There is a young boy, aged 11, called Pete, who loses his beloved mother to cancer and his world changes. The ground he walks on longer feels solid or safe. Mum understood him, unlike his father, who seems to find him an embarrassment. When dad remarries, it becomes painfully clear to Pete that dad has no real interest in him. When they meet, he is critical of Pete, comparing him negatively to his more confident brother.
Pete is technically brilliant but he really struggles in relationships. When someone asks Pete’s opinion on anything, he panics and almost forgets to breathe. He is only confident when talking about computers. Inside, he feels stiff and cold. He only feels safe with a couple of friends and his brother George, who he trusts. They are like islands of safety for Pete and when he is with them he feels ok.
One day, when they are making a cup of tea in the kitchen, George, usually a quiet man, hugs Pete out of the blue. Pete gasps with amazement. Later, they remember their mother hugging them both really tightly as youngsters and being jokingly insistent, asking: ‘Can you feel me hugging you?!’ Through George’s touch that day, Pete can somehow feel his mother’s hug once more. His muscles release a little and he breathes more deeply than he has for a long time.
This story, from Chapter 6 of my book 20 Ways to Break Free from Trauma, highlights an aspect of trauma called freeze. A deer caught in the headlights of an approaching car will freeze to blend into the background – in a hold-ing position perhaps it will blend into the background and not be noticed. This is an innate physiological response that we humans do too – in response to not feeling safe – but the freeze response can linger in the body and mind well after the event. Pete’s trust in others was fractured but his need for closeness remained.
I saw a biopic film about an American woman called Temple Grandin (2010, available on Amazon Prime) who is still alive, aged 77, and is a woman who has had a fascinating life. She was severely autistic, but not diagnosed until her teens. As a toddler, it was recommended that she should be institutionalised.
Her mother fought for her education and Temple was fortunate to meet a science teacher who had worked for NASA who became her mentor and was intrigued by the capacity of her mind – she sees things in pictures and with extraordinary recall and detail. Her mentor encouraged Temple to develop her idea to build her own squeeze machine (hug box) which held her physically when she was distressed, applying deep-touch pressure which soothed her. Her difficulty with social interactions meant that she could not accept hugs from humans (which would lead to over stimulation), but the machine helped her and others greatly with own anxiety and sensory sensitivity. Later, Grandin used her sensitivity to animals to pursue animal science, designing enclosures to contain animals rather than add to their distress. She is a prominent proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of 60 papers on animal behaviour.
Trauma breaks our trust in other people and the world. The overlap between autism and trauma is not fully understood, but those who see the world from a neurodiverse perspective may well be traumatised by the con-stant experience of not being understood or not fitting into the ‘way of the world.’ Interestingly, Temple Grandin has not needed her hug machine, for many years. Speaking about her autism and being able to contribute to the world has enabled her grow in confidence and to tolerate and be soothed by human touch. She likes hugs now! When we feel physically safe with another human who we trust, it can be an amazing feeling but, depending on all kinds of factors, sometimes a hug may be too much.
When we are in a state, overwrought, upset, angry, we might need another to understand us, but maybe it is hard to trust that they will, so we push them away. This will be dependent on the kind of consistent care we have had early on in our lives. Cassy’s trust in others, in Chapter 13, has been blown apart.
When Cassy marries Trent, she is constantly afraid that he will reject or neglect her. So she goads and tests him, picking fights, imagining slights then erupting angrily. At other times she clings on whining like a distressed child. She constantly seems intent on digging up the foundations of their relationship. After one particularly whirring sequence of pirouettes by Cassy, Trent, exasperated, cries: ‘The more you push me away, the more I think you need me! Just let yourself be loved, your grumpy little shit!’ They both dissolve in hysterics and these words are repeated as a kind of code when Cassy’s desperate behaviour around love and need emerges.
I sometimes think of this particular (ambivalent) attachment style being rather like Dr Dolittle with the ‘pushmi-pullyu’ creature, pulling this way and that at the same time! Rather like ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, with touch, with closeness, we don’t want too much, too little, but just the right amount at the right time.