Part 4: Taking Root: How Childhood Attachment Wounds Shape Our Adult Patterns

Vicki Johnson Author

Children are born wired for five biologically based core needs: Connection, Attunement, Trust, Autonomy, and Love–Sexuality (Heller & LaPierre, 2012)

Attachment Disruptions: Seeds of Survival

"When caregivers consistently meet these needs, the child develops self-regulation, a healthy sense of of self, and the capacity for secure relationships. (Heller & LaPierre, 2012)"

But when these needs are unmet, children adapt. They forfeit part of themselves to preserve the attachment. These adaptations begin as life-saving strategies, but over time, they harden into states and traits — nervous system patterns, identity distortions, and health vulnerabilities.

As Dr. Bruce Perry explains, these adaptations are state-dependent: The nervous system carrying yesterday’s danger into today’s relationships (Perry & Winfrey, 2021).  This means what began as a momentary state of protection can harden into an enduring sense of identity. 

State → Trait → Identity- Let's break it down - Why this Matters

Each unmet need plants its own “root system” in the body and psyche:

• State: Nervous system shifts into protection (hypervigilance, collapse, freeze).

• Trait: Repeated states wire into personality tendencies (anxious, avoidant, overcompliant). Fixed patterns that shape personality, behavior, and even health.

• Identity: Over time, traits calcify into beliefs like “I am unlovable” or “I can’t depend on anyone.”

The tragedy: What was once a child’s brilliant adaptation becomes the adult’s prison.

The opportunity: By reconnecting with the core need beneath the adaptation, healing is possible. 

How This Shows Up: Attachment Survival Style

Each unmet need gives rise to an adaptive survival style: a brilliant but costly strategy to preserve the attachment bond.

Connection: The Foundation for Regulation

• Disruption → A child feels unsafe to relax, disconnects from body and emotions.
• State → Guarded, hypervigilant, living “in the head.”
• Trait → Shame at existing, feeling like a burden, pride in not needing others.
• Health Risks → IBS, autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia.

Attunement:  The Foundation of Self-Worth

• Disruption → Child gives up their own needs to focus on others.
• State → Uncertainty about “Who am I? Am I worth it?”
• Trait → People-pleasing, caretaking, pride in not having needs.
• Health Risks → Chronic fatigue, pain, freeze response

Trust:  The Foundation of Dependence and Interdependence 

• Disruption → Child learns “I can’t depend on anyone but myself.”
• State → Feels powerless, betrayed; core emptiness.
• Trait → Strong, in control, rescuer, pride in being indispensable.
• Health Risks → Food issues related to feeling empty inside (Usefood to not feel emptiness).

• Disruption → Child suppresses independence to avoid abandonment.
  
• State → Ambivalence — “If people knew me, they wouldn’t like me.”
• Trait → Over-compliance or rebellion; shame in having needs.
• Health Risks → Back/neck pain, colitis, high blood pressure.

Love-Sexuality:  The Foundation of Open-Hearted Intimacy

• Disruption → Child tries to earn love through perfection or performance.
• State → Fear of rejection, difficulty integrating love and sexuality.
• Trait → Outer “perfection,” inner anxiety; rejecting others before being rejected.
• Health Risks → Chronic sympathetic activation, high inner anxiety

The Body Remembers: Somatic Traces of Attachment Pain

Survival isn’t just mental — it’s embodied. As Dr. Perry notes, trauma imprints on the lower, nonverbal parts of the brain and body long before we can form words. That’s why talk therapy alone often falls short. Dr. Perry emphasizes that healing comes through relational safety and regulation first. We don’t rip up the roots — we nurture new growth.

• Regulation precedes insight. Safety in the body comes before story or analysis.

• Connection heals. “The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely they are to recover from trauma.” (Perry, 2006).
• Adaptations aren’t pathology. Survival styles are not who we are; they are what happened to us.

When we approach ourselves (and our children) with this lens, we see resilience instead of dysfunction. We start to recognize: My survival patterns kept me alive. Now I can grow beyond them.

Attachment disruptions show up somatically as:

Noticing the bracing patterns in your body (shoulders up, shallow breath, collapsed chest). These are survival styles written in muscle memory, not moral failings (Apigian, 2022, Biology of Trauma).

• Shift the question from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What happened to me — and how did my body adapt?"
• Healing begins when we can hold both truths: my adaptations once kept me safe and they no longer define who I am.

Key Takeaway

Attachment disruptions plant the roots of survival styles. But roots aren’t destiny. By shifting from “what’s wrong” to “what happened” — and by tending to regulation, connection, and compassion — we give ourselves (and our kids) the chance to grow new patterns rooted in safety and aliveness.

Invitation:

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Citations

• Heller, L., & LaPierre, A. (2012). Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship. North Atlantic Books.
• Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog. Basic Books.
• Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). “Ghosts in the Nursery.” Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry.
• Apigian, A. (2022). Biology of Trauma Podcast, Episode: Survival Mechanisms: Early Trauma & Breathing—What to Do.
• Perry, B. D., & Winfrey, O. (2021). What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. Flatiron Books.

Categories: : ACEs, Attachment, Bonding, Resilience, Stress, Trauma