Mammalian Attachment Heals Trauma

About 35 years ago, I worked on the only "patient-governed ward" in our state hospital. The puppy on the ward, had a "treatment plan" posted on the wall, above the newspaper pile used for his toilet training, so that all persons who interacted with the puppy, would encourage him to use the newspaper pile, etc.. The National Health Service Corps physician assigned to our ward, was a Family Physician, not a "Psychiatrist", but he also "felt" the puppy's presence served a "good function". With what we now know about how Veterans with PTSD, make effective "trainers" with their own service dogs, and benefit from such interaction, it seemed a fitting time to note a "thing of the past".

Thank you!  Great question: "Where do we start?"  I had no idea what attachment meant either in 2009 when I started this "grief" work.

Yes, it's exactly like exercise. And it's a really bad idea to do the wrong exercise for us!  I thought that "attachment" meant romance -- exactly the wrong exercise for me.  Because when we're abused as kids, we're romantically attracted to 100% abusive people, no exceptions -- so we get re-traumatized.

So yeah it's like exercise:

First we have to go to an expert and get help picking the right exercise specifically for us. I went to Drs. John Townsend and Henry Cloud and found out romance is exactly the wrong thing for traumatees, which shocked the heck out of me.  So I resisted their ideas, and kept up my romance addiction for another two years, which really retarded my recovery.  Finally I got sober from "love addiction" and that was when my healing started.

So that was the first step: giving up the wrong exercise, and shifting to the right exercise.  I had to internalize their book "Safe People," which told me how to get attached withOUT romance, in a platonic (aka Godly) situation. 

Basically we need to get attached to people who will treat us as a good parent would have: just let us be heard and seen; give us acceptance; and never ask for anything -- except to be heard, seen, and accepted in return.  Certainly not ask for sex!  And we also don't need them to be our parent or re-parent us, that's bs. We just need them to behave like decent human beings!   So "Safe People" taught me to whom are the right people to get attached.  Like picking the right machine at the gym.

Next the expert has to tell us (we can't know) at how strenuous a level to start the right exercise.  I started by writing my grief letters per the "Grief Recovery Handbook," and then finding "Safe People" who agreed to be my "Grief Partner" -- and behavior for a Partner is laid out in detail in the Handbook.  So important to have such a book with written rules for both sides to agree to for behavior, so we don't get re-traumatized.

Basically the rules are the same as in "Safe People": just let us be heard and seen; give us acceptance; and never ask for anything.  I read my Grief Letter to my partner for 1 hour, and bawl like a baby -- while they just sit and be "a heart with ears."  While I'm reading, they're like Hello Kitty, they have no mouth; they just listen, and give me a lot of eye contact (google Limbic Resonance from General Theory of Love on eye contact.)  

Then we switch; they read their Grief Letter to me, and I just sit in total silence, like a heart with ears. Just let them be heard and seen; give acceptance; and never ask for anything.

The eye contact is THE most crucial, that's why google Limbic Resonances.  It's the opposite of the Still Face Experiment experience, which was all I got from birth.

Eye contact was torture for me at first -- that was the key paradigm challange.  I had never had eye contact in my life until a boy went to kiss me at 16 -- so I had NO idea what "Safe" eye contact could possibly be.  It was TERRIFYING to do it in a non-sexual setting.

But just like exercise, we have to just start and also rigorously do it regularly, no blocking or stopping.  We did this 2-hour routine once and sometimes twice a week for 5 years.  Eventually I learned to keep eye contact.  It was excruciating the first year; learning to hold eye contact nearly killed me. It took months.  But now it's my favorite thing to do on the planet!

And boy does Limbic Resonance do the job - it literally did re-wire my brain.

What do you do if your attachment system doesn't know how to attach???? I think this area is still being studied.  Maybe it is just like exercise... Find something you are passionate about (like preventing ACEs) and use that to get yourself out there.  That is what I am doing --- but boy am I clumsy.  Love your posts. Maybe do some research on Jaak Panskeep and TST and cat hair cleaners... just my thought... Thanks so much.