood experiences of trauma or even the way you felt connected and cared for by your caregivers (your attachment style) may be to blame. Your attachment style, which is developed from very early childhood, may be a key component to understanding yourself and why you feel how you do when in relationships. 

In today’s blog, we’ll get into how trauma therapy and exploration of childhood trauma and attachment styles affect you still today, but first, the basics. 

What is Attachment Theory?

Attachment theory presumes that very early interactions with our caregivers when we are just babies, can inform how we behave in relationships into adulthood. Current models suggest four distinct attachment styles—organized into one secure and three insecure types—developed in childhood based on the interactions children have with their caregivers, as well as whether or not they experience external traumas.

While we use the word “trauma” to describe some of these early childhood experiences, the truth is, that even people from “good homes” may develop an insecure attachment style, based on the conditions present in the home. These early relationships set the rules for how you learn to ask for and receive love or get other, practical needs met.

Childhood Trauma And Attachment Styles

Discovering and understanding your attachment style can help you dig into your own relationship patterns, and learn why your relationships aren’t working out or are leaving you unfulfilled. Understanding your attachment style can help you leverage trauma therapy to find ways to engage with relationship partners in a way that leads to healthier, happier relationships through more secure attachment.

We’ll begin with the ideal attachment style, the goal of trauma therapy:

• Secure attachment is born of a reliable, consistent, and caring relationship with caregivers as a baby, where a baby’s needs were quickly and regularly responded to. A baby can then become a child who is able to feel stable and safe when young. 

The remaining three attachment styles are “insecure” attachment styles:

• Anxious attachment comes from caregivers who sometimes foster strong attachment with their babies, then reject or neglect them periodically. The caregiver may also parentify a child, making the child responsible for responding to the caregiver’s emotional needs. This can result in a child who is anxious, very preoccupied with how they are perceived by others, with low self-esteem, and a fear of abandonment.

• Avoidant attachment stems from caregiving in early childhood that does not respond promptly to a child’s needs, especially their emotional needs. Caregivers that require a child to be more “mature” or “independent” than is age appropriate or who simply neglect a child can make a child into someone who struggles with trusting others, expressing emotion, or depending on others for anything in their lives. 

• Disorganized attachment often comes from childhood abuse and/or traumatic childhood experiences at the hand of an unpredictable caregiver. This can result in a child that goes back and forth between very anxious and emotionally needy and then distant and inexpressive. They can show signs of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles and can have a hard time regulating their own emotions.

Insecure Attachment Styles In Adult Relationships

Insecure attachment styles extend from childhood into adulthood and can drive someone to choose relationships that mimic the stress of their childhood. This can lead to further reinforcement of insecure attachment.

• Anxious Attachment in Adults

  Anxious attachment style adults, also sometimes called preoccupied attachment style, are very concerned with abandonment, with a tendency to try to manage the emotions of people they’re in relationships with to avoid any perceived abandonment. They may feel unworthy or highly sensitive to criticism and are inclined to pursue an object of their attachment to their detriment. 

• Avoidant Attachment in Adults

  The support wasn’t there, so accessing the support we all need in a relationship becomes difficult or impossible for someone with an avoidant attachment style. Hyper-independence and inability to express emotions or accept physical or emotional care all tie into avoidant attachment in adults.

• Disorganized  Attachment in Adults

  Disorganized attachment can lead to mood disorders and difficulty managing emotions in adults. In relationships, this can look like contradictory and odd behavior, pushing away their partners while also seeking them out. Combining both anxious and avoidant tendencies in one person, in one relationship, is not uncommon.

Moving From Insecure to Secure Attachment

So you’ve delved into your own attachment style and reflected on how it impacts you regarding relationships. What’s next?

What does secure attachment look like for an adult? 

Secure attachment in adulthood allows someone to balance their relationships with others with their own self-esteem. Their faith in others’ honesty—and willingness to hear others without adding meaning to their words—stems from an understanding that there are people who are trustworthy in this world and from knowing they can trust themselves as well. This includes discernment about who they put trust in, noting red flag behaviors in others, and looking toward those who are also working toward emotional health as people to lean on.

Why do attachment styles formed in childhood still affect us today?

Attachment styles, including insecure ones, are developed to keep someone emotionally and physically safe from childhood traumas and stressors. That said, that safety does not translate into feeling safer in adulthood when attachment-style behaviors seep into adult relationships. Breaking these patterns held over from when you were very young can be a long process, but one well worth engaging in. 

How do I heal my attachment style?

Taking deliberate steps to change how you operate in a relationship can include:

• Develop strong community ties around you, including friendships and possibly family relationships, to give yourself a space of support outside of a relationship.

• Actively listening to your partner, as well as actively communicating with honesty and empathy toward your partner and yourself.

• Seek out trauma therapy services to work through childhood and adulthood traumas that may have formed or reinforced your insecure attachment style.

Reimagine Her Therapy Can Help You Develop Secure Attachment 

Relationship patterns derived from insecure attachment make relationships difficult to sustain healthily, but that’s not to say you’re doomed to have unhealthy relationships forever. You’re taking the first steps toward understanding yourself and why you operate how you do. These first steps will then take you to figure out how to heal your trauma and change how you relate to yourself and to others.

Robin offers attachment-focused EMDR therapy to help you work toward a more secure attachment style. In Illinois, Texas, and Florida, I’m ready when you are. Schedule a free consultation with Robin today!