A man explores why he hides himself around others, especially men, tracing it back to childhood abuse and neglect. His therapist helps him see how abandonment wounds created an anxious-disorganized attachment style and a deep belief that he's not good enough, driving self-sabotage and emotional distance.
I guess the immense fear of judgment is not something that I've really come to recognize until recently.
Judgment of others or judgment of yourself?
Yeah, judgment of others. Judgment of others. Not being comfortable in my own skin, even in the work that we're doing. It's a big struggle to be vulnerable and just true to myself in front of a lot of these men.
Do you have a disorganized attachment style?
Uh, no. Well, yeah, a little bit. It's an anxious— anxious-disorganized.
Yeah, so it's a combination style. The dismissive is a part of it. The avoidant. Yeah. So judgment of others is a part of that attachment style. It's that we focus on other people's flaws as a way to maintain emotional distance. We have a tendency to focus on why people shouldn't be trusted or why they— why we shouldn't have to be vulnerable with them.
Yeah, as opposed to just being true to yourself and—
right, but let me ask you this: what you feel is right, how did your attachment style get fractured?
Well, my parents.
Yeah, tell me about that.
I never really had stability growing up. Uh, I escaped, uh, a physically and emotionally abusive parent to go find safety and security in a parent that was emotionally neglectful and used substances to cope with their, their own emotions.
So it's the abandonment wounds?
Uh, yeah, there's, there's definitely a bit of that. I would definitely say it's something that I do to myself quite often. It's neglect and abandon myself.
So let me ask you this. This conversation is going to require you to get more concrete. So eliminate all the soft language, eliminate the maybe, guess, probably, eliminate all that. If you were to just speak concretely about what you know and what you feel that you know your truth is, why do you think you struggle with vulnerability and authenticity?
Because I question my capabilities.
Just now, now explain that to me.
I don't feel confident. I don't feel— I don't, I don't feel confident. I don't feel— I don't feel confident in my own skin. I hold importance, I guess. Okay.
Yeah, yeah. To me, to me, all of this, this comes from things that you feel inside, belief systems that you have from the traumatic upbringing that you continue to kind of feed into.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So it's a narrative that you continue to feed into. So your inner child shows up and he shows up and says, hey, I can't be myself, I can't be vulnerable, I can't let people get to know the real me, and I'm, I'm fearing abandonment. And then you look at him and say, yeah, well, that's true because you're not good enough.
Uh, yes, just, yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.
