Attachment Trauma When You’re Neurodivergent: A Compassionate Guide to Healing Insecure Attachment
From the moment we are born, each of us has a built-in attachment need. “From cradle to grave” we need deep bonding connection. It’s why an infant needs more than just food, warmth, and diaper changes. Babies need to be held and cherished by an attuned caregiver.
Safe, close connection is one of the biggest factors in our physical and mental well-being. When this gets disrupted, the consequences can be profound.
When we talk about attachment trauma, people often imagine situations of abuse, neglect, or clear harm. While this is tragically too common, the story is often quieter than that. Attachment trauma can occur from being chronically misattuned, like tiny cuts building up over time. These micro injuries add up, and are often not repaired. Relationships that can’t be repaired feel unstable, as if they could collapse after just one more rupture.
I think of the countless stories I’ve heard from my clients about attachment trauma. Parents, no matter their intentions, who try to control, correct, or discipline their children to “prepare” them for the world. When parenting starts from a lack of understanding, even “small” mistakes can damage the parent-child relationship.
In this post, I aim to make space for both types of attachment trauma (the obvious and the subtle).
If you are reading this trying to understand your own insecure attachment, I invite you to read on and be gentle with yourself. Healing is possible.
What Is Insecure Attachment?
Insecure attachment is a pattern in how we relate to others that develops early in life based on how consistently our emotional and relational needs were met. Insecure attachment is an adaptation to caregiving that did not meet one’s needs consistently enough. I’ll say that again for the people in the back—insecure attachment is an adaptation. It is not a design flaw. It is the way you needed to change to remain safe enough in your family.
Secure attachment, in contrast, is characterized by a sense of safety in relationships, the ability to trust and depend on others, and comfort with both closeness and independence. When caregivers are responsive, emotionally available, and predictable enough, children tend to develop a secure attachment. They learn that closeness is safe, needs can be expressed, and relationships are generally reliable.
How View of Self and Others Forms Attachment Patterns
Attachment patterns are built on our mental models of self and others. What that means is that how you tend to view yourself (e.g. worthy/unworthy) and how you tend to view others (e.g. trustworthy/untrustworthy) is a good prediction of how you feel in relationships.
We can all have moments of low self-worth or times when we doubt others. The problem comes when our beliefs become rigid and fixed. New information does not get incorporated into our understanding. Instead, we might dismiss or discount examples of our lovability or times when someone really was dependable and kind. Healing insecure attachment then requires finding ways to meaningfully update our system and integrate this new information.
Types of Insecure Attachment as Solutions to Attachment Trauma
Attachment patterns begin to develop in infancy, and can change over the course of our lives and be different in different relationships. When our attachment with a parent is threatened, we generally have two choices: get louder or get away. Both of these options serve the purpose of trying to maintain the primary relationship .
Anxious attachment style: the “get louder” option where closeness feels essential but unreliable and we protest feeling distance
Avoidant attachment style: the “get away” option where we seek distance to regulate and feel safer
Fearful avoidant (or disorganized) attachment style: this is the option when neither of the above is enough to cope; this is a painful push-pull between needing closeness and fearing it at the same time
None of these responses are “wrong” or “bad.” They are simply ways that a human with a baked in need for attachment manages to keep safe when secure attachment is not available.
Insecure Attachment and Neurodivergence
If attachment injury comes from misattunement, it makes sense that many neurodivergent people have insecure attachment patterns. I want to be clear — neurodivergence does not cause insecure attachment. And, no, it is not the case that autistic and ADHD people simply don’t care about relationships. This is a myth that unfortunately many people still believe. Autistic and ADHD people need connection just like neurotypicals. Our preferences and needs may differ slightly, but the inborn need is there just the same.
Okay, now that that’s cleared up! Here are some common causes for overlap of insecure attachment and neurodivergence:
Chronic misattunement in early relationships
Parents and other adults may not fully understand the child’s needs, even viewing benign traits as negative.
Mismatch between child and parent
This is not talked about enough. Differences in communication style, emotional expression, or sensory needs can lead to friction even in loving families.
Higher sensitivity and nervous system differences
Many neurodivergent individuals have “spikey senses” and/or experience emotions and sensory input more intensely. Parents and adults may overwhelm a child, even when trying to comfort.
Frequent correction, criticism, or comments about “behavior”
Neurodivergent children receive more correction and criticism than their peers. Being told (directly or indirectly) to “tone it down,” “try harder,” or “act normal” can make relationships feel less safe.
