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This is one of over 150 articles focused on building
high-nur-turance
family relationships and
preventing
divorce. This
introduction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use
its resour-ces. Eacharticle is part of a
mosaic of
ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make.
These articles augment, vs. replace, other
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professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
need?
ThisProject 1 article
focuses on one of
six wounds
common in troubled relationships and families: an impaired ability to
form normal attachments or bonds. This and related wounds prevents
true interper-sonal intimacy, caring, and exchanging love. This page
offers brief perspective and opinions on these ques-tions:
Newborn humans and
other animals have the primitive instinctual ability to form strong emotional attachments,
or bonds, to special "things." Universal examples are (a) the fierce bonds between
parents, specially mothers, and genetic offspring; and (b) the bond between committed mates
- specially co-parents. When young
children are deprived of key psychological
nurturances "too
much" for "too long," they survive by evolving a fragmented
personality.
Parts of their personality want to emotionally attach
to (care about)
special people. From abandon-ment and abuse trauma, other
parts develop a primal terror of attaching too
much, or at all. Depending on many variables, such wounded girls and boys grow into
adults who are ambivalent (split) about true bond-ing and commitment, or are too
shamed, distrustful, and
fearful to allow real bonding with key people.
Such
Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) are burdened with the indescribable anguish of wanting
to exchange lovingcommunion and attachment with special people, and being unable to
do so - living in a society that relentlessly glorifies and focuses on love.
Shame-based kids may be able to care for others, but
their ruling subselves feel
worthless and rejectothers' love. People who experience
"soul-mate" relationships eloquently affirm that there is a deep
spiritual dimension to the bond between them.
Other common
facets of this tragic psychological wound are being unable to
(a) care about yourself
(self neglect),
and (b)
bond meaningfully with a nurturing
Higher Power.
What causes this "bonding block"?
Shelves of scientific, philosophical, and romantic books
focus on this pervasive human mystery. After
70 years on Earth,
29 years' clinical
study, and 19 years'
wound-recovery learnings, my guesstimate is this:
Every infant (including newborn you) has the innate capacity
to attach. S/He is exquisitely responsive at birth to the
sensory
interactions s/he has with primary caregivers. A newborn's pre-birth
experience and perhaps genes may influence her or his predisposition to
trust
themselves to connect with this awesome giant being later called Mommy
or equivalent.
If a baby's unfolding current physical, emotional and
spiritual needs for gentle attention, security, touching,
stimulation, mirroring, feeding, rest, comforting, and cleaning are filled well enough by a primary
caregiver who is consistently...
emotionally present ("available"),
vs. distracted or absent ("unavailable"),
genuinely pleased the baby
is there, and wants to nurture him/her; and is...
able to attach
(does not have significant false-self
wounds), and is...
steadily alert to things that
please and upset
the baby and effective at providing comfort (filling needs), then...
the baby and caregiver will probably develop a
balanced, unambivalent mutual bond.
Initially, the baby's side of the bond is
dependence. Over
the years, if the growing young child steadily experiences being prized, wanted, and important ("loved") by key
caregiver/s, s/he'll shift her part of the bond from "I need you" to
"I love you."
If the baby's
needs are inadequately, erratically, and/or harshly met, or caregivers' looks, sounds, and actions send confusing
"You're good! / You're bad!"
double messages, then the baby
instinctively begins
to form a fragmented personality.
Her or his bond becomes ambivalent: "I need you /
I fear you." Over time, that promotes self distrust, dislike, and
shame
("bad me" feelings), confusion, and significant guilt. Typical
babies begin to developing a protective
false self to reduce these discomforts.
If the child's first three to six years feel too
confusing (I'm safe and good / I'm unsafe and bad) and/or too scary and painful, then
her or his
false-self development and unconscious bonding-ambivalence deep-ens. If s/he
experiences "too much"
shame ("bad me" feelings), guilt ("I do
bad things"), and
fears (dis-trusts
and anxieties), s/he begins to protectively numb out,
distract, and/or detach psychologically from the people associated
with their pain (i.e. neglect their
wholistic
needs).
The young child's
personality subselves who want to trust and bond
are overruled by protective distrustful subselves who say "No!
It's not safe (to care) because we always
get hurt!"
These subselves form the child's
"bonding block." Such children
increasingly depend on themselves to get key needs met. This becomes
normal and unremarkable.
Other wounded kids become apathetic and
numb. Still others become strategically
"helpless" to force caregivers to attend them, but life
is still not really
safe because the care they get doesn't feel gen-uine, spontaneous, and loving.
Genetics and the
nurturance level
of the growing child's environment over time determines how her or his
personality subselves develop, and which subselves dominate. Accumulated pain/pleasure and behavior > response experiences
shape...
how intense
the bonding ambivalence or block is (weak to strong);
how wide it's scope ("I
trust soft furry animals but not short
red-headed women who frown and growl");
how the child adapts to the
environment's reaction to their block (brazenly, furtively, apologetically,
etc.); and...
how
their family reacts to their growing distrust, detachment, and
perhaps pretense.
A major aspect of this
bonding wound seems to be the child's ability to experience some or all
emotions. Some children who
learn to automatically associate feeling with guilt, shame, and fear respond by
muting their ability to feel. As teens and adults, they must compute
what they believe they're "suppos-ed to" feel to be accepted as "normal."
This promotes feeling (even more) abnormal, weird, and shamed without
knowing why.
The bottom line seems to be: if a young child feels genuinely wanted, safe,
noticed, appreciated, stimulated, comforted, and enjoyed enough
during early years, s/he'll probably develop a healthy-
enough ability
to bond with others. If s/he's too deprived too often of
genuinely loving (vs. dutiful)attention,
touching and holding, encouragement, affirmation, comforting, and protection, the
child
adaptively develops a pro-tective group of Guardian subselves who provide comfort and
distraction from current or expected pain.
