Falling in love? Or comfort…

Attachment Style

People may fall in love fast and easily for a number of reasons, they both boil down to not having an optimal attachment style. There are four primary attachment styles, anxious, fearful avoidant, dismissive, and secure. Those who find themselves quickly swept off their feet may be the anxious type. With this attachment style comes a persistent desire to be connected to that special someone. People with this attachment style may meet someone, feel a connection, and fall in love rather quickly. They may find themselves worrying that their SO doesn’t love them and, therefore, frequently seek reassurance. These people long to be connected and loved by someone, but often find a partner who is somewhat less clear about their affections. They may find themselves chasing this person, only to feel let down. Why is this?

What Causes an Anxious Attachment?

People with this attachment style seek such close attachment, falling in love quickly and easily, often because they seek the emotional connection that they never received when they were growing up. By and large, this occurs due to a person’s parent being emotionally neglectful in some way. When a parent is emotionally unavailable to their child, the child learns that they must strive and struggle to receive love, connection, and affection. Children may develop what is known as an emotional deprivation schema. A schema is a way of seeing oneself and/or the world. Children with this particular schema feel that love is difficult to attain and they themselves are not worthy of it. In adulthood, this translates to individuals clinging to partners, not setting boundaries (or limitations) in relationships, and a need for persistent validation. People with this schema may find themselves immediately attracted to certain people and becoming very close very quickly. They may fall deeply in love, or at least what they believe to be love. The truth is, that immediate attraction is due to the person’s emotional deprivation schema being triggered.

Whenever one falls in love so quickly, it is likely due to this phenomenon. The person with the schema may feel immediately comfortable with this person and believe it was “meant to be.” This is because something about this new person has triggered their schema. Unfortunately, comfort is not the same thing as love. Moreover, how these individuals are accustomed to feeling loved (due to their childhood experiences) is through emotional neglect of some sort, which is often what they find in their immediate love connection.

What Can People Do About This?

Awareness is always the first step. People can look at the types of attachment styles, perhaps even take a quiz, and see which they are most aligned with. Once a person is aware of their attachment, they can more easily see potential pitfalls. Additionally, individuals may consider talking with a therapist to discover where their attachment style comes from, as well as work on associated tendencies. For example, anxiously attached individuals may consider working on boundary setting with themselves and others.  These people could take time to consider how they feel about themselves and, if necessary, work on improving their self-esteem as well.

Is This Healthy?

With C-PTSD, our relationships may not always feel healthy. Sometimes we can shut off, shut down, or feel completely insecure and need more and more validation. We've been through a lot...a lot of relational trauma in particular...so it's no surprise that our relationships are affected.

What general relationship struggles do those with complex trauma face? Why?

Well, because those with complex trauma may have grown up in chaotic households and faced emotional deprivation, neglect, and/or abuse (physical/ emotional/sexual), relationships likely do not feel safe. We may notice that emotions become easily overwhelming and we have trouble regulating them. We may not trust others, fearing betrayal, abandonment or abuse.

There are numerous symptoms that impede healthy relationship patterns. Complex trauma may have also caused the development of maladaptive attachment styles.

Here is an infographic demonstrating the generally accepted attachment styles and their features:

Recognize yourself in any of these?

Check out this video for further clarification on where you may fall in the attachment style spectrum:

Although this video is discussing romantic relationships in particular, the principles can be applied to nearly any relationship.

Take this quiz to see what your current attachment style may be.

You may have fallen into one of the three attachment styles which is not secure. That is completely ok! I would even say it is normal based on what you may have been through if you suffer from C-PTSD.

You may be asking, "what can I do about it?" Good question!

As always, I recommend you seek out a therapist in your area to work on healing the complex trauma and, therefore, healing the causes of your maladaptive attachment. However, there are a few coping skills I recommend.

1. Grounding: Grounding is intended to bring you back to the present moment. At times we may be feeling anxious about our relationships, however, the more we look into the future and fear what is to come, the more our anxiety builds. By bringing ourselves back to the moment, we can combat this. There are three general types of grounding - mental, physical, and soothing. Please refer to these documents from the Seeking Safety curriculum for further information on this.

