You can work towards secure attachment, even as an adult.

When we have attachment wounds or trauma from our upbringing, we may not feel as secure with ourselves, our relationships, or in the world. This doesn’t mean that we are destined to feel that way forever, but it does mean we need to connect to healing.

First off, what does it mean to have attachment wounds?

We form our sense of self, sense of relationships, and sense of the world in our earlier development years. This means, the environment- including attachment figures- play a huge role in how secure our attachment feels. When we grow up in a safe and comfortable environment surrounded by healthy attachment figures who nurture us, hold space for our experience, and provide a safe space for us to develop physically and emotionally- we are more likely to have a confident sense of self as well as feel comfortable and safe in relationships.

Unfortunately, due to a number of different circumstances in our world, these secure attachment conditions are not often what someone experiences. Even in the most loving families, we are likely to incur some attachment wounding. If small wounds here and there occur in a space where there can also be relationship repair, we may still feel very secure in our attachment. But, if a lack of comfort or physical/emotional safety is a pattern- we are more likely to feel insecure in our attachment.

This can look like chronic invalidation, dismissing emotions, physical or emotional neglect, frequent criticisms, or messages around needing to earn your worth. Of course, the things that our society more commonly views as abuse or “big-T” trauma can contribute to attachment wounds as well. What can be uniquely tricky with the “small-T” traumas of attachment wounding, is we may have a harder time identifying those patterns as harmful to our development and may instead wonder what is wrong with us if we don’t feel secure in our attachment as adults.

Now, what can insecure attachment look like in adulthood?

In relationships, this may show up with high anxiety in relationships, feeling unworthy of care and support, codependency, concerns around trust, difficulty enforcing our own boundaries, or patterns around selecting friends or partners who may not be healthy for us. Attachment wounds can also impact how we feel about ourselves. This can look like low self-worth, low confidence in our sense of self, confusion around our emotional experience, and dismissing our own physical or emotional needs. Often, mental health struggles that include anxiety, depression, perfectionism, reactivity, or personality patterns can be connected to attachment wounds or trauma.

So, how can you heal these wounds in adulthood?

It’s important to know that it’s never to late for healing! When these patterns have existed for a long time, it may take more time to heal and connect to healthier patterns, but there is always time and space to come back to yourself. Working with a therapist who specializes in attachment or trauma can be a great place to start. They can help you unpack your attachment history and identify how past wounds connect to your current feelings around attachment. A therapist can be a great support as you hold space for healing trauma and building the life you want to live.

Part of this work will be unlearning past narratives that do not support you- and then bringing in beliefs that do. For example, you may shift “I am unloveable” to “I am loveable.” While changing these internal stories we tell oursleves is a big part of the work, connecting to actions that support these healthier beliefs is where things can really start to shift.

If you believed you were unloveable, you may have not sought out healthy relationships or enforced boundaries that felt needed in relationships. You may have often criticized your mistakes and not gone after new challenges because you didn’t feel good enough for them. As you are working on the narrative “I am loveable”, you will also work on connecting your actions to support this. You may work on building statements of self-compassion and self-validation, explore and hold boundaries in relationships, and put energy into healthier relationships.

This work can be life changing, and it is also hard and long-term work. While we wish change could happen overnight, change tends to come over several months with continuous action. Not only can a therapist guide you in this work, but they can also remind you of your little wins along the way so that you can stay connected to your work.

If you are in Minnesota and looking for a therapist to do this work, we have therapists who would love to support this! At Minnesota Attachment Collective, attachment work is at the heart of everything we do. Check out our therapists to see who you might want to set up a free initial consultation with!