Sep 27, 2024
Disorganized attachment style, also known as fearful avoidant attachment style, is one of four attachment styles that describe how we relate and respond to others. Pioneered by Mary Ainsworth in her “Strange Situation” study, these attachment styles are formed in childhood and inform how we form relationships with others as adults.
Disorganized attachment style is the rarest and most severe form of insecure attachment, the other two insecure forms being anxious attachment and avoidant attachment. The fourth attachment style is called secure attachment and is representative of healthy, stable connections.
Despite disorganized attachment style being correlated with higher levels of mental health issues and relationship stress, it is possible to heal from it and find your way to healthy, stable relationships.
What is Disorganized Attachment Style?
An attachment style informs how we relate and connect with others. It also influences how we respond to conflicts and perceive threats in relationships. They are apparent in romantic, platonic, familial, and work relationships.
Attachment styles are formed in childhood. They depend on how attentive your parents were to your needs and how much love and affection they gave you.
Disorganized attachment style is rare because it is formed from abuse and neglect. People with disorganized attachment styles crave love and stability but will lash out or withdraw from the people who give them that. This creates a cycle that convinces them of being unlovable.
This lie of being unlovable is just that: not true. You are deserving of love and safety, and there are people who want to give it to you. It might just take healing from a disorganized attachment style to see that clearly.
Symptoms of a disorganized attachment style include:
- Fear of relationships
- A need for closeness and intimacy
- Oscillating between anxiously clinging to relationships and avoiding them.
- Anxiety over never being loved or being abandoned
- Self-critical thoughts, may believe you are undeserving of love
- Finding it difficult, and even painful, to open up to others
- Being untrusting of partners when they say they love you
- Being hyper-alert to signs of betrayal or having trust issues
In general, people with a disorganized attachment style will crave safe, loving relationships, but will pull away or self-sabotage themselves when they get that.
These symptoms are not a complete list. People with disorganized attachment style can exhibit a wide range of symptoms depending on their individual past and the current relationship they find themselves in. Many symptoms of disorganized attachment style also look like complex PTSD (c-PTSD). Although disorganized attachment style is not recognized in the DSM—the diagnostic manual for therapists and counselors—c-PTSD and other trauma diagnoses are.
How does disorganized attachment style affect relationships?
If you have a disorganized attachment style, there is hope for a healthy, fulfilling relationship. However, you have to become aware of your attachment style and corresponding trauma to begin healing from it.
When left unattended, a disorganized attachment style can make forming healthy, long-term relationships more difficult. It can result in chaotic, tumultuous relationships that are “on again and off again”, situationships, or unhealthy and toxic relationships. Disorganized attachment styles may also result in more frequent arguing and conflict. In the end, many people with a disorganized attachment style may not have much success in long-term relationships because of the impactful symptoms of disorganized attachment or may find themselves in an abusive relationship that mirrors the kind of love they got as children.
What causes disorganized attachment?
Attachment styles are formed during childhood and adolescence. The “Strange Situation” study that pioneered this field looked at how attentive a parent was to a child’s emotional and physical needs. Children with parents who were attentive but not coddling grew up to have a secure attachment style.
Disorganized attachment style is caused by a parenting style that routinely creates fearful or insecure environments. This can be through expressing anger, ignoring, or withdrawing when a child expresses a need, or using manipulation tactics to get what they (the parent) wants. Often, but not always, this also looks like abuse or neglect.
How to heal from a disorganized attachment style
Attachment styles usually persist from childhood into adulthood, but it is possible to change your attachment style if you address it. Through therapy, medication, and healthy coping mechanisms, you can heal from a disorganized attachment style.
Therapy
Therapy can be instrumental in helping individuals heal from disorganized attachment styles by providing a safe and supportive environment for exploring past traumas, understanding current challenges, and developing healthy coping mechanisms and relational patterns.
Through therapy, individuals can:
- Explore Past Traumas: Therapy allows individuals to delve into their past experiences, including childhood attachment wounds, to gain insight into how these traumatic experiences have shaped their attachment style and relationship patterns.
- Developing Self-Regulation: Therapists can help individuals with disorganized attachment learn effective self-regulation strategies to manage overwhelming emotions and navigate triggering situations more effectively.