2. Distraction: Sometimes, simply by distracting ourselves, we can allow an emotion to naturally pass without acting on it. The Buddhist analogy states that emotions and thoughts are simply clouds going through the sky. We are the sky. If we can distract ourselves long enough, we give our emotions time to naturally pass and allow ourselves to re-regulate. Here is a comprehensive list of distraction coping activities.

3. Check your thoughts: It can be scary to give your partner or loved one the benefit of the doubt...sometimes impossible. However, it can help to check our thoughts to determine if they are true or not. Although all of our thoughts are REAL and deserve compassion and respect, they may not all be TRUE. If we have an anxious attachment style, we may seek significantly more validation and worry our partner/loved one will betray or abandon us. If we can look at the facts of a situation, we may notice discrepancies between how we are feeling and what is likely true and actually going on. By slowing down and doing this, we can save ourselves from reacting to potentially untrue emotions and causing conflict.

4. Learn Healthy Communication Patterns: We may notice that we avoid strong emotions or conflict in relationships because we are afraid to feel intense emotions, we do not know how to handle them, or we fear what our partner's reaction will be. It can be very helpful to learn emotional regulation (some examples stated above) as well as how to best express our feelings, needs, and concerns. This will help us to learn our emotions do matter - we matter - and are loved by those around us, despite what our traumas may have led us to believe. Here is a helpful list of healthy communication skills to begin applying.

5. Practice Self Compassion: It can be difficult to heal from complex trauma and learn how to have healthy relationships. Be kind to yourself. Respect your emotions and thank them for being there. They are trying to protect you - and they have done a good job so far! Just let your brain know you are ready to do something different now and move into a higher level of functioning. Compassion is a true path to healing.

For more information about why attachment styles are important to our mental health and overall functioning, you may want to, again, check out Kati Morton's videos. I have listed one below on this topic:

I hope these tips help! Let me know if you want to know more about how trauma impacts relationships and attachment.

All the best,

~ Kelsey

CPTSD V PTSD

What's the difference?

Well, there's a few...

Causes, symptoms, and solutions can differ between the two. It can be helpful to understand which you may be dealing with in order to attain the proper treatment and support. Let's go through these step-by-step:

Causes:

Usually, PTSD is resultant of a single-incident trauma versus C-PTSD which is caused by prolonged trauma(s) over time. Whereas PTSD could result from things like a car accident, a sexual assault, or a single-incident injury, C-PTSD is more likely due to things like emotional abuse or neglect over time, continual domestic violence, or living with an alcoholic parent. These examples are intended to reflect that the nature of the cause is different between PTSD and C-PTSD. What is considered a trauma may also differ from person to person. It is important to remember that what may qualify as a trauma to someone else, may not be traumatizing to you and that's ok and completely normal. Remaining non-judgmental is essential so we may honor everyone's experience as different, but equal to our own.

Symptoms:

Interestingly enough, there is a diagnosis for PTSD in the DSM-V, but not one for C-PTSD. Below are the DSM-V symptoms of PTSD as provided by BrainLine:

DSM-5 Criteria for PTSD

All of the criteria are required for the diagnosis of PTSD. The following text summarizes the diagnostic criteria:

Criterion A: stressor (one required):

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s):

- Direct exposure

- Witnessing the trauma

- Learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma

- Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

Criterion B: intrusion symptoms (one required):

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in the following way(s):

- Unwanted upsetting memories

- Nightmares

- Flashbacks

- Emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders

- Physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders

Criterion C: avoidance (one required):

Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli after the trauma, in the following way(s):

- Trauma-related thoughts or feelings

- Trauma-related external reminders

Criterion D: negative alterations in cognitions and mood (two required):

Negative thoughts or feelings that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

- Inability to recall key features of the trauma

- Overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world

- Exaggerated blame of self or others for causing the trauma

- Negative affect

- Decreased interest in activities

- Feeling isolated

- Difficulty experiencing positive affect

Criterion E: alterations in arousal and reactivity:

Trauma-related arousal and reactivity that began or worsened after the trauma, in the following way(s):

- Irritability or aggression

- Risky or destructive behavior

- Hypervigilance

- Heightened startle reaction

- Difficulty concentrating

- Difficulty sleeping

Criterion F: duration (required):

Symptoms last for more than 1 month.

Criterion H: exclusion (required):

Dissociative Specification: In addition to meeting criteria for diagnosis, an individual experiences high levels of either of the following in reaction to trauma-related stimuli:

Depersonalization. Experience of being an outside observer of or detached from oneself (e.g., feeling as if "this is not happening to me" or one were in a dream).

