first caretaker’s desires about how you attached was important for your survival. Even when it ceases to be a matter of survival, the program is still there and very conservative. Sticking to whichever plan works—to be secure, anxious, or avoidant—protects against making dangerous mistakes.
Attachment and the Highly Sensitive Body
Remember in the last chapter the highly sensitive children who did not have long-term arousal in unfamiliar situations? They were the ones with responsive caretakers or mothers with whom they had secure relationships. This suggests that you HSPs who grew up feeling securely attached knew that you had good resources and could handle overstimulation fairly well. Eventually, you learned to do for yourself what your good caretakers had been doing for you.
Meanwhile, your body was learning not to respond as if threatened by each new experience. And in the absence of a response, the body did not experience distressing, long-term arousal. You found that your body was a friend to trust. At the same time, you were learning that you had a special body, a sensitive nervous system. But you could handle things by learning when to push yourself a little, when to take your time, when to back off entirely, when to rest and try later.
Like the remainder of the population, however, about half of you had parents who were less than ideal. It is painful to think about, but we’ll take up this issue slowly, returning to it several times later. But you do need to face what you may have missed. Having an inadequate parent had to have more of an impact because you were sensitive. You needed understanding, not special problems.
Those of you with an insecure childhood also need to face it so that you can be more patient with yourself. Most important, you need to know what was not done so you can be a different sort of parent to your infant/body. Chances are that you are not taking good care of yourself—either neglecting your body or being too overprotective and fussy. It is almost surely because you are treating your body as your not-so-great first caretaker once took care of you/it (including overreacting in the opposite way to that experience).
So let’s see exactly what a good caretaker and not-so-good caretaker of an infant/body is like. We start with the care of the newborn—or with your body at those times now in your life when it feels as tiny and helpless as a newborn’s. A good description of what is needed comes from the psychologist Ruthellen Josselson:
Enfolded in arms, we have a barrier between ourselves and whatever might be hurtful or overwhelming in the world. In arms, we have an extra layer of protection from the world. We sense that buffer even though we may be unclear what part of it comes from ourselves and what from outside.
A good-enough mother, in her holding function, manages things so that her baby is not overstimulated. She senses how much stimulation is welcomed and can be tolerated. An adequate holding environment leaves the baby free to develop in a state of being; the infant does not always have to react. In the state of optimal holding, the self can come into existence free of external intrusion.
When holding is not adequate, when the infant/body is intruded upon or neglected—or worse, abused—stimulation is too intense for the infant/body self. Its only recourse is to stop being conscious and present, thereby developing a habit of “dissociating” as a defense. Overstimulation at this age also interrupts self-development. All energy must be directed toward keeping the world from intruding. The whole world is dangerous.
Now let’s consider a little later age, when you were ready to explore if you felt safe. This equates with those times now when your body is ready to explore and be out in the world if it feels safe. At this stage an overprotective caretaker probably becomes a greater problem for a sensitive infant/body than a neglectful one. During infancy or when we are feeling very delicate, constant intruding and checking on the infant/body are sources of overstimulation and worry. At this stage anxious overprotection inhibits exploring and independence. An infant/body constantly watched cannot function freely and confidently.
For example, just a little time feeling hunger and crying or feeling cold and fussing helps an infant/body know his or her own wants. If the caretaker is feeding the infant/body before it is even hungry, it loses contact with its instincts. And if the infant/body is kept from exploring, it does not get used to the world. The caretaker/you is reinforcing the impression that the world is threatening and the infant/body cannot survive out there. There are no opportunities to avoid, manage, or endure overarousal. Everything remains unfamiliar and overarousing. In terms of the previous chapter, the infant/body does not have enough successful approach experiences to balance the strong, inherited pause-to-check system that can take over and become too inhibiting.
If this is your style with your infant/body, you may want to think back to its source. Perhaps you had an overprotective, needy caretaker who really wanted a child very dependent and never able to leave. Or the caretaker’s own sense of strength or self-worth was bolstered by being stronger and so needed. If your caretaker had several children, being the most sensitive made you ideal for these purposes. Note that there were probably many times, too, that this sort of caretaker really was not available, whatever you were told—such a caretaker was tuned into her or his needs, not yours.
The point of all this is that how others took care of you as an infant/body has very much shaped how you take care of your infant/body now. Their attitude toward your sensitivity has shaped your attitude toward it. Think about it. Who else could have taught as deep a lesson? Their care for you and their attitude toward your body directly affects your health, happiness, longevity, and contributions to the world. So unless this section of the chapter is distressing you, stop and take some time to think about your infant/body’s first caretaker and the similarities between that early caretaking and how you care for yourself now.
If you do feel distressed, take a break. If you think you might need some professional (or perhaps nonprofessional) emotional support and company while you look at your insecure attachment and its effects on you now, get that help.
Out Too Much, In Too Much
Just as there are two kinds of problem caretakers—underprotective and overprotective—there are two general ways that HSPs fail to care properly for their bodies. You may push yourself out too much—overstimulate yourself with too much work, risk taking, or exploring. Or you may keep yourself in too much—overprotecting yourself when you really long to be out in the world like others.
By “too much,” I mean more than you would really like, more than feels good, more than your body can handle. Never mind what others have told you is “too much.” Some of you may be people who, at least for a period of your lives, truly belong in or out almost all the time. It feels right. Rather, I am referring to the situation where you sense you are overdoing it one way or the other and would like to change but cannot.
YOUR INFANT/BODY’S FIRST CARETAKER
AND THE ONE WHO CARES FOR IT NOW
Thinking about what you know about your first two years, make a list of the sorts of words or phrases that your parents might have used to describe you as a baby. Or you can ask them. Some examples:
A joy. Fussy. Difficult. No trouble. Never slept. Sickly. Angry. Easily tired. Smiled a lot. Difficult to feed. Beautiful. Can’t recall anything about your infancy. Walked early. Mostly reared by a series of caretakers. Rarely left with baby-sitters or at a child care center. Fearful. Shy. Happiest alone. Always into things.
Watch for the phrase that was almost your “middle name”—the one they would put on your gravestone if given half a chance. (Mine was “She never caused anybody any trouble.”) Watch for the phrases that stir up emotion, confusion, conflict in you. Or the phrases that seem too strongly emphasized, so much so that the opposite is even more true if you think about it. An example would be an asthmatic child being described as “no trouble.”
Now, think about the parallels between how your caretakers viewed your infant/body and how you do now. Which of their descriptions of you are really true for you? Which were really