PREVIOUS : Attachment & Animals #6

SITE :
Sex & Intimacy (many articles)

“Attachment & sexuality impinge on and influence each other. This occurs in other species as well as for humans”. Bowlby (1969)

Gurit E. Birnbaum, Ph.D. : “Sex does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, sexual functioning is likely influenced by views of self & others developed out of early attachment experiences with primary caregivers.

The person’s chosen style (Secure, Anxious, Avoidant) guide their interpersonal interactions over an entire life, which is likely to affect the functioning of their later-maturing sexuality : why people engage in sex, what do they seek from their partners, & how they get their needs met – if at all.
Each of these strategies is driven by specific anxiety, & is intended to ‘satisfy’ interpersonal goals that help cope with these fears.

Emory neuro-scientist Thomas R. Insel wrote :”Virtually every form of psycho-pathology is characterized by abnormal social attachments.”
For 15 years Insel has been studying highly social prairie voles, & found they are a model of ‘family values’. They naturally form lasting, monogamous male-female pair bonds, & prefer the company of their mate over others.

❇️ These characteristics can be attributed to the peptide hormones oxytocin (OT) in females, & vasopressin (AVP), in males. Insel :”Apparently, at least in voles, these 2 systems are activated by pair bonding.”

Insel & his team’s research is not on a hunt for fairy love dust or an elixir for fidelity. Instead, they want to find answers to the more pressing problems of millions of people with severe mental illness, who are not able to form normal social bonds, robbing them of the very fundamentals of human interaction & communication.

re. ATTACHMENT : “Across human cultures, sexual behavior is consistently associated with pair bonding, although sex is neither necessary nor sufficient for bond-formation.”
⬆️  An interesting combination of brain chemicals : In human males, AVP (m) peaks during arousal, & oxytocin (f) peaks with ejaculation. (More….)

2 INSECURE Styles
While as human beings, we can indeed separate love and sex, they are designed to be together.  In “Love Sense”, by Dr. Johnson :
1.  Sex without love is defined as “sealed off sex”. When sex is detached from a sense of connection with a partner, it increases their desire to experience new partners & new ways to have sex. A a sexual abuse history or porn addiction (or both) are common causes for a person to disconnect their emotions from adult sexual activity.

Not surprisingly, sealed-off-sex can lead to relationship troubles, because the connection between partners is lost, & resentment brews. As the distance widens, it can cause fights, abusive communicating, & infidelity, when one or both people get pulled into another relationship to compensate for what/s lacking in their current one.

2. Dr. Johnson also identified “solace sex” . If one or both partners doubt their mate’s love & caring for them, AND they’re afraid of their own emotional needs & too anxious to openly tell their partner —-> they start using sex as a way to soothe their fears.

In this case, couples may have sex frequently, instigated by the more insecure one – as a demand for sex many times a day or a week – to be reassured of their partner’s love. It’s as if they’re saying, “I’m unsure you love me, so I need you to ‘show’ me with frequent & intense sex.”
But it’s never satisfying or healing, because by itself it doesn’t develop self-esteem, so they can’t be emotionally vulnerable or trust that the partner genuinely cares.
Relationship problems can include resentment building up in the partner who is being pressured to perform, which increases the insecurity in the one looking to find solace through sex.

SITE: : A positive view of Solace Sex
Loving sexual passion can help heal insecure emotional attachment.

◆ For anxiously attached  WOMEN —  sexual desire from their partner is deeply reassuring & emotionally stabilizing, allowing them to fall in love & be loved
◆ For anxiously attached MEN, sex creates a positive effect on the relationship soon after the sexual encounter.
For avoidant males,  when their sexual desire-cues are responded to positively – it gives them the feeling that this relationship might be sexually & emotionally safe, so they can open up more.

NEXT : Sexuality INTRO, #2

PREVIOUS: Attachment & the Body #3

SITE : Bodily ownership & self-location

WOUNDED : What sits at the core of insecure attachment is shame, which is triggered when some undesirable part of the Self is threatened to exposure, & often starts with a jolt of hyper-aroused fear**. This is centered in the amygdala, which fully develops at about 8 months in the womb. So even before we’re born, we can experience powerful emotions of fear & shame. (MORE….)

When someone has had an attachment rupture, especially in early childhood, it can be a lot like food poisoning – you’ll never forget it, & you know it isn’t something you’d choose to repeat.
But having been raised with narcissist. alcoholics, & daily PMES stressors (Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual) we end up associating even positive traits with shame, fear & a sense of danger. Ironically, without Recovery early trauma keeps getting re-enacted throughout our life.

