Disorganised Attachment: Why Emotions Drive Confusion How Emotional
Unawareness Leads to Dysregulation and Confusion For Disorganised Attachment Style
At the heart and centre of disorganised attachment is confusion. Whilst avoidant individuals are taught to be self-reliant (in favour of others) and anxiously attached individuals are taught to rely on others (in favour of themselves), disorganised individuals find themselves in a paradox:
They struggle with their independence and deeply want to connect and find love but they also fear intimacy.
This means the disorganised person will experience a lot of internal conflict when approaching a romantic relationship. I say I want a relationship but when I start building a connection with someone I suddenly feel afraid and want to push away.
I then wonder what it is I truly want: If I want love, why am I wanting to run away? And when I run away, why is it I suddenly want closeness, again?
What is true for a disorganised person when our mind and body say different things at different stages of a relationship?
This is the struggle a disorganised person faces.
It is an every day inner conflict, driven by intense and misregulated emotions.
Disorganised Emotions: To Believe Or Not to Believe?
Unaware of their pattern to desire and fear connection, the emotions and subsequent behaviours a disorganised person can engage in can wreak havoc on relationships.
In my unaware state I remember breaking up with my ex several times in one afternoon. When we agreed to end things, I’d then say I’d want him again, only to contradict myself and go back on my word when we decide to end things.
I was bouncing back and forth between a fear of being alone, which drove a desire to be close to him and a fear of intimacy, which pushed me away from him.
In truth, I DID want to be with him: If I could have ridden myself of the stress and anxiety at the idea of comittment, I would have been able to keep to my word, but my emotional reactions were confusing me.
Disorganised individuals struggle with emotional regulation.
Our emotional reactions can be so intense and feel so real, that we feel we have to listen to them.
Whilst our emotions are insightful, they do not always dictate what is right or wrong for us to do. They’re shaped by our past experiences, and without awareness as to their source, we risk running through the same cycles of push and pull over and over again.
Awareness Is A Disorganised Person’s Best Friend:
I believe that anyone with an insecure attachment style can become securely attached, but not without a heapload of awareness to help regulate their emotional reactions.
I had no idea that I feared intimacy or had an intense fear of being alone. I was dealing with crippling low self-worth, and had skewed beliefs as to what love should be. I worried if things were peaceful that I didn’t have feelings for them — which is crazy to say!
Without awareness, I just thought my resistance to commitment meant I didn’t like someone when I was actually experiencing a post-traumatic stress reaction.
I’m continuing to build my awareness around my triggers in love, but here are some ways I’ve learned to regulate myself over the years:
Building a stable sense of self: When we lack values and a clear identity, we have nothing to fall back on when our emotions are high. We don’t know who we are, so we don’t know what we want, don’t want, and what is right or wrong (for us). We rely solely on our emotions to tell us, which leaves us vulnerable to sabotage.
Emotional Awareness: Doing the work to understand why we feel the way we do helps us separate ourselves from our emotions. Our past programmes our emotions and just because you’re afraid of intimacy and want to push someone away, that doesn’t mean you dislike them, or that you should run away from them.
Embracing Disconfirming Evidence: Disconfirming evidence helps reprogram our emotional responses and underlying beliefs. Just because we have experienced pain or trauma in intimacy before, does not mean we will again. Stepping into new experiences despite the discomfort helps reprogram a brain that has been wired to associate intimacy and independence with danger. You can feel safe around others, and in yourself.
Therapy: It’s imperative that a disorganised individual has someone non-biased to speak to, like a therapist who is trauma-informed. Disorganised attachment styles can co-occur with complex trauma that is both difficult to understand and manage.
Stress Management: Disorganised individuals are prone to freeze responses in the face of conflicting emotions. Rather than avoid or fight, we dissociate and crumble. Stress management is at the top of my self-care list, which means prioritising practices that ground me in the present, and relieve stress. I really struggle when I’m not on top of my self-care. Relationships become unmanagable.