This morning in real time, the question was put to me:

‘What the hell is wrong with you!?’

The emotional toxicity of it aside, the query has a real answer. It is worth trying to figure out what that real answer is.

The working hypothesis to the experimental interrogation is something along the lines of, well, I have an attachment disorder.

As I wrote those two words I felt like they sounded familiar and so I went to go see if they were a real thing.

Result: yes. They were not something I can claim as original, as I had briefly hoped.

“An attachment disorder is a type of mood or behavioral disorder that affects a person’s ability to form and maintain relationships. These disorders typically develop in childhood. They can result when a child is unable to have a consistent emotional connection with a parent or primary caregiver.”

True enough, although explained that clinically, I think my diagnosis would be for a relatively mild case, and also for an unusually intricate form of it. Which is to say, I’ve formed and maintained, with varying success, a lot of relationships.

But there is also no doubt that my ability to do so has been affected adversely, by whatever the hell is wrong with me.

And that anyone who has ever left me a voice mail and waited days or weeks for it to be replied-to would agree.

***

Maybe it would be helpful to note that if you’re reading this, you’re not one of the people who are still waiting.

I went out and ate, came back and took a shower and some naproxen, and wrote the above. Then I sought solace between the sheets for a extended nap.

All of which did at least take out the headache, and left me on the far ponent shore of sundown.

***

I got to thinking about Attachment by watching and sharing this.

How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction – Gabor Maté

Mate’ says that our two basic human needs are for attachment and autonomy.

And that, when the two needs conflict, autonomy and trusting our guts will always lose out, because obtaining attachment is as basic to human survival as breath or water.

There are two other essential concepts in what he has to say here, and these are addiction, and trauma.

As I understand it, an addiction can be to anything or any behavior, but it will always be about recovering a feeling of love and belonging, the pleasure of being attached. It is always a solution in the short term, but it’s not an addiction unless it also has long-term negative consequences.

So: as far as I know, my deeply ingrained coffee habit isn’t an addiction, because there’s no downside. It’s just pleasure.

Trauma, says Mate’, isn’t what happens to us, but what happens inside us as a result. We become addicted to one behavior or another because the pleasure of that addiction effectively soothes the lingering trauma.

People don’t get addicted to solutions that don’t work for them. Only to ones that do.

“The loss of self is the essence of trauma.” Reconnecting to that lost self is the essence of recovery.

***

An hour after waking late, the cats are fed.

This includes the two real house cats, the three nominal indoor hospital cases, the two regular barn cats, and the black and white Syl who supposedly has a home on the next block, but is spending more and more time here where the kibble and the healing flow freely.

The films will flow too.

I also am fed, and caffeinated, and nictotined in the non-ideal way, and clean, and warm. And I have now spilled properly as I have all this year, partly because I have a loving attachment obligation now, to my very real patrons, and I’m taking that responsibility with great seriousness.

To the three of you in particular, thank you again from the bottom of my heart.