Vulnerable
and
Guardian
subselves form a
false self which causes
up to five other psychological wounds.
If
dominant subselves are too fearful, distrustful, and ashamed, the child has
trouble genuinelyattaching with selected others, themselves, and/or
a benign Higher Power.
How does this bonding
wound relate to giving and receiving love?
Until well into real
(vs. pseudo)
recovery, many
survivors of major childhood
neglect unconsciously
associate love with disappointment, rejection, and
abandonment -
i.e. pain. From
early agonies, alert subselves are sure "If I risk loving (caring about) somebody, it will hurt."
Survivors who have never experienced healthy, sustained, genuinely love from another person often can't comprehend that love is other than a mix
of lust, neediness, duty, and pity. To such
disabled people
"I love you" really means "I feel sad / lonely / sorry
/ compassion / lusty / responsiblefor you."
If partners
complain "I don't feel loved by you," unrecovering
Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) protest
uncomprehendingly "but I do - why don't you see that?" (i.e.
"What's wrong with you?"). Similarly,
shame-based
GWCs have little idea of what it feels like to "love myself."
To gain some self and social acceptance, Most false selves
develop the survival skill of
camouflaging this
"shameful" inability to really give and receive love from
themselves and
others.
What is "pseudo" (false) bonding?
Wounded Americans (and most others?) who can't feel, bond, or exchange love
live in a society which glorifies and idealizes love, "closeness" and
caring. Behavioral evidence of genuine bonding is an inescapable social
norm. Seeking to feel normal in their own eyes and in society's,
these wounded people often become
experts early in life in pretending to feel true attachment to
selected others - parents, sib-lings, friends, and lovers.
They observe how loving adults and kids behave, and become skilled at
sounding and acting just like them.
One common result is they convince
themselves that they can bond and love - so if another person
doesn't feel a bond, the GWC in denial is sure the other person is
the problem, not them. These burdened people are often vey attractive
socially and professionally.
However, eventually their behavior doesn't match their words in key
relationships, which leads others to feel confused, hurt, guarded, and
distrustful despite the GWCs earnest proclamations of "But I really do
care about you!" Paradoxically, that's their truth, for they don't know they
don't know what genuine caring feels like.
How does difficulty bonding affect
typical family relationships?
In ways like these:
One or both courting
partners commit to each other for the
wrong
reasons (like duty, rescuing, loneliness, sex,
social normalcy, or
revenge, rather than for real love);
After courtship excitement and illusions
recede, one or both
mates feel increasingly "empty" in their partnership.
This bonding wound promotes emotional numbness and hinders or blocks
the normal exchange of emotional-spiritual intimacy.
Over
time, this usually promotes secondary relationship problems like hurt,
frustrations, distrust, resentment, disrespect, avoidances, distancing, and
affairs.
People with this "hole in the soul" and other false-self wounds often
are controlled by an
Addict subself who strives to mute or distract
inner kids' discomfort or numbness and emptiness.
Addictions to
substances, activities, relationships, and/or emotional states inevitably corrode personal
health and marriages, promote
low-nurturance environments, wound dependent kids,
and cause more inner pain;
Adults unable to feel and bond (and
some
professionals they hire) may misdiagnose their persistent emptiness
(emotional/spiritual disconnection) as
"depression." This can raise personal and
family anxiety, and usually doesn't respond to "anti-depressants" and/or therapy.
It also lowers trust in the outcome of hiring professionals to help;
People with serious bonding blocks are prone to having
loveless (physical only) sex, leaving one or both partners increasingly dissatisfied and
unfulfilled;
Partners who feel "empty" (as in
childhood) are vulnerable to
the excitement and temporary relief of (a) fighting or rebelling, (b) taking
major risks, and (c) sexual
affairs, including pos-sible incest;
Kids raised by adults who can't genuinely
attach
often feel unloved, and conclude "some-thing's wrong with me -
I'm unlovable and bad."
They develop a shame-based
false self, which deeply distrusts
that anyone offering love really means it. This promotes social isola-tion
and/or
approach-avoid or "hollow"
(emotionally-spiritually empty), "independent" relation-ships. It
may also contribute to
codependence;
A co-parent with
this bonding wound may not be able to nurture
biokids and/or stepkids effectively. Their ruling subselves may provide care
from duty, guilt, or anxiety, but not from their heart.
That risks re-creating the low-nurturance family environment that the
wounded adult survived as a child, specially if s/he divorced and/or
re/married another Grown Wounded Child.
And this bonding-block wound can also affect family relationships like
this...
Because people with this disability form weak or no
genuine attachments, they have little to
grieve.
That may confuse or alarm caring (unaware) others who judge the wounded person as
cold, indifferent, self-absorbed, detached,
intellectual, phony, plastic, materialistic,
wooden, frozen, egotistic, Narcissistic, or uncaring.
These strengthen subselves' belief that their host person
is alien, bad, and defective as an individual, a fe/male, a mate, and/or
caregiver.
Attempts to heal a low-bond or no-bond
relationship through marriage counseling usually fail, unless the therapist...
My professional experience is that
over 80%
of typical troubled divorcing and stepfamily partners are significantly
affected by
false selves, and are
unaware of their
psychological wounds and what they
mean.
Continue
with typical symptoms of an inability to bond,
and requisites for reducing it. Do
you need a break first?
The Web address of this
two-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/Rx/wounds/bonding.htm
About Feeling
and Bonding
What causes this "bonding block"?
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