#reactive attachment disoder

I have problems. I tell people this up front (or try to). With this confessional I try to also tell people not to bother, to run while they can, that things will end exactly as I predict them too. The only thing is, with me this is 99% true - people just think I’m being hard on myself. 

I see so many people posting things about mental health awareness, no stigma, being more understanding and empathetic and I believe all of you. We’ve started to make real progress in these areas (which are desperately needed), but believing it’s the right thing and supporting someone or living with it are so different. I am NOT knocking anyone or calling anyone out or any such thing. You can absolutely believe this without action and that is STILL an amazing thing. Empathy is something amazing and I love everyone I see that has this ability. 

I have a pocket full of diagnosis and there’s been a variety of opinions and treatment plans. I’m not sure if I should just list them all out and overwhelm you or go through them and try to show what’s happening - what you don’t see. I swear I’m going to sound like I have Munchhausen or am a hypochondriac, but mostly it’s a chain of things that have evolved over the years. 

At 14 I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and having an extremely addictive personality. I was depressed, cutting (more than daily), suicidal, putting myself in very risky situations, and basically so numb that I didn’t know if I had ever known what it was to really love anyone (especially not myself). 

By 18 everyone was leaning more towards Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). This is less common so I’m going to give you just a quick rundown of how it applies/affected me. This is a learned disorder, before the age of 5 - a survival technique. As children we are greatly shaped by the relationships we have with others. 

If, for example, a child is in a situation with an abusive parent, a negligent parent, or an unpredictable parent, these are not optimal relationships (duh!). In my case, it was the third. Consider a few examples. Baby cries, mom comes and feeds/changes diaper/addresses need (healthy). Baby cries, mom ignores it for a while before dealing with it (baby learns to not trust others to fill their needs). Baby cries, mom gets angry while dealing with it (Baby learns other people are dangerous). Baby cries, mom comes right away sometimes, ignores it sometimes, reacts differently each time (Baby doesn’t learn how to respond because there’s never any sort of baseline behavior). 

I was never abused or neglected (in that sense). There were many different people raising me, people who were busy and shuffling me around, in response I learned to act how they wanted me to in each different situation. I didn’t develop a strong sense of who I was, just who I needed to be to avoid pain. I got attention and love when I did the right thing. Not just behaved, that was ignorable behavior, but when I was getting actual direct attention or approval. Then I knew I was doing something right. 

Kids with RAD have a constant feeling that they are irrevocably broken and cannot be loved. They don’t trust. They seek out and push away (usually at the same time) the one thing they need - love. It’s a very common pattern for kids with RAD to seek out love and affection. This can be achieved by being charming, smart, flirting, etc. or by using negative attention seeking behavior (which can be intentionally manipulated or honest problems). This can make them not understand personal boundaries (they will invade your space and be clingy). It will also makes them manipulative (not maliciously so, but out of survival to be who you want them to be). Once they start to get love, they get scared. This is going to be snatched away as soon as people get to know the real them. In order to prove that they aren’t lovable they push and pull. They’ll try to push someone away (in hopes that someone will push back) and then pull them back in. This goes back and forth, until the other person essentially gives up (they’ve been draining themselves dry trying to prove their intentions are honest). 

So the cycle is, find someone you want, find a way for them to care about you, get scared, cling to them out of fear of being unlovable, push them away to prove you aren’t lovable, self destruct and destroy the relationships, acknowledge that you were right and aren’t lovable, which strengthens the belief and the cycle self-perpetuates. This does NOT cover all people with RAD. For just as many people suffer from this there are just as many versions. This is a learned disorder in reaction to external situations. It’s a survival mechanism that is tapered to each instance. This is just my experience. 

Last year I discovered that Borderline Personality Disoder (BPD) (aka emotional unstable personality disorder) was equally if not more so appropriate. You’ll see a lot of carryover from RAD and can see where instead of adding on another diagnosis these are closely linked. 

DSM-V diagnostic criteria for BPD is having 5/9 symptoms. These include 1. Fear of abandonment and extreme/frantic behaviors to avoid this (yes) 2. unstable relationships and extreme interpersonal problems - including a love/hate mood swing pattern (commonly known as ‘I hate you don’t leave me) this is again the push and pull of relationships (yes) 3. Identity disturbance or an unstable sense of who you are (yes) 4. impulsive and self-destructive behavior and little self-control (even when knowing better) (yes) 5. suicidal and/or self-injury (yes) 6. unstable moods (yes) 7. chronic feeling of emptiness (yes) 8. inappropriate or intense anger, violence, displays of temper, physical fights (no) 9. paranoia or dissociation symptoms (no).

People with BPD are considered to have stronger, more intense, and longer lasting emotions. They’re extremely sensitive to triggers that bring on fears (usually unrelated to the current situation) and are compared to PTSD symptoms. A common example is a 3rd degree burn victim - it’s an extremely physical pain that you can’t move away from. They lack an external emotional skin and are therefore subject to emotional pain without any barrier or softening. 

They want/need more than anything to be loved and accepted, but they don’t know how to accept that or maintain a relationship/friendship that they can trust in because of their ability to wreck relationships and push people away. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell them that you love them, accept them, they’re not a burden. They’re not being stubborn - they don’t know how to accept and/or trust this. It is a CONSTANT fear that creates anxiety, depression, and reckless acts. They recognize what they’re doing wrong, but they feel unable to control it or stop. They can’t control their own emotions and therefore feel hopeless, empty, broken. They don’t know how to take care of their own emotional needs. 

A good place for examples of these thoughts and feeling are for someone suffering from BPD is http://bpdthings.tumblr.com/ 

An example of reactions from a BPD individual is (Emotion/Action) afraid/run, anger/attack, sad/withdraw, shame/hide. 9 times out of 10 if someone with BPD is pushing you away its because they want you to grab them and hug them and tell them it’s going to be okay. They just want to know/feel that they are loved and SAFE. 

Finally I’ve also been diagnosed with Bipolar II (BPII). I know most people know what this is. It’s a lot of ups and downs (generally more downs than ups). The ups, hypomania, can lead to reckless, impulsive, destructive behavior and the downs are like normal depression, but sometimes longer.

My biggest issues are the inability to regulate moods, intense emotions (often negative and painful), sensitive to triggers and self doubt, self-destructiveness and recklessness, a severe fear of abandonment, an intense need for love and affection, inability to self-sooth or give myself what I need to feel better, and negative self-thoughts of being broken and unlovable. 

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you will take a moment to read one more thing. This open letter posted by someone who suffered from BPD. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this if you did. If not that’s cool too.