When Grief, Trauma and Attachment Wounds Intersect

A theme has cropped up in my practice lately. I first suspected that attachment wounding was the culprit, but then I wondered if it was more nuanced than that. Parents were expressing profound distress as their children individuated. Mostly their children were adolescents, but there were adult children too (some children are late to the individuation game). This distress went beyond the ordinary grief that parents feel for the lost closeness of early childhood. These symptoms bore a closer resemblance to those seen in addiction withdrawal, complex trauma, or deep attachment wounding.​

In deepening into my clients’ distress, I discovered they had something in common. With their children, they reported finally having the love they didn’t experience as infants or children. They were worshipped; they never had to feel alone. Their child wanted nothing more than to be with them all the time. In other words, the bond forged with their children was more than love—it was a healing experience for wounds they endured in their own childhoods. And when these children individuated, the parents’ old feelings of abandonment, loneliness, or unworthiness resurfaced with a vengeance. 

Sometimes these reactions emerged subconsciously. My clients described everyday moments that triggered their deep sense of loss, vulnerability, and jealousy. These sensations activated echoes of past abandonment, rejection and loss.

One client told me about the time she overheard her son in his room. He had just started middle school and was laughing hysterically with some new friends. He was having fun in a way that was new - never before had he sounded so consumed by his friends. 

My client described a shift - she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Before she knew it, tears pricked at the back of her eyes. Her throat tightened as she was overwhelmed by desperation, despair and jealousy. Every fiber of her being felt threatened.

“This makes no sense,” she told me. “He’s my son. There’s no reason for me to react like this!”

And yet she couldn’t talk herself out of the terrifying loneliness that seized her.

With further exploration, she realized that the feeling was familiar to her. She identified a memory, which she described as follows;

“I’m back in high school. My best friend is leaving me for another, I can tell. The signs are subtle but I know. I lack the language to express my heartache. I can’t beg her to stay. It takes a couple of years before the abandonment is complete. We go to separate colleges and now my best friend is someone else’s best friend. My life is completely different, just like when my parents divorced a few years ago. At this point, I became profoundly depressed.” 

From something so small (her son laughing with new friends), her body was remembering the crippling depression she faced as a young adult, which was informed by her parents’ divorce years before - all of which confirmed her belief that was alone, bad and worthless. 

Toward Healing; Nurturing the Inner Child.

Awareness is the first step in healing. Naming the pain as a trauma memory or attachment wound allows people to begin the process of tending to those young, wounded parts of themselves. Our young selves can’t handle distress the way our adult selves can, and with mindfulness, self-compassion and therapeutic approaches tailored to attachment and trauma, clients can bring their adult selves back online.

In this way, we show our inner children (and our real children) that we’ve got this.