Secure Attachment Necessary to Achieve Intimacy
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Human beings seem to be encoded from birth to crave and require intimate personal relationships in order to thrive. A most basic desire of all human beings is to be heard, known and understood, and feel safe enough to invite a trusted loved one “into-me-see”. We long to experience comfort and connection intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically when we are frightened or lonely or sad.
Recently Angie shared with me her longing desire to get better acquainted with a young man she met at church. She admitted being obsessed with him but was very fearful that in relating to him she might appear inadequate because she is so nervous about what to say to him. She fears he will find her a bore, so she has avoided the very person she is anxious to get to know. This young woman had never learned to build a relationship by testing character through vulnerable conversation to create trust. Growing up in a family where her parents were addicted to drugs, and early exposure to pornography led Angie to become sexually active by the time she was only 12. The only way she had previously related to males was physically. After a long string of failed relationships leaving her filled with shame, she is determined to learn how to create healthy relationships with men.
When children are neglected emotionally, they often interpret and conclude that there is something innately defective about them, and it creates a sense of unhealthy shame. Without a secure attachment it becomes much too risky to ask for attention and help from caregivers and others later in life.
Abuse creates severe emotional wounds until the victim concludes that it is safer not to have needs at all and pulls into a self-protective shell. With no one to turn to, the abused child learns to rely on self for comfort by auto-regulation leading to self-soothing activities for constant distraction spending hours in front of a television, on the internet, gaming, shopping, using substances like drugs and alcohol, or the unhealthy use of sex, food or money to escape the pain of reality.
Distorted thinking patterns develop when the child learns it is safer to keep these shameful, yet soothing behaviors secret, never telling the truth of his or her emotional pain and loneliness. If we think “no one will discover what I’m doing”, “I’m not hurting anyone, not even myself”, “I can change my behaviors on my own”, it should be a red-flag that we are living in isolation. This double life causes the addict to believe their own dishonest messages of justifying, minimizing, and intellectualizing and the consequence becomes living in the personal torment of rage, exhaustion, spiritual bankruptcy and loneliness.
Addiction can be described as a disease of escape and isolation that seems to soothe at least temporarily. Sexual addiction has been called an “intimacy disorder” often confusing drama and intensity for intimacy. Sex can be used as a tool to avoid intimacy and disconnect in a dysfunctional way, to cover up feelings of shame, instead of the expression of sincere love.
Addicts have no idea how to tend to their own true needs and are ill-equipped for the give and take required in intimate relationships. With no internal sense of what it means to have legitimate emotional needs, we are unable to achieve our full potential and we languish and continue to act out our pain.
What steps can Angie take to begin to risk opening up to someone who is showing interest? She has already begun by bringing the problem out of the dark by honestly admitting she craves and yet fears intimacy. Disclosing to another human being one of her deepest, darkest and most shameful secrets begins to bring Angie out of isolation. Committing to therapy, Angie will submit herself to the process of being challenged and educated. It will be helpful to create a list of absolutes – character traits and behaviors she will not settle to live without in an intimate relationship, and a list of offensive qualities she would never accept. Angie must practice vulnerability with trustworthy family and friends building her support system, learning to ask for help, and for what she craves emotionally. Most importantly, Angie will invite her Higher Power, her therapist and circle of support to hold her accountable for her actions. Whatever it takes to heal and learn to be available for intimate relationships can take time that will be well worth the effort.