Misattunement and Shame

Do you remember when I wrote the articles about Polyvagal Theory and misattunement?

Attunement is when we are in sync with one another.  Attunement is when we feel seen and heard and not alone - even comforted.  Attunement is when our emotional needs are noticed, reflected, and met.   Attunement helps us feel safe, which helps us climb up that polyvagal ladder and maintain healthy functioning.  

It comes from when we are babies, and we cry out, and our needs are met.  It comes from when we are being fed, and there is good eye contact and safe touch.   It comes from growing up with our emotional needs being noticed, reflected, and met.   All of these needs are the same for us as adults, even if they take different shape or expressions once we are grown.   

When our emotional or other needs are NOT noticed, reflected, or met, then there is misattunement. 

Misattunement makes everything harder, turning our efforts at coping into maladaptive behaviors.   It sends us spiraling down that polyvagal ladder we talked about so that instead of safety in relationships, our bodies react neurologically and relationally from the flight, fight, or freeze perspective.   Our brains think we are in danger, even when we are adults capable of keeping ourselves safe.

If you haven't yet, look up on YouTube the “Still Face Experiment“.  It's an old school psych video about attunement.  In the video, a mother and baby are playing. The mother has good eye contact, mirrors the faces the baby is making, and they are touching with their hands.... that's all "attunement".   

But then, as part of the experiment, the mother looks away and puts her hands down.  Then she turns back to the baby with a flat affect and doesn't make any expressions at all.  The baby does three things:

First, the baby tries hard to touch and reach and make the same sounds and faces they were just doing that was so happy for them both. 

When that doesn't work, the baby gets angry and tries to push the mother away, because what is happening is so unpleasant. 

When she won't go away, but still isn't tuned in, the baby can only resolve the misattunement by matching her, which he does by physically turning away and also making a flat face without expression. 

It's so sad! For the sake of the baby, at the end of the experiment, the mother does "repair" the misattunement by turning back to the baby and reengaging, so you can feel the relief and the baby is okay. 

But if you had a caregiver your whole life, who was flat and turned away, metaphorically or literally, even if they were "good parents" in other ways, and you had to match that, then it makes sense that these pieces are really hard for you! 

And research that came out this summer says that this kind of relational trauma actually is MORE damaging neurologically than physical or sexual abuse - and we know that's bad already, right?   So no wonder it's so hard to sort out and heal!

The thing is, that we still act out these things as grownups. Those are the same polyvagal ladder responses as I wrote about in the other article. When we sense misattunement, we do all the same behaviors as the baby tries. 

First, we try what has always worked. We return to our default coping skills. Whatever we used when life was hard before the pandemic, we will fall back into again. Being too busy in order to avoid feeling our emotions. Drinking alcohol to numb our thoughts and feelings. Using relationships to escape the work our soul is urging us to do. These are all “flight” responses.

When these fail us and complicate our lives with additional problems, we drop down the ladder and “fight”. We work even harder. We drink even more. We push even our friends away, just like the baby with her mother who must-not-be her mother because she isn’t responding as a mother should respond.

And when things don’t feel right, when things don’t feel safe, when people don’t feel understood or helped, or comforted, they shut down. They stop trying. They let go. They dissociate.

This doesn’t happen because they gave up. This doesn’t happen because they failed. This doesn’t happen because they did anything wrong.

It happens because of misattunement.

And the brain detects misattunement at a level that isn’t even conscious.

It’s called neuroception. This happens at a neurological level, before perceptive awareness even happens. It’s why the hairs on the back of your neck stand up before you see the scary person who just walked into the room. It’s why your skin tingles when something amazing happens. It’s why your heart skips a beat when you fall in love.

It’s how a flat affect looks angry, even when the person isn’t. It why an empty interaction or no-response feels like abandonment or rejection.  It’s also why people with trauma histories read “neutral” as “dangerous” even when it’s not.  

It’s why short-term cognitive behavioral therapy can’t fix trauma, and why just being aware of triggers isn’t enough to make them go away. 

But also, as a child, you can't get out of that loop because you cannot get out of the relational trauma you are enduring.   It works like this:

The part of our brain called the "higher brain", or sometimes the "mammalian brain" works like other mammal brains - we intuitively turn TOWARD our caregiver for safety and support and nurture and nourishment.

