Trauma that could cause avoidant attachment includes neglect. This can explain why they fear getting too close to others. Or, why they feel they have to be so independent. This doesn't mean that they cannot learn to become more dependent on others.
Parents who are strict and emotionally distant, do not tolerate the expression of feelings, and expect their child to be independent and tough might raise children with an avoidant attachment style. As adults, these children appear confident and self-sufficient.
People with an avoidant attachment style may have had parents who made them feel neglected. This attachment style can also develop if parents were emotionally unavailable or withdrawn. People with avoidant attachment styles might have difficulty asking for help or expressing emotion.
Dismissive/Avoidant Attachment is also known as Insecure/Avoidant Attachment. This attachment style often occurs as a result of neglect from our caregivers. A person with this attachment style will avoid intimacy and closeness to preserve their sense of independence.
Adverse childhood experiences like divorce, domestic violence, substance abuse, and parents with mental health issues all can leave their mark on the child's forming brain and nervous system . The long-term result manifests as a struggle with symptoms of attachment trauma which last well into adulthood.
It's often developed when children are dependent on unreliable caregivers. They repeatedly learn that their caregivers may or may not come through when needed. Over time, they begin to worry about whether or not their caregiver will be available or dependable, hindering their ability to form secure attachment.
Avoidant Personality Disorder Causes and Risk Factors
Having another mental health condition like depression or anxiety. A family history of depression, anxiety, or personality disorders. Childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect. Trauma including suffering an extreme incident of ridicule or rejection in childhood.
For instance, avoidant personality disorder is more common in people who are anxious and tend toward depression. Parental emotional neglect certainly can play a part in exacerbating these issues, and sexual and physical abuse also can give rise to the disorder.
Researchers don't completely understand what causes avoidance personality disorder, but they believe it is a combination of genetics and environmental factors. Early traumatic experiences and childhood neglect may be linked to the development of AVPD.
And having an anxious/avoidant attachment style is linked to avoidant personality disorder. People with this attachment style tend to report that their parents didn't often express love or affection. Your parents might have been around physically, but felt distant when you reached out to them for closeness or support.
Sadly, this attachment style is often seen in children that have experienced trauma or abuse. The fearful avoidant attachment style occurs in about 7% of the population and typically develops in the first 18 months of life. During this formative period, a child's caregiver may have behaved chaotically or bizarrely.
Anxious attachment is associated with dependent, histrionic, and borderline disorders, whereas avoidant attachment is associated with schizoid and avoidant disorders.
It tends to develop when parents show frightening behavior, including but not limited to abuse and neglect. Children develop a disorganized attachment strategy when their attachment figures are the sources of threat and safety simultaneously5. The caregiver's behavior tended to be punitive and malevolent.
They are all due to unmet emotional needs in the attachment process, although in different ways by the parents. The anxious type is caused by inconsistent parents, the avoidant style by dismissive or rejecting parents, and the fearful style by abusive parents.
What causes fearful avoidant attachment? A person with fearful attachment may have grown up in an environment where their source of comfort and safety was often compromised with fear and unpredictability. This may involve a neglectful or unpredictable caregiver, or experiences involving abuse.
Triggers of Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant individuals tend to feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable when another person wants to be emotionally vulnerable and physically intimate. This is because they have learned that depending on others, wanting to be close, and looking for support will be met with rejection.
The three primary symptoms of avoidant personality disorder are feelings of inadequacy, social inhibition, and excessive sensitivity to rejection or criticism.
Avoidant attachment is an attachment style a child develops when their parent or main caretaker doesn't show care or responsiveness past providing essentials like food and shelter. The child disregards their own struggles and needs in order to maintain peace and keep their caregiver close by.
Avoidant personality disorder is not usually diagnosed in individuals younger than 18 years; however, most patients report an onset in childhood or adolescence, and many report continued social anxiety throughout their lives.
While avoidant personality disorder symptoms may fade or become less intense as you age, you may always have some lingering feelings of inadequacy or fears of rejection.
This means that anxious types pair with avoidant individuals because avoidant people behave in a dismissive way. In the same sense, avoidant people attract anxious partners who make them feel smothered. This confirms their belief in what a relationship should look like.
Attachment trauma is considered to be a traumatic experience an infant or child has when a primary caregiver does not or cannot provide adequate care, affection, and comfort.
To recap, the following patterns of the caregiver tend to create insecure attachment: Inconsistent and unpredictable in how they respond to their child's needs. More aware of their own needs than those of their children's because they likely didn't receive the affection that they needed as a child.