Derealization. Experience of unreality, distance, or distortion (e.g., "things are not real").

Delayed Specification. Full diagnostic criteria are not met until at least six months after the trauma(s), although onset of symptoms may occur immediately.

Now, as you can see, PTSD has very specific diagnostic criteria and possible symptoms. C-PTSD, not being in the DSM, does not have such a list, but this does not invalidate its existence or the severity of the symptoms you experience. Additionally, although the DSM-V does not have such a diagnosis, the ICD-11(diagnostic manual used outside the United States) does. Here is what is written as the diagnostic criteria for Complex PTSD from the World Health Organization's website for C-PTSD:

"...All diagnostic requirements for PTSD are met. In addition, Complex PTSD is characterized by severe and persistent:

1) Problems in affect regulation

2) Beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt or failure related to the traumatic event and...

3) Difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others.

These symptoms cause significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning. "

Here is also a helpful visual to demonstrate C-PTSD symptoms:

Based on these two different diagnosis, we can see that C-PTSD includes all of the symptoms of PTSD, with additional changes to beliefs about oneself, the world, and relationships.

From my experience (and as noted in the infographic), you may experience somatization of symptoms (i.e. physical effects resulting from transfer of the trauma to your body). For more on how this occurs, I will refer you once more to The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk. However, I do want to stress the importance of attaining timely treatment for both PTSD and C-PTSD so that the trauma symptoms do not persist and create long-term mental, physical, and social harm.

For more on causes and symptoms, please listen to Dr. Tracey Marks's video:

Treatments:

The video shares a few helpful trauma treatments, notably EMDR to which you may know I am partial. Therapy itself is one part of a broad array of potential treatments to alleviate symptoms of trauma. Medications, support groups, exercise, meditation, and body work (e.g. yoga) can all help with PTSD and C-PTSD. However, here I would like to focus on the potential therapies to eliminate the cause of the trauma, thus reducing the need to utilize symptom management. Let's review the types of treatment for both PTSD and C-PTSD so you may best understand your options.

CPTSD and PTSD can be treated by the following:

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Use of bilateral stimulation to move traumatic memories from being stored maladaptively in the brain, to being stored in the adaptive information processing center (AIP). Through this, when memories are thought of, they are no longer disturbing to the patient. Here is helpful information for better understanding EMDR from the EMDRIA website. You may also wish the watch the video below:

Prolonged Exposure (PE): PE is generally used to desensitize individuals to their traumatic memories. Patients may avoid triggers due to the severity of the emotional reaction to the memory. By safely exposing the client to the memory over and over, the patient's anxiety reaction may decrease.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT): TF-CBT uses CBT strategies targeted to the symptoms of trauma. The treatment may help clients to change their distorted thinking and behavioral patterns that have resulted from traumas. Please refer to this helpful infographic below:

I would recommend EMDR for both PTSD and C-PTSD, with EMDR for C-PTSD being integrated with Schema-Focused Therapy, especially when working with childhood trauma. As TF-CBT is more focused on work with children and adolescence, it may be a better approach for C-PTSD itself.

Please let me know if this was helpful and, as always, I encourage you reach out for treatment and support from a therapist near you.

All the best,

~ Kelsey

Why “The golden mend?”

In Japanese culture, there is a practice known as Kintsukuroi, translated in English to "the golden mend," in which broken pottery and glass is repaired with gold resin. The broken item is thus made more valuable through the process of repair and imbued with a beauty which could not have been without the break.

This is the philosophy my practice seeks to embody.

As a therapist, I work with individuals who have been through multiple or prolonged traumas. Clients do not always recognize events as such until they venture into my office. I say venture because in the pursuit of help begins a journey. A journey through the past, to the present, and into the future. It can be very challenging work...most of the time it is. Clients who have been through so much can feel... well... broken. However, through the process of understanding, learning, and repair, those individuals are able to grow and add value to their lives. They develop a depth, strength, and beauty to their self that is seldom attained by those without the journey through such pain.

In writing this blog, I hope to develop a space for anyone who has experienced prolonged or multiple traumas, otherwise known as Complex Trauma or C-PTSD, to find support, education, and resources for their journey.

All the best,

~ Kelsey