Disorganized attachment: when you love someone and fear them at the same time

You want to be close, but the moment you are, it terrifies you. You reach for the other person, yet once you have them you push them away. It isn't that you're contradictory: it's that you learned a disorganized attachment, where the very person you need in order to feel safe is the one who threatens you. Here I'll explain what it is and how to step out of that pattern.

Disorganized attachment: two opposing forces

Attachment is the way we bond with others, and it grows out of how we were cared for as children. There are several styles: secure, anxious, avoidant. But disorganized attachment is different: it combines a longing for intimacy with an intense fear, both at the same time.

In childhood, the person who should have given you safety was also the source of fear: a parent who was violent yet could be loving, an unpredictable caregiver, an environment where you never knew what to expect. Your body learned "I need them" and "they scare me" at once. And that contradictory strategy is still active in your adult relationships.

How it shows up in relationships

• ✓ Approach and avoidance: you seek intimacy, but once you have it you sabotage it or disappear.
• ✓ An intense fear of both abandonment and being smothered at the same time; both feel unbearable.
• ✓ Extreme emotional reactions: you can go from adoring someone to feeling furious within seconds.
• ✓ Difficulty trusting even with people who are safe.
• ✓ Self-sabotaging behaviors: you end good relationships because you can't tolerate the closeness.

Where disorganized attachment comes from

It's a child's response to an unpredictable or threatening environment. It isn't your fault, but the responsibility for changing the pattern is yours. When that attachment was never processed or repaired, it reaches adulthood intact, distorting every relationship.

How we work through it in therapy

Disorganized attachment responds very well to EMDR therapy because its root lies in unprocessed experiences of fear and a lack of safety. In individual therapy we work on those early experiences, allowing your nervous system to learn that now you have options: you can be close without danger. This takes time, but it is absolutely possible to change the way you bond.