- Building Secure Attachments: Therapy offers a space for individuals to work on building secure attachments with their therapist, which can serve as a corrective emotional experience and a model for healthy relationships.
- Healing Trust Issues: Through therapy, individuals can address trust issues stemming from past attachment traumas, learn to trust the therapeutic relationship, and gradually transfer these skills to their personal relationships.
- Improving Communication: Therapists can help individuals develop better communication skills, set boundaries, and express their needs and emotions effectively in relationships.
By working with a therapist experienced in attachment-focused therapy, individuals with disorganized attachment styles can embark on a journey of healing, self-discovery, and transformation that can lead to more secure, fulfilling relationships.
Medication
Medication is not the typical route to healing disorganized attachment style, and medication alone will not result in full healing. However, medication can be very helpful in addressing mental health disorders that may be caused by or inflate disorganized attachment symptoms. This can include substance use, anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Medication will address the symptoms of these mental health issues, but not the root cause. Getting relief from these symptoms can provide the mental and emotional space you need to find true healing. Many people have found medication very helpful in their work towards healing.
If you think medication could be helpful for you, reach out to a psychiatrist. Or, you can talk to your therapist about wanting to get on medication, and they can work with a local psychiatrist for you. A typical therapist cannot prescribe or manage medication, so they’ll need to refer you to an outside source. Many people find it helpful to work with both a therapist and a psychiatrist. (Learn about the difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist here.)
Healthy coping mechanisms
Coping mechanisms can be used in conjunction with both therapy and medication. A therapist will likely encourage you to find healthy coping mechanisms that work for you.
A coping mechanism is simply a behavior that reduces distressing thoughts, emotions, and memories. They enable you to handle difficult situations with clarity and stability. It’s a good idea to have a collection of coping mechanisms that you can use for different situations. For example, deep breathing exercises may work great for anxiety, but moving your body is better for snapping yourself out of negative thinking patterns.
Everyone responds differently to coping mechanisms. If one of these from this list doesn’t work for you, try something else.
Coping mechanisms to help you deal with disorganized attachment style include:
- Journaling: Attachment styles start deep in your childhood, and exploring that trauma is a good first step to understanding (and eventually healing from) your attachment style. Start journaling about your childhood and how you think it affects you now. Look for patterns and themes that stand out.
- Build a support system: This may be hard if you have a disorganized attachment style, but it can be helpful to find a few people (or even just one!) who you think you can trust. Tell them about your attachment style and how you want to change. Ask them to hold you accountable to changing your behavior and negative thinking patterns.
- Repeat positive affirmations to drown out negative thoughts: A hallmark of disorganized attachment style is the repetition of negative, self-deprecating thoughts (called cognitive distortions). You may think you are unloveable, a mess, or too difficult to ever understand. You may think you deserve all these bad things or should just give up. How we behave starts with how we think, so kicking these negative thoughts out in favor of positive self-thinking is a good first step in overcoming disorganized attachment style.
- Make a list of your strengths and gratitudes: Every day, write down three things you did well and three things you are grateful for. These could be big things: you got a job or you helped a friend out with a tricky situation. Or, they could be seemingly small things: You complimented someone on their outfit and they smiled, you sent a funny video to a friend that they laughed at. Notice how the little things other people do make you feel good, and how often you do those little things for others.
- Perform acts of kindness for yourself and others: What do you need right now? Take a moment to sit and listen to your body. Are you thirsty, hungry, tired, drained? Do you need a good conversation or to sit in a creative space for a while? Do you need to laugh at a comforting TV show or do you need to try something new Whatever it is, do it. Show yourself kindness today, and then pass that kindness on to someone else.
This is not a complete list. We encourage you to find what works for you! Try to find a few coping mechanisms that make you feel good and a few coping mechanisms that help you deal with anxiety, depression, and difficult relationships.
Therapy can help you find good coping mechanisms and get to the root cause of your disorganized attachment style. Through therapy you can start to heal and form fulfilling, loving relationships with others. Lifebulb has over a hundred therapists that can help you online or in-person. Give our team a call to learn more, or browse our list of therapists near you. Your path to healing starts today.