** INFO : Estrogen enhances fear. Testosterone blunts fear & drives status-seeking, which creates an increased vulnerability to shame.
HEALING : To shift out of feeling shame requires self-Compassion.

«
STRESSED :  In a large analysis that looked at over 80 studies, up to 80% of children with a history of parental maltreatment &/or chemical abuse had disorganized attachment. In contrast, only about 15% from low-risk families.

Adults with Disorganized attachment feel more anxiety about their body than the other styles, & have trouble managing the resulting emotion dysregulation. In the context of “failed protection,” bodily self-disorders seem to be related to not having achieved (or been prevented from having) a sense of effectiveness in childhood – to physically “act on one’s own behalf” – starting as early as age 4 months.

One possibility for managing emotion dysregulation is to gain internal self-permission & then activate the inborn capacity & desire to take actions, which will allow the person to calm themself & make constructive changes for self-protection. Developing this resource is for the pleasure of being the cause or source of one’s own behavior, & less about results.

Body OWNERSHIP
It’s the experience of one’s body being one’s own, a central part of human consciousness which determines the boundary between the Self & the external world, a crucial distinction in perception, action & cognition.

⬅️  The 3 components of embodiment:
Top  Self-location refers to the experience of the Self being located at the position of our body
Center: Ownership relates to perceiving the body as the own, as the source of sensations.
Bottom : Agency relates to the feeling of control over one’s own actions – motor movements of the physical body & its desired intentions

Through body-ownership illusions, people can embody artificial bodies that are processed as belonging to or substituting their physical body (and > Illusion testing study ….)

Bodily SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
It consists of 3 distinct components:
❖ the experience of owning a body, including a sense of agency for bodily actions, affected by information coming in thru the 5 sense
❖ of being a body with a given location within the environment, &
❖ taking a first-person, body-centered, perspective of that environment.

Human adults experience a ‘real me’ as being housed in ‘my body’ and is the ‘I’ of physical experience & mental thought.
We use the sensations from the body to identify & label our physical condition & emotional state.
This combination is the basis for a ‘concept’ of Self’ – through the continuous integration of new sensory & cultural data from 6 different representations of the body ⬇️  (Details in pdf)

«
Body DYSMORPHIA Disorder (BDD)
There is a link between eating disorders & mental health. Co-occurring problems are usually the underlying cause of eating disorders such as BDD.
Often beginning as early as age 12, body dysmorphia is about imagined physical  imperfections. It causes intense emotional distress, adding to whatever self-hate may have developed from being abused & neglected by family, school &/or religious environments.

For BDD teens, contributing factors include the pressure of finding a purpose in life & feeling isolated. What started as
—-> parental control about eating, peer pressure, being ridiculed or marginalized
—–> became fear of abandonment, no self confidence, & a poor body image**
—–> which got twisted into an intense dislike for one’s body unrelated to weight
—-> which spiraled into an obsessive focus on certain body parts.
** These mental health issues contribute to full blown eating disorders, as well as substance abuse, social anxiety, and self-harm.

NEXT : Attachment & Sexuality,, #1

PREVIOUS: Attachment, EDs & the BODY (#2)

BODY IMAGE
There is a one–body–one–person rule with 2 assumptions:
— a body is an individual entity circumscribed by the skin, which makes it an ideal vessel or ‘material carrier’ for the Person.
— a Person is a biographical entity who moves with their body between a variety of situations, but both person & body stay basically the same over time, independent of contexts.

Body image is a person’s experience of the physical self & is important for both psychological development & quality of life.
It can be thought of as a positive, energetic, constantly changing mental picture of the bodily self. The bodily self and body image grows out of the original attachment relationship through maternal mirroring, being in tune with & responding sensitively to the child’s signals.

The idea of ‘body image’ is made up of :
(1) the person’s perceptions / ideas of their body
(2) interpretations of & attitudes re. those perceptions
(3) visible behaviors in response to them

Appearance orientation indicates how invested one is in how they look People who pay too much attention (psychologically) to their appearance are over-sensitive to physical symptoms, & anxious about gaining weight.
The stronger the focus, the more it’s about wanting to mentally (& physically – if possible) reunite with the – real or fantasy – image of the lost mother, to achieve synchronicity and reciprocity in their inner world.
Compulsive ED behaviors try to create an “ideal appearance that will now guarantee the love & desire of the other” (mother, lover) at least in their own mind.

