Disorganized Attachment Quotes

“The happy family is a myth for many.”
― Carolyn Spring

“In this climate of profoundly disrupted relationships the child faces a formidable developmental task. She must find a way to form primary attachments to caretakers who are either dangerous or, from her perspective, negligent. She must find a way to develop a sense of basic trust and safely with caretakers who are untrustworthy and unsafe. She must develop a sense of self in relation to others who are helpless, uncaring or cruel. She must develop a capacity for bodily self-regulation in an environinent in which her body is at the disposal of others' needs as well as a capacity for self-soothing in an environment without solace. She must develop the capacity for initiative in an environment which demands that she bring her will into complete conformity with that of her abuser. And ultimately, she must develop a capacity for intimacy out of an environment where all intimate relationships are corrupt, and an identity out of an environment which defines her as a whore and a slave.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“The little girl's dependency on her father made [his] abuse more insidious.”
― Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“More than one personality was created in the hope of being the daughter Nancy could consistently love. More than one new personality was created in response to Mother's unexpected fury.”
― Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

“Human beings are a species evolved for secure connection with others--that's just human biology & neuroscience.
But some of us wonder if we can feel secure without being abandoned
&
some of us wonder if we can feel secure without being overwhelmed.
Some of us a little of both.”
― Allyson Dinneen, Notes From Your Therapist