Masking and self-suppression
Masking in-itself can be seen as a response to relationship insecurity. We learn that to “fit in” we need to make a constant effort to be a certain version of ourselves. Masking can be related to a negative view of self (e.g. unacceptable, broken) and negative view of others (e.g. unsafe, critical).
Caregiver overwhelm or limited capacity
Parents may become overstimulated or unsure how to respond, leading to inconsistency, withdrawal, or reactivity.
Unidentified/Undiagnosed neurodivergence in parents
A parent’s own unmet needs, shame, or regulation challenges can affect their ability to provide consistent emotional attunement. I will speak more about neurodivergent parents later in this post.
The “double empathy” problem
Is it not just that neurodivergent people misunderstand neurotypical people. The issue goes both ways.
Social and relational challenges outside the home
Peer rejection, bullying, or feeling “different” can reinforce beliefs about connection being unsafe or unreliable. We may sense something about me doesn’t make sense to people.
Inconsistent responses to distress
Sometimes needs are met, other times the way someone tries to “help” actually causes more distress (e.g. removing autonomy).
When a Parent Is Neurodivergent (and Doesn’t Know It)
I can’t say this enough: neurodivergent kids almost certainly have at least one neurodivergent parent.
It’s very common that parents are not identified or diagnosed themselves. With wider spread information about neurodivergence, I hope this becomes less common over the next few years. When a parent with hidden neurodivergence is parenting a neurodivergent child, this can be a recipe for disaster.
Parenting has a way of triggering old wounds. Some parents may take this as an opportunity to move into deeper healing. I sometimes see parents who sought their own evaluation after their child’s diagnosis or who went to therapy for the first time. This is a beautiful thing. This is generational healing. But, unfortunately, I’ve seen the opposite happen just as often.
A parent who was shamed for their emotional expression tells their son to stop being so sensitive.
A parent who was told that their interests needed to follow gender norms refuses to let their daughter wear baggy, comfortable clothing.
Another parent puts their child into a cold shower during a meltdown because they can’t regulate themselves when their child is dysregulated.
And yet another parent who was only praised for accomplishments calls their ADHD child “lazy.”
Healing Attachment as a Neurodivergent Person
You are not broken. For so many reasons, it can feel like it. Having a nervous system that doesn’t fit the typical mold, can make you feel like an alien. Sometimes we don’t even realize how hard we are working to “fit in” until we burnout and the mask begins to slip. Many neurodivergent people have never really felt a sense of belonging (even in their own bodies). Then add insecure attachment to that, and you’re bound to doubt yourself.
I’m here to say — over and over again — that you are just fine as you are. You are doing exactly what makes sense for a human being who needs (and fears) connection.
Can attachment style change? Yes. There’s even a lovely term for it. It’s called earned secure. I love that term. To me it emphasizes the meaningful effort put forth to overcome those early experiences. You went to the foundation and rebuilt it from the ground up. That’s pretty amazing.
As an attachment-oriented therapist, I give special attention on emotion, view of self, view of others, and reparative relationships in deep healing.
Emotional focus — Many of us try to think our way out of problems. While this can often be helpful, there is often a gap between what we think and how we feel. Insight has its limits. For example, we may know that it’s okay to be unmasked and still fear the rejection we may face. This is why it’s important to work on a feelings and body level and sloooow down. Healing is not about how much we can say about what happened. We have to reframe what good therapy and healing looks like. Healing often requires repetition, creative expression, and simple words said to a safe person. Sometimes there are no words at all.
View of self — One of the biggest overarching goals of therapy in my opinion is to rebuild self-trust. This task is often especially challenging for neurodivergent folks who have been chronically invalidated by others and society. Too much, too sensitive, over-thinking, etc. All of these labels teach people that they can’t really trust what they sense inside. The pain of this can be too much to bear. With time, therapy can help someone slowly tune back in and notice with less judgement. When you can trust in yourself, you are more confident to try something new.
View of others — This one is not always in focus at the start of therapy. We are often aware of our negative self-worth, but we may not always realize the important role of how we view other people. Do you imagine others as constantly critical of you and ready to reject you for the smallest of errors? Do you see others as more independent/adult than you so you work extra hard to hide your own faults? How you see the people around you will affect how much you are willing to risk with them.
Reparative relationships — A reparative relationship is a relationship that helps heal earlier relational wounds by offering a different emotional experience than what someone learned to expect. It is common that people think that they must go off and heal on their own before they can have a healthy relationship. The truth is that there is a limit to how much we can heal in isolation, especially since isolation is experienced as threatening. Thankfully, reparative relationships are not some mythical fantasy. They come with conflict and ruptures like any relationship. The difference is that in these relationships, we can sit