A negative body image can result in harmful psycho-social outcomes for both genders. It can effect competence in social & occupational functioning, causing a poor quality of life, with low self-esteem, depression, social anxiety, sexual dysfunction, suicidal tendencies, substance abuse, & self-harm.

It’s also a key element in the development of eating disorders. Although EDs are related to physical needs & actions of the body, (the behavioral dimension) , they are used as compensation, to hide feelings of anger, fear, vulnerability, inadequacy or helplessness.
«

«
Research on body image identifies three sources of environmental stressors : parents, peers and media. Family is the usual environment where physical & psychological development occur, so family dynamics play an important role in body image development. Missing an emotionally safe connection with mom, the unhappy child will form a stronger investment in the bodily self  (Part 1)

Memories of traumatic experiences, which are often body-related, may lead to rejection or withdrawal from the body.People struggling with a negative body image are at a higher risk of developing Mood disorders, Relationship problems, & Self-harm tendencies

Attachment trauma is any experience that instinctively signals a threat to breaking the child’s original Relationship-with-mom, or a danger to the Self.  It’s a very real experience of Irreversible Separation. And Disorganized Attachment represents the impossibility of the child feeling secure & protected.
❇️ In Recovery, developing a sense of intimacy with a safe figure of attachment is the solution to relieving fear.

⚠️ SIDEBAR : However, the opportunity to correct body image distortions requires finally feeling unspoken abandonment experiences from childhood. But there is powerful resistance to re-experiencing those accumulated & suppressed emotions about being traumatized by Mom. ⚠️
The basis of disorganization is the fear of attachment, which can show up in a more tangible way as problematizing the body, in several ways:
– worry about their physical health & actions that try to controlling it
– anxiety about weight gain, which leads to dieting
– behaviors aimed at improving appearance.

CAUSE : They did not originally get relief of physical & mental sensations from Mother, which would have allowed them to process distressing emotions (fear, frustration, anger) through her words & actions to desomatize them, meaning —-> to not get trapped in the nerves, tissues & organs of the body.

SENSORY PROCESSING Disorder (SPD)
The inability to use information from the body. When the brain’s processing ability is disordered it can’t do its most important job of organizing incoming sensory messages.

SPD profoundly harms a person’s emotional, physical, social, and/or psychological well-being. Also, research has found a link between SP problems & some eating disorders.
SPD is an umbrella term to cover a variety of neurological disabilities. (Extensive Info) See also “33 Signs of SPD”

NEXT : Attachment, EDs & the BODY (#3)

PREVIOUS :  Body  – DEFINITIONS

↗️ CHART :  Nested hierarchy of Self and its trauma      

NOTE: See Definitions post to understand confusing or new terms.

INTRO : The BODY is our instrument for moving thru the world.
In the first months of human life, attachment needs are first & foremost the needs of the body, which are supposed to be satisfied by the responses of the primary caregiver (m0m).  

Physical & mental development are inseparable, so the way the body is invested**, how it’s experienced in the earliest moments of life —> will determine the way we will go through our life – mentally, physically & spiritual.
** Body Investment is a person’s feelings & attitudes about their body, the level of care & protection they show it, & their comfort about being touched by other people.

The development of an internal safe base formed by positive attachment relationships – begins with the body’s contact with ‘the other’s’ body –  which provides the feeling of safety to manage all early threatening experiences.
Absorbing this experience of security allows the child to build this shelter for themself. Insecure attachment (avoidant or ambivalent) causes an internal picture of a “false bodily self”.

Because the mother’s face is the first psychological mirror the baby absorbs, what it reflects is the child’s reality. Crucial – the kind of mirroring** she provides will form the child’s Body Image – which is central to Self-concept, with important consequences for mental functioning.

** Mirroring : the way parents consciously or subconsciously reflect back the emotions, needs or aspirations of the child, which validates, accepts, & shows them love.**

If the mother is lovingly responsive, the baby experiences pleasure in the attachment relationship. Her ability to be attentive, sensitive & spontaneous underlies the development of the child’s mentalization, which includes emotions.

Then a memory trace is formed in the baby’s brain that connects the bodily experience with the image of the positive feelings transmitted by the mother. This creates a mental representation of the pleasurable emotion corresponding to the bodily experience.

♻️ Attachment Trauma : When there is a lack of resonance between the signals given by the child (I need you) and the answers given by the attachment figure (I’m not available / I don’t care), the potential reciprocity & pleasure of the relationship are missing. 