But our "lower brain" or "reptilian brain" naturally turns AWAY from danger.  That's how we protect ourselves.   That's how we naturally keep ourselves safe.  It's the top of the polyvagal ladder, where first we try to get away, and then we fight if we can't, and then we check out (dissociate) from the experience if the flight or fight doesn't work.   

The problem with trauma, especially as children, is that we cannot get away from our parents or caregivers like our reptilian brain is telling us, but when we turn toward them for nurture and safety we don't get it.  We get danger instead.   It creates this loop we cannot escape because we are physically dependent on our caregivers to keep us alive, except also they are the danger threatening our lives.   

 That loop is actually where the trauma is, regardless of whether there is any other kinds of abuse or what is happening physically.   

The brain does not have the context to know whether there is other kinds of abuse also happening or not - this, in itself, is trauma as far as the brain is concerned.   Naturally, this process is part of what is involved with other kinds of abuse.  But the newest neurobiopsychosocial research shows that it is this relational trauma piece that is so damaging, even more than other kinds of trauma (though it may also play a part in those kinds of abuses as well).  

The point is, that your childhood experience doesn't have to have been LifeTime Movie "bad" on the five o'clock news to have been traumatic.   Relational trauma is traumatic because of the misattunement.   It's about lack of emotional safety, emotional needs not being met, and the danger that is to your brain.   

And especially as children, when we are caught in that loop, where we cannot turn toward our caregivers for safety, but also cannot get away from them, there is no way to resolve that.  There is no way to make it better.  There is no way to get away.    We cannot say our parents are "wrong" because we rely on them to stay alive, and yet also our needs are not being met when there is misattunement.

The only way out of the loop is to separate (dissociate!) from the loop itself, and the way our child-brain does that is by saying that we ourselves are wrong for having needs, rather than our parents are wrong for not having met them.

That's where shame comes from.

Because guilt is what we feel when we feel bad about something we DID.

Shame is what we feel when we feel bad about who we ARE.

Our child brain tries to escape the loop caused by misattunement, and it does that by assuming we were wrong for needing in the first place.

Because if we were right for needing, then our caregivers would have met our needs.

So it must be us who is wrong.

Do you see how that works?  

The problem, of course, is that those thoughts are not accurate.  It's not true.   You are not bad for needing.  You are not wrong for wanting your emotional needs met.   You are not a failure because you are hungry, or want to be held, or need eye contact.   You are a human.

But when we grow up experiencing shame because of misattunement as part of relational trauma, our brain doesn't know context - it only senses danger, and it tries to keep you safe.

That's adaptive in the moment, when you are trying to survive.

But as you get older, those thoughts and feelings and behaviors become patterns that are later maladaptive when we are no longer in danger and on our own and capable of meeting our own needs - even by finding and creating our own chosen families of safe and good people where we are able to experience attunement and have our needs noticed, reflected, and met, and even offer the same thing to others.

It's hard, though, to overcome shame, because when trauma is relational, then relationships themselves are triggering.   We engage in all kinds of avoidance behaviors to hide from people and vulnerability in relationships.   It may be very hard to feel safe, even when nothing is actually wrong, because in the past relationships themselves is where the danger was.  

It's also scary because you may not know what attunement feels like.   It may also be overwhelming at first, because you are not used to be seen or noticed.  It can also stir up big feelings you have pushed away for so long, and so be painful and raw at first while you experience care in a way you never have before - which brings the grief of that neglect with it.

But you can learn, and you can heal, and you can find freedom even from shame.

To do this, we must share what we so desperately want to hide — to become vulnerable — the very thing shame screams at us not to do.  The most terrifying thing is that attunement comes looking for us in the very places where we hide our fear and pain.  Let it find you.   Dare to connect with others, starting with small and safe ways.  Pray or journal or read poetry or read or paint, to even practice noticing your feelings and what to do with them and what it's like when something resonates with your owne xperiences. 

As you become more confident, you will encounter opportunities to begin sharing woundedness with others close to you who are safe, in healthy contexts where your needs can be met. This risk creates the opportunity for growth and healing, by seeking attunement directly rather than through bad relationships or acting out behaviors.   

Craving attunement will never mitigate the possibility of others rejecting me, but you will be able to learn the difference between who you are and what you feel (you are not your feelings).   You will learn the difference between the space in which you exist and the space in which you can hold others - and others can hold you.   It is connection that heals, and love that breaks through the strongholds that keep us stuck.    Healing comes when we connect with others.

