As human brings, our first encounters with attachment and relationships form how we attach to others for the rest of our lives. The relationships we have with primary caregivers ultimately determines our adult attachment styles. This not only influences our relationships with others and our mental health, it also influences how we parent and relate to our own children. Many individuals with C-PTSD say that having children is one of the most triggering life events they experience- a relationship that illuminates our childhood trauma and the ways in which it impacts us in the present.
In this blog, we’ll explore how early attachment styles influence parenting behaviors and what steps parents can take to break the cycle for the next generation.
Understanding Attachment Styles
The bonds we form with our primary caregivers in childhood set the blueprint for how we relate to others, and therefore, the dynamics in our relationships. There are four primary attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.
Secure attachment: This develops when caregivers are consistently responsive to a child's needs, fostering a sense of safety and trust. These individuals grow to have healthy and secure relationships.
Anxious attachment: This develops when caregivers are inconsistent—sometimes available, sometimes not. Children with anxious attachment may grow up to be overly clingy or fearful of abandonment in relationships.
Avoidant attachment: This arises when caregivers are emotionally distant or unresponsive to the child's needs. As adults, these individuals struggle to open up and connect with others.
Disorganized attachment: This occurs when caregivers are a source of both comfort and fear, often in situations involving abuse or neglect. These kids grow up feeling confused and fearful in relationships, unsure of whether they will receive love or harm. This usually leads to a mix of being clingy with others, and then pulling back.
Individuals with C-PTSD always have insecure attachment styles. To learn more about attachment styles, you can take our attachment quiz here.
C-PTSD and Parenting
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) stems from prolonged exposure to trauma, often experienced during childhood in the form of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, neglect, or ongoing exposure to dangerous or unstable environments.
Some symptoms of C-PTSD include:
Emotional dysregulation: Difficulty controlling emotions, leading to extreme anger, sadness, or fear.
Hypervigilance: A constant state of alertness, always waiting for the next perceived threat.
Difficulty with relationships: Struggles with trust, boundary-setting, and emotional intimacy.
Negative self-perception: Deep-seated feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or shame.
Having kids can be a very triggering experience for individuals with C-PTSD. A child’s behavior can easily trigger feelings of helplessness, frustration, or even fear- and these feelings in turn can activate a parent’s trauma responses. This can look different depending on the individuals trauma type, but it can often look like emotional reactivity where the parent becomes overwhelmed by things like shame, anger, guilt or withdrawal. In turn, a parent can unintentionally pass these trauma-based behaviors onto the child, leading to more cyclical trauma.
The Impact on Children
Kids look to their parents as a model for how they should handle stress, challenges, and relationships. It’s not uncommon for a parent with complex trauma to go back and forth between being overly involved and emotionally withdrawal depending on what is going on. This can create confusion for the child.
Some examples of this are:
A parent who struggles with emotion regulation reaching with extreme anger or emotional withdrawal when their child is upset. This can teach the child to develop anxiety around expressing their needs or to fear their own emotions.
A parent who is anxious or over-involved may be controlling with their child out of fear. This can deter the child from learning independence and confidence.
These parenting patterns can unintentionally set the stage for an insecure attachment styles in children. The key is to notice these patterns when they are occurring and to find interventions to prevent these cycles from continuing into future generations.
Healing Through Self-Awareness
The good news is that this cycle can be broken. Healing from C-PTSD and attachment trauma is a long, often challenging process, but it is not a hopeless case. And the rewards make the struggle worth it, once connection and healing is sought through the generations.
1. Self-Awareness and Emotional Regulation
Without self-awareness, breaking the cycle simply can’t happen. So many parents before us chose to parent in the only way they knew how- in other words, the only way they saw parenting being done themselves. It takes a lot to step outside of yourself and realize that your behavior is something that has a deeper trigger. Once this realization is made, work can begin on addressing these triggers to change the intensity of them, and skills can be learned to foster emotional regulation in a way that helps parenting struggles.
2. Therapy and Support
Therapy is so important when it comes to healing C-PTSD. And through that healing process parenting styles can change.. Therapies like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Internal Family Systems (IFS), or attachment-based therapy can help parents process their trauma and develop healthier attachment patterns. Working through these issues with a therapist provides a safe space to understand emotional triggers and learn new ways to respond to these triggers and day-to-day stressors that may be triggers.
3. Building Secure Attachment with Children
Parents with C-PTSD can still have develop a secure attachment with their children. Even if attachment rupture has occurred. By healing themselves they can learn to be more emotionally available, responsive and consistent with their children.
4. Setting Boundaries with Yourself
Sometimes setting boundaries is not about other people, it’s about your relationship to yourself. Knowing when you are overwhelmed and making a boundary to set aside and care for yourself to prevent being reactive can be helpful.
Conclusion: Healing for Future Generations
The healing journey is difficult but incredibly important. Being a cyclebreaker can be exhausting work. But through this life-changing work, we can pass down healthier patterns to our children and break the chain of intergenerational trauma. By doing the work, parents can not only heal their own wounds but also ensure their children are raised in an environment where they feel safe, secure, and loved. Let’s look forward to a future generation that is more emotionally resilient, secure, and capable of forming healthy, nurturing relationships, both with themselves and with others.
At Root Counseling, we specialize in attachment issues and C-PTSD. One of our visions is to help others heal to promote nurturing love and connection across the generations. If you're interested in learning more and talking with one of our licensed therapists, you can do so here.
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