Trauma always involves loss. These losses may be very real & literal, such as the loss of a loved one, or be more symbolic, such as the loss of identity, meaning, or hope. Traumatic experiences affect not only the ability to connect & to feel emotions, but also the ability to think symbolically – in pictures. (⬅️ Some adult trauma results)

Whether loss is real or symbolic – when irreversible separation cannot be mourned (emotionally), & traumas cannot be represented (visualized), we make our body THE problem (leading to distorted eating, over-exercising, unnecessary cosmetic surgery….)

When the attachment relationship is based in the trauma of being rejected or ignored by Mother, the child experiences emotional deadness / emptiness. This prevents them from being able to :
💭 form a whole, accurate picture of what actually happened with the parent (confusion, denial)
💭 construct dialogue, internally & externally, using words to share experiences with “another who can tolerate & retain what is heard” (therapist, BFF, healer, minister….) .

The lack of symbolic capacity gradually reduces the ability of the child to know & see themself as a separate entity & the entity who is the source of their own actions (to be efficacious). They’re left wondering “Who am I?”

If ‘Self-agency” is weak or unavailable, it’s more likely that the body will be used to express what cannot be represented directly. Eventually this original lack makes it hard to transform the old version of Self into something new = “violating the recycling capacity” needed for recovery & growth.

Without the ability to mentally image & process painful experiences, emotions are unloaded into & then communicated through the body —-> making it possible to ‘speak’ the sorrow there are no words for, expressed instead as physical symptoms (clenched jaw, tight muscles, headaches, back pain, eyesight problems, IBS….).

“What the mind suppresses, the body expresses.” Attachment trauma may also cause a greater susceptibility to stress, difficulty regulating emotions, dependency, trouble with attention, sexual acting out & mental illnesses.

NEXT : Attachment & Body, #2

PREVIOUS: Attachment & FOOD -#3

♥          ♣        ♥
APPEARANCE (A)
🧍🏽‍♂️ A. Orientation : how much you are invested in your appearance, measures by how much & what kind of attention you pay it

🧍🏽‍♂️ A. Evaluation : beliefs about one’s appearance, positive-to-negative appraisal, such as satisfaction or dissatisfaction . Result of : how close or far way one’s opinion is between what we think we look like vs. our ideal image.

🧍🏽‍♂️ Afferent – describes things like nerves, vessels & arteries that lead toward or bring things to an organ
Efferent (think e as in exit) – is the opposite, body parts that carry or lead things away from organs or other parts

🧍🏽‍♂️ Alexithymia : the inability to recognize or describe one’s own emotions (emotional blindness)

🧍🏽‍♂️ Bodily self : A sense of self through which we experience & interact with the world. Our brain integrates & applies external & internal signals to form ‘bodily self-consciousness”

🧍🏽‍♂️ Body image : a combination of the thoughts & feelings we have about our body. A conscious image of the size, shape & physical composition of our body

🧍🏽‍♂️ Emotional Dysregulation : a mental health problem = trouble controlling your emotions, & how you act on those feelings. It’s when you to feel stuck or unable to make yourself feel better

🧍🏽‍♂️ Embodiment : using our bodily experience & processes to understand our own emotional experience, and that of others.
A state in which the mind listens to the body – feeling connected & attuned, exploring the relationship between our physical being & our energy. It’s he interaction of our body, thoughts, and actions, helping to understand emotional processing.

🧍🏽‍♂️ Disembodiment : experiences of losing track of somatic feeling, the body’s movements, or the relationship of one’s own body to other bodies. It’s a sense of being “up in the head,” so we lose touch with the present moment sensory-field, what is happening right here, right now.
When distracted, we don’t notice where the body is in space, our breathing, the sense of being grounded. (MORE….)

🧍🏽‍♂️ Interoception : the ability to be aware of internal sensations in the body, including heart rate, respiration, hunger, fullness, temperature, & pain, as well as emotion sensations

🧍🏽‍♂️ Mediator : a variable in a causal sequence between two other variables. The addition of a third variable to the X → Y relation, whereby X causes the mediator M, and M causes Y, so X → M → Y.
EXP: how well good grades (X) predict happiness (Y), but indirectly through self-esteem (M). 

🧍🏽‍♂️ Mentalizing / mental representation – a hypothetical image or picture which stands for a perception, thought, memory…. like picturing the numbers you’re dialing.  In psychological development, it’s a basic idea that represents oneSelf & significant others.  Mentalizing is an absolutely required skill needed to successfully navigate the social world.