Looking at the relational trauma underneath our shame - which has long protected us - can be scary and difficult.   Sharing it with others is even more terrifying because of the vulnerability we experience in opening up to others and to ourselves.   But “as long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”  (Bessel A. van der Kolk )

The effects of relational trauma can include an impaired ability to trust others.  We may feel less safe in our environments or have more difficulty establishing and maintaining boundaries.  Emotions may feel less manage-able, and life-stressors may be more difficult to navigate.  In some cases, our stress response may be heightened, leading to challenging emotional and sometimes physiological responses. 

Relational trauma can impact our sense of self and our sense of self-worth.  If we have inconsistent attachment figures, we may start to internalize the sense of being “not good enough” to have our needs med.  We could start to view ourselves as unlovable.  Alternatively, we could become angry at not having our needs met.  We could view others as undependable.  

Other effects associated with relational trauma include hyperactivity, anxiety, impulsivity, hypertension, sleep problems, dissociative states, excessive dependency, increased stress responses, and hypervigilance.

Of course, there are variables on the impact of traumatic events.  Our age at the time of the traumatic event, the presence of supportive caregivers, the number of adversities we face outside of the relational trauma, and our relationship to the person or people in question are just some of the factors that may influence the impact of trauma.  And, not all traumatic relationships and events are created equally.  What may be traumatic to one person may not be experienced as traumatic to another - even siblings may have very different experiences growing up in the same family.  Working through and owning your own trauma is a crucial step on the path of healing. 

There is good news!  Our attachment style is malleable.  We are able to move toward secure attachment later in life even if our attachment style at one point is insecure.  This is known as “Earned Secure Attachment.”Just as attachment injuries happen in relationship, so too can they be repaired in relationship.  If we are able, later in life, to find a healing relationship or relationships, we can start healing some of our trauma.

We want to be able to find a secure base with another, which typically means the person we are in relationship with shows us consistent attunement and care.  This person could be a therapist, friend, mentor, child, or someone else—anyone that makes you feel cared for and understood.  With enough positive experiences where we feel seen, respected and valued, our attachment style can start to change.

Trauma can heal.  We can start to feel whole and integrated.  Healing from relational trauma takes time, but it is possible.  As we start to heal, we start to feel more alive and to live our lives in a way consistent with the fullest expression of ourselves—something we all deserve. 

People who suffer from relational trauma carry significant emotional baggage that interferes with their capacity to form new relationships while properly nurturing the old ones. In response to reminders of their past trauma, they may experience feelings of dissociation, which manifests as a disturbing separation or disconnection from reality, the world, and even their own minds and bodies.

The memories of their traumatic experiences at the hands of people they trusted or depended on, which remain imprinted on their brains and in their thoughts and reactions, prevent them from moving on with their lives and from building a healthy and empowered self-image.

Fortunately, the symptoms of relational trauma can be managed and its impact minimized. People who’ve been traumatized by previous dysfunctional relationships can achieve new perspectives, renew their weakened spirits, and create satisfying and rewarding connections with friends, family members, and romantic partners, if they are able and willing to fully embrace the healing process.

Recovery from relational trauma can take time, but recovery is a realistic goal for those who aren’t afraid to face the challenges. 

Everyone’s self-image grows, at least in part, out of their relationships with other people. Good relationships help cultivate a sense of trust in others and optimism about life, which are the linchpins of healthy emotional development.

Parents are the most important actors in this process, and most cases of relational trauma can be traced to childhood abuse, neglect, or abandonment. But the behavior of other adult role models or caregivers can also have a huge impact on children and adolescents.

In adulthood, spouses, romantic interests, business partners, friends, relatives, or even strangers who gain momentary access to a person’s life can precipitate relational trauma through their actions, which cause intense physical or emotional harm to their victims.

Exposure to these traumatic episodes can leave relational trauma sufferers plagued by terrible memories and overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, shame, and helplessness. Time passes but the effects of the past trauma does not, and its continuing impact is difficult to overcome without long-term mental health care. 

