Category D in Journal

  • Oct. 18, 2023, 10:08 p.m.
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  • Public

There are the 3 or so commonly cited and dare I say generally accepted attachment disorders. That is, aside from secure attachment (healthy) there are 3 categories of disordered attachment. Anxious, avoidant, and ambivalent. Most agree that ambivalent is the worst, as far as lifelong outcomes for the child.
But, I recently discovered a heretofore unheard of “Category D”. In which children are “clearly more disturbed than others”.
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I read this section feeling like electricity was energizing my nerves.
Like the author, I do not recall or recognize specific behaviors either from myself, my own mother, or my children described in category D. Also like the author, I nevertheless feel deep, palpable emotional connection with the fear, terror, unprocessed death or loss, and the intrusive disturbing thoughts. Morbid, violent, grotesque, alarming, even gruesome, is how I would characterize these images. Images that, for my whole life, I believed were a result of me or my personality or my desires. Even às they horrified and darkened my mind, I believed they must be part of me, arising of the disturbed depths of my self… I believed that these images and thoughts were an expression of my own hidden desires, curiosities, or proclivities.
I cannot really even start to describe the weight that I feel has lifted from me. It’s as if I am free to rightfully accept the innocence of my self. I can look deep into the reflection of my countenance, and not fear that in the depths lurks an evil depravity waiting and biding and hiding. There is no enemy within me. There is no devil; I am not possessed by any evil spirit or cursed with any worm whispering temptations to unspeakable acts. I have simply been harmed. And this is but another bit of scar tissue.
I have said before that the most injurious abuse I ever endured, was not physical or mental or emotional. Not even sexual. It was moral. I have said that the worst abuse a human being can endure is moral abuse. I also said that the worst effect of my childhood was that I believed I was fundamentally a bad person.
I said those things, but I don’t think I ever really felt those things.


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