🧍🏽‍♂️Orthorexia – an obsession with only eating foods that the person considers healthy, limiting too many ok categories

🧍🏽‍♂️ Priming : exposure to one stimulus can influence the response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. It work best when the two are in the same modality, such as visual priming with visual cues, & depends on either a positive or negative relationship between a priming & target stimulus  (MORE… )   (🌺 See “Kindness priming“)

🧍🏽‍♂️ Reflective functioning : intentional mental states that is our capacity to understand ourself & others in terms of feelings, desires, wishes, goals & attitudes.

🧍🏽‍♂️Representation : perception, memory, & cognition related to the body, updated continuously by sensory input. The mental image we create of ourself, made up of : body image, schema, superficial schema, model, structural description & body as distinct semantic domain

🧍🏽‍♂️ Representational reunion = mentally picturing the infant feeling of being positive & happy when mother returns

🧍🏽‍♂️ Reciprocity :  the tendency to return a favor or a benevolent action with another benevolent action (in 3 styles). Responding in kind

🧍🏽‍♂️ Reflexive self-awareness : the ability to experience oneself as an independent object. (around age 2 – to recognize oneself in the mirror)

🧍🏽‍♂️Somatics : is about the wholeness of a person – of body and mind. Our body holds so much information for us, it’s imperative we listen 

🧍🏽‍♂️ Synchronize / Synchronicity – two or more things working in harmony, by mirroring each other, either consciously or unconsciously 

🧍🏽‍♂️ Thinking : mental activity that can be experienced or manipulated, using symbols . Includes — imagining, remembering, problem solving, daydreaming, free association, concept formation….

NEXT :

PREVIOUS : Attachment Body DEFINITIONS

SITE : “Multifaceted Nature of Alexithymia – A Neuroscientific Perspective”

Alexithymia
A broad term for a condition whereby a person struggles to distinguish between emotions & bodily sensations.
A relatively new concept, it was coined by the psychoanalytic psychiatrist Peter Sifneos in 1972, who borrowed the term from his native language – “without words for emotion.”

Alexithymia occurs on a spectrum, & is considered a personality trait, not a medical diagnosis.
Estimated : 1 in 10 people (from a study in the Netherlands). But the rate is higher among neuro-divergent people (ADHD, Autism…) and those with mental health conditions (depression, anxiety….), chronic pain & other health issues.

🔻Primary  (trait alexithymia) is innate, considered a part of a person’s baseline personality, present from birth, & consistent across time & situations. It has genetic components, & possibly exacerbated by an environmental upset causing emotion dysregulation in early youth, likely as a result of traumatic experiences.
It may be considered mainly a problem with interoception.

🔺Secondary (state alexithymia) is temporary &/or situational. It often results from life circumstances or a recent medical diagnosis.
EXP: As with PTSD & SUD, the effect may be present for a much shorter time, & could potentially be resolved after treatment or if the stressor no longer exists.

Nurture: A person’s early environment can harm their ability to perceive & register emotions from —> Lack of mother’s positive attention, the negative emotional tone of the home, inadequate emotional labeling, extremes of emotional expression….. (Source)

CORE features : note that a person may have high alexithymia traits in one area, but low traits in other areas. 

1. Difficulty Identifying Feelings
These people experience confusion about their internal experiences, struggling to distinguish between emotions & bodily sensations
EXP : hunger vs anxiety, hunger cues vs exhaustion, anxiety vs sadness…..
The ability to identify emotions plays a key role in our ability to regulate them. Trouble with this has been linked with depression, non-suicidal self-harm, & suicidal behavior

2.Difficulty Describing Feelings
They have trouble finding words /labels for emotions so can’t express them to others. Descriptors may be vague, general & diffuse.

They may also have trouble recognizing facial cues in others. while being hyper-sensitive to physical sensations

3. Externally oriented thinking
All their mental energy is focused on the external world. All situations are considered independent of oneself or one’s own experiences, without ever noticing their internal processes. This kind of thinking reduces the ability to feel positive emotions, which can contribute to depression & other mood issues.

4. Interpersonal Relationship Difficulties
They have trouble with empathy – not picking up others’ point of view, feelings & intentions – limiting their ability to form & deepen relationships.
One study found the cause to be alexithymia rather than autism. Autistic people who did not also have A. did not have the same struggles with empathy as people with both conditions (<—- 50-60%). .  

5.  Restricted Imaginative Processes
 Many people with alexithymia  – but not all – have a diminished fantasy life, with limited imaginative capacities.
Because they’re oriented to the concrete world of facts & pragmatics** they have little interest in the arts & other creative efforts. They’re unlikely to spend time daydreaming.
** Pragmatics is the study of indirectly verbalized communication, where the speaker implies something & a listener needs to infer the meaning.