The inner turmoil of relational trauma sufferers is a reflection of their pain and disillusionment, with themselves and with others.Some of the common emotional and behavioral signs of relational trauma include:

Fear of abandonment

Regardless of how solid and stable their relationships might appear at any moment, people with relational trauma constantly fear losing the people they love. In fact, they often think it is inevitable unless they are somehow able to say and do all the right things. As a result of their insecurities they may be overly solicitous or excessively needy, but beneath it all is a deep mistrust that makes their relationships both exhausting and difficult to maintain.

Adults with strong fear of abandonment were often physically or emotionally abandoned by their parents, which sets the stage for later issues with trust.

Fear of failure

People with relational trauma often feel they must be perfect in everything they do, in order to avoid being judged or criticized. They take everything seriously and are sensitive to the smallest signs of rejection, and they tend to avoid challenging situations or circumstances because of their fear of failure. Unfortunately, their avoidance of risk prevents them from pursuing their true passions, and as a result they feel frustrated and repressed.

Relational trauma sufferers raised by demanding and uncaring parents often experience fear of failure, which is a sign of low self-confidence and poor self-esteem. 

A tendency to prioritize the feelings of others

Too often, people with relational trauma put the needs of others before their own, which creates a complex interpersonal dynamic marked by hidden hostility and resentment. This behavior isn’t based on altruism, but on a lack of self-esteem and a belief that others expect that level of dedication and will leave if it is not offered.

Many trauma sufferers who develop this tendency grew up in households where parents were physically or emotionally unavailable, or where behavior that put the needs of parents first was rewarded.

Hypervigilance

Hypervigilant people are constantly aware of everything happening around them, in the surrounding environment, and with other people. They adjust their moods, attitudes, speech, and behavior to meet what they believe are the expectations of others, which prevents them from ever expressing their true thoughts and feelings. Being honest and open seems far too dangerous, and they avoid it and the rejection it might bring.

In most instances, relational trauma sufferers who exhibit hypervigilant behavior were abused by parents, caretakers, or spouses. Their hypervigilance developed as a survival strategy, and it stayed with them even after they managed to escape their dysfunctional relationships. 

Replaying social encounters repeatedly

Relational trauma sufferers tend to treat every social interaction as if it were a matter of life or death. They frequently second-guess their own words and actions as they replay those encounters over and over again in their minds, convinced they made mistakes that others noticed and judged them for. Needless to say, this type of behavior is exhausting.

People with relational trauma often feel guilt and shame, feeling as if they were somehow responsible for the abuse, neglect, or abandonment they experienced. Because of their damaged self-esteem they often blame themselves for their difficult personal histories, and their distorted self-image leads to a distorted (negative) assessment of their own behavior and worthiness.

Self-sufficiency

Rather than struggling to overcome their feelings of guilt, shame, mistrust, helplessness, and inferiority in relationships, some relational trauma sufferers choose to isolate themselves from others, to avoid the rejection and mistreatment they fear. They want healthy, productive, and loving relationships, but their distressing memories seemingly make it impossible. They might convince themselves that independence is really what they want, but their apparent self-sufficiency is actually just a mask for their insecurities and damaged psyches.

Self-sufficiency is a coping mechanism for people who don’t trust others and feel undeserving of being loved or respected, and relational trauma sufferers may hide from the world as a way to escape their pain and loneliness. 

Consequences of Relational Trauma

The impact of relational trauma can be immense, whether the traumatic incidents occur in childhood or later.

People with deep-seated emotional wounds from their betrayal by others may suffer from:

An inability to initiate or sustain relationships
Mental and behavioral health difficulties, with conditions like depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, personality disorders, and eating disorders
Self-harming behavior, up to and including attempts at suicide
Substance use disorders
Chronic insomnia
Dissociation and dissociative disorders
Anxiety-related physical health problems (i.e., headaches, chronic neck pains, fatigue, chest pains, digestive issues, etc.)

Unresolved emotional issues are the hidden causal factors of poor mental and physical health in many cases, and until those issues are dealt with wellness will remain elusive. 

No one can heal from relational trauma, or its impact, overnight. This is especially true for relational trauma sufferers who’ve developed substance use disorders or co-occurring mental or behavioral health conditions. Relational trauma functions as a type of disorder in and of itself, but it is also a background factor in the development of a wide range of debilitating conditions, which also require treatment.

The encouraging news is that treatment for relational trauma and its aftereffects can be effective, if it is comprehensive, long-term, and the individual in treatment is fearless about confronting the past and determined to see their recovery through to the end.