Separation Anxiety and Insecure Attachment
When I was small, Mom and Dad tell me I had such horrible separation anxiety that if they left a room and I couldn’t see them I would have convulsive fits.
They say I was so out of my mind that I wouldn’t even get up and try to find them, I’d just roll around on the floor screaming their names. When one of them would come back into the room I would attach myself to their legs or bodies and eventually they would have to peel me off.
I don’t really remember that, but when they tell me I can feel it somewhere deep down inside. It’s like someone turned a switch onto the fast forward setting inside my body. Everything races inside, and I get this buzzing in my ears, sort of like a swarm of bees.
Children of adoption often experience separation anxiety and may struggle with attachment issues. Research shows that pre-adoption responsive care impacts attachment security. I know of many situations, including those with my own adopted child, where separation anxiety and insecure attachment impact the way our children operate in their lives. When Flip is unable to get up from the floor as a child, even though he's perfectly capable of walking, he may be reliving the experience of being a crying infant in a crib who is unable to get up and find a care giver. His body/mind is thrown back into that helplessness and he literally forgets he can get up and find his parents. Let me share a few examples in which I will not identify the children who experienced them:
A child comes to their adoptive home and sleeps only two hours at a time before waking and needing to be held. With time the child awakens every hour, then every thirty minutes until the child is waking up every ten minutes reaching out for their mother and once feeling them close falls back asleep. With time the child trusts they are there and begins slowly to sleep through the night.
Children as old as ten and sometimes even older need to bring an object that belongs to a parent with them to school in order to feel them close.
A child who will not allow a parent to leave the room even to go to the bathroom must be carried into the bathroom and held on their parent’s lap in the middle of the night or throughout the day.
A child as old as seven or eight calls out repeatedly every few minutes in order to locate a parent who is not visible in the home.
A child becomes physically ill with fevers, vomiting, each and every time their mother leaves home for an overnight visit elsewhere.
These are just a few examples of the ways insecure attachment may manifest in a child. I once attended a workshop where the attachment specialist asked everyone to take a blank piece of paper and place it under their chair. She then continued on with her very informative lecture. Many of us wondered why we were asked to do such a strange thing, but were quickly able to return our focus to what was being said. After a few minutes she asked us to replace the piece of paper with the most valued item we had with us and place it on the floor under our seats. Cell phones, wallets, wedding rings and other precious items were placed under our chairs. The speaker then continued to talk about attachment – I think. Because honestly all I could focus on was my great grandmother’s wedding ring that I had placed under my chair. Although the amount of time that ring was under my chair was the same as the piece of paper, it felt like an eternity. Numerous times I thought I should just reach down and grab it. My interest in what that woman had to say about anything was lost. When finally she told us we could take our precious items out from under the chairs there was a collective sigh of relief. This, she informed us, was what it was like for our children with separation anxiety every single day of their lives. Was it any wonder they were unable to focus in school, or were anxious and crying at day care, or anywhere other than close to the parent who in their world could be lost and disappeared forever at any given moment.
This exercise informed me on a visceral level of just how difficult it can be for our children with insecure attachments and separation anxiety to move through the simplest of tasks in a day.
For Flip, having his father – the parent he is most attached to – disappear from his daily life is deeply traumatizing. His world is turned upside down, and he is faced with a fear and a longing that haunts him.
There’s a hole inside of me that only my dad can fill. I stumble and fall into it over and over. At dinner I listen for his voice, and then I fall into the hole. In bed at night, I feel the space where my father used to sit, the weight of his safe strong body next to mine, and again, I fall into the hole.
No matter how old, that sensation of loss, fear, and emptiness may be triggered in our children of adoption. Helping our kids become aware of this as they grow into mature beings will give them the opportunity to identify these emotions when they come up and give them context. These strong emotions can be confusing and make relationships complex and difficult if neither person involved understands just how lasting insecure attachment can be, and how deeply it may impact perceptions and reactions to ordinary events in relationship.
I highly recommend you try the exercise I mentioned above with your children, and partners, and teachers, and anyone who is a part of your child’s support circle. Experiencing just minutes of what our children may be living all day may bring important awareness and empathy to those who love an care for our children!