6. Sexual Difficulties & Disinterest:
While not primary, many A. people have reduced sexual satisfaction, sexual shyness / nervousness. & greater detachment from potential sexual partners. 2 CAUSES
— A. is associated with more ‘negative’ emotion, which can dampen sexual responses
— They have a more detached, avoidant attachment style, lending to  sexual avoidance, & even to identifying themself as asexual (source). This may be a reason for a higher rate of asexuality within the Autistic population. (MORE….re. A & A)

7.  Vicarious Interpretation of Feeling
DEF: The undesirable emotion is experienced in another person, & the observer projects what they interpret as the appropriate response onto themselves.
Called “affective empathy”, As. can experience other people’s feelings on their behalf – but not their own!. EXP : have a strong emotion when learning someone’s had a great loss, mirroring what the mourner felt.

IDENTIFYING A —  2 online measures widely used :
:Alexithymia Online Test and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, which mirror the traits mentioned above & will show your range.

NOTE: #4,  5,  6 & 7  —- are not part of the formal definition, but often correlate with it.  

NEXT : Attachment & the BODY, #1

PREVIOUS : Attachment & Eating #1

SITE : “How HR can help Manage Eating Disorders in the Workplace”

3. AVOIDANT :   A child with an avoidant attachment will not be able depend on the caregiver for security, realizing it’s not safe to express its needs, its Trues Self, emotions & opinions….
Adults with unhealed avoidant attachment – prefer being on their own because they developed trouble trusting, committing, connecting, communicating & expressing emotions.

Believing that no one will ever meet their needs, they’re learned to ‘manage’ by not wanting, much less asking.  Terrified of being dependent on anyone or anything, they actively eliminate whatever might nourish them, which includes food. They’re perfectionist, denying any form of vulnerability, always needing to be in control, so relaxing their guard & letting go – even a little – is totally unacceptable.

Avoidants eat because they have to, not because they want to – food is not enjoyment. Their mantra is : “I only trust myself & don’t need love. Refusing to take anything in is the best way to cope.”
They believe that depriving themself the pleasure & abundance of food is a way of being in charge of their choices, in order to feel safe. They’re prone to anorexia, keeping anxiety at bay by cutting or restricting calories, often eating the same things, obsessing over scientific diets, beating up the body…..
ARFID (See Part 2b) Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (Anorexia)

NOT about body dysmorphia or Weight-gain distress.  
3 Types:
🔒Sensory-based = overly sensitive to specific foods
🔒Trauma related = had abusive experiences with food (typical for many ACoAs)
🔒Restrictive = don’t recognize hunger or fullness
RISK factors: autism spectrum, ADHD & other learning disabilities, anxiety disorders

SUGGESTIONS : to heal an avoidant food attachment,
🔆 the main goal is to accept that self-protection & true safely comes from proving as many of our human needs as  possible. Self-care = self=nourishment.

🔆 Then slowly create a relationship with food that feels good , as a way to provide the nurture that was missing n childhood. EXP : add more choices to meals & workouts, join cooking classes or learn recipes, get a vegan dessert once a week or do yoga instead of a run. This is not loosing control, but finding ways to consciously choose comfort rather than self-punishment.

💃🏻      🕺🏼     🍏      🍒        

4. DISORGANIZED:   A child with a disorganized attachment is in a frozen state between anxious & avoidant.   They’re in a double bind, feeling the need to avoid the caregiver because he/she is dangerous, yet not wanting to be alone & abandoned.
Adults with unhealed disorganized attachment continue this bind – they long for a connection with someone – while pushing them away. They don’t want to be violated but also not abandoned. Equally, their reaction to eating is also disorganized.

They have a control-rebel, love-hate, love-fear relationship with food.   trapped between hungry/not hungry, wanting to eat but afraid to. Disorganized-Ambivalents will binge, feel shame & then punish themself by purging, restricting or overexercising.

Whether they lean more strongly toward the anxiety or avoidance end of the scale  can determine the form of unhealthy eating . EXP: anxious = binge-purge, & avoidant = calorie restriction. In either case they’re trying to stifle the pain of being terribly dissatisfied with their body.

This attachment style is associated with gaslighting & perpetrator bonding. Disorganizeds live in two opposite realities: food is considered a physical violation (boundary invasion) but it’s also needed to survive.
So they gaslight themself into thinking that painful food experiences are good for them. Frustrated, they’ll switch from binging to restriction, chasing an illusion of emotional relief but never safe enough to land on one side.

SUGGESTIONS : To heal a Disorganized-Ambivalent attachment,
🔆 the major task is to balance containment & structure (the body) with pleasure & flow (emotions) .

🔆 A food schedule & structured meals are required, while still allowing for choices & enjoyment. Eat at regular times. Accept that this is a long hard process – but do-able.

🔆  It’s crucial you embrace & heal the fear & negative beliefs, used as gaslighting & self-rejection. Replace fear with acceptance & love.
SITE : 5 Stages of recovery from ED – Pre-Contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance.
«

«
NEXT : Eating Disorder DEFINITIONS

PREVIOUS : FOOD- (#1)

SITE : “Eating disorders & Neurodivergence“

ATTACHMENT Styles

♥️ SECURE :  Child – develops a secure attachment when mom consistently attends to toddler’s needs, who looks for mom’s approval, but continues exploring around her.
Secure Adults – have a balanced sense of self & a healthy connection with others. Easily trusting themself & others, they can openly share ideas, feelings & desires.

With a secure attachment to mom, it’s likely the child will also have it with food. Food is abundant, a form of love, & not causing any fear. Secures approach food in a healthy, balanced & structured way, as well as getting pleasure, comfort & joy from meals. They value growth & health, food as a tool to heal & to share creativity & enjoyment with others.

SUGGESTION : To develop a secure attachment to food, it’s best to have 3 regular meals throughout the day & small snacks in between.
Try cooking new tasty dishes, create fun dinner parties, & think of food as a way to positively maintain & increase the body’s electrical vibrations .
AFFIRMATION : “This colorful food is replenishing my body, mind & spirit. I can feel my energy expanding!

😼

2. ANXIOUS:
Child – An anxious attachment is formed when the mother is inconsistent in meeting the child’s needs, creating anxiety & fear of abandonment.
Adults with an unhealed anxious attachment may become addictive, constantly looking for validation & security from similarly inconsistent people, not wanting to be on their own.  They scream their need for trust, security & nurture by chasing it externally from others, while sacrificing their sense of self.

Similarly, this person will chase food as a way to soothe the emotional pain of not being validated, safe, or understood.
Overeating or binge-eating gives a false sense of grounding, a fullness they were regularly deprived of in their family. This leaves anxious attachers particularly at risk for eating disorders, with increasing severity of symptoms.

Because Anxious types are afraid of scarcity & being abandoned – tomorrow – eating now is considered predictable, reliable (at least in Western societies), the one thing they can rely on. This leaves anxious attachers particularly at risk for eating disorders, with increasing severity of symptoms.

They’re addicted to negative thoughts about themself (S-H), with heightened emotional reactions to any slight, expecting to be rejected by those close to them, wanting constant strokes. Many will turn to fool to fill the emptiness rather than healing the trauma from childhood.

They use food to silence their emotional body the sane way their original caregivers did, teaching by word & deed that emotions are unsafe. Lacking internal boundaries, they don’t trust they can create a positive/ balanced relationship with food.

BINGE Eating Disorder (BED) – a common choice for the Anxious : The more you eat, the fuller you feel – physically. Food-fullness tries to quiet the ‘huger’ to be filled up by warm, loving relationships.
⬅️ EXP of some over-eating results

Ritual is important in any addiction. The day is planned around “the binge” – it’s something to look forward to,  like a friend who will never disappoint. It fills the loneliness & quiets the anxiety. A lot of time is spent (wasted) thinking about when it will happen, what will be eaten, even avoiding certain foods earlier – to make the binge that much more pleasurable. 

Tragically, it backfires. Alter the binge, the person (often women) will drown in self-criticism & shame, adding another layer to the original pain the binge was meant to mask.

SUGGESTIONs to heal anxious food attachment
🔆 make a daily habit of noticing when you’re emotionally shutting down, (see list) & instead —-> speak or write down the bottled emotions.
Ask : “What emotional need am I trying to get from food? How can I get more of this need (company, safety, comfort, guidance, nurture) from myself & from safe PPT (people, place & things) ?

🔅Learn how to plan 3 moderate daily meals, with a few heathy snacks in between.
🔆Get a food-buddy for encouragement & to keep you on track (therapy, online groups,  OA).
🌺 Keep to a structure throughout the day, as much as possible, allowing  yourself to enjoy taking care of yourself – as you use food for nourishment instead of a numbing agent.

NEXT : FOOD – (#3)

PREVIOUS :
Attachment & FOOD #4a

Reminder : ALL major eating disorders are related to one of the INSECURE Attachment styles. (See also : “Co-occuring problems“)`

1. EXP = ORTHOREXIA Nervosa (ON)
A “fixation on righteous eating”, the unhealthy focus on trying to eat healthily. This person will  lose weight although not trying to.  Breaking the rules they set for themself creates fear of disease along with anxiety & shame for their choices, so the rules get harsher over time. The person may also do unnecessary cleanses.

Insecure attachment styles are connect to EDs, especially with high levels of Anxious attachment, along with depression & low-self-esteem  People with stronger Ortho-tendencies were often unsuccessful at emotion regulation, a common feature of eating & emotional disorders.

They have serious misconceptions about nutrition, such as assuming the benefits of excluding entire food groups.  This will lead to severe nutrient deficiencies, eventually causing life-threatening problems such as anemia, osteoporosis, hormone imbalances, & an abnormally slow heart rate. (More….)
«

«
IRONY : If sustained, this pattern actually does the opposite – it damages the person’s overall health & well-being,
♨︎ Similarities between orthorexia and anorexia (both avoidant attachment) & bulimia (anxiety attachment) include eliminating food to have control – over deep abandonment anxiety.

2. EXP = BED (Binging)
 These people usually do not lose large amounts of weight – a typical sign, although they’re been publicly dieting for much of their lives. (More….) BED is more common in adulthood than other EDs, & especially in men – who are about half of all sufferers, rather than in other disorders. Treatment can be harder to get for adults because the medical community still has biases against their age & type of disorder.

How it’s MAINTAINED
🔹Impulsivity (I) is premature decision-making without forethought, & no consideration for the consequences of one’s actions. There’s a failure to stop oneself from acting, & the inability to postpone rewards, wanting immediate reinforcement.

People with BED (binge eating) have high Impulsivity scores, & initially this behavior leads to feeling pleasure & satisfaction.

🔸Compulsivity (C) is repeated & persistent actions not related to a goal or reward, but continues in spite of negative consequences.
Persistent repetition of binging – despite obvious self-harm – is a sign of addiction.

With any chronic substance abuse, there’s a ventral-to-dorsal shift (I to C), as the person’s drive moves from pleasure-seeking to needing relief from the painful symptoms of withdrawal & obsession to get more of the ‘drug / food’. This shift help maintained the disorder.  (MORE…. ⬆️ & ⬇️)

Coordinating INFO : Polyvagal theory, Attachment & ED
In treatment, a person’s nutrition status & ability to regulate their nervous system are intertwined. Whenever the Sympathetic system rules (#b), the person is stuck in survival mode. (CHART )
🇨🇭 A body & brain struggling with nourishment is a body in distress & a brain that doesn’t have the capacity to engage in higher-level healing.

Nervous System Activation
(Ladder + resources)
a. Ventral vagal social engagement: The state that allows us to connect with & relate to others. We feel safe & secure, easily being present for ourself. We can empathize with others, as well as accurately interpret facial expressions & body language.

b. Sympathetic activation: causes the fight-flight response – motivating us to quickly get away from a threat – by increasing our heart rate, breathing rate….. We may feel anxious, chaotic, overwhelmed, even frenzied.‍

c. Dorsal vagal shutdown: The nervous system tells us we’re in a life-threatening situation (actual or not) & signals the body to stop. This is the freeze response – a state of collapse with feelings of being stuck, despondent, lethargic, unmotivated, & hopelessness.

Stressors & trauma can cause us to move from #a 🔺 to #b🔻. However, the body can’t sustain anxiety for too long, so, for self-preservation, it will go into shutdown, #c.

3. EXP = OVEREATING (OE)
Note – Overeating is not BED (binge eating disorder). Rather, it’s biological & very common. When stressed, our body makes more of the hormone cortisol. – a fight-or-flight response that tells us it’s time to find food, making us crave foods high in sugar, fat or salt.
Some symptoms of OE : acid reflux, bloating, gas, heartburn, nausea. Other factors that contribute to OE are how fast you eat, what, when & and what you’re doing while eating.
BRAIN
☄️Food causes dopamine neurons to release this chemical into the NA.  (area re. something important, that’s striking), which plays an important role in assessing reward
☄️In the ‘addicted brain” which causes over-eating, the PFC and CG have a reduced ability to regulate compulsive drives
☄️Compulsive behavior is then driven by the relationship between NA & Memory areas of the brain
«

«
NEXT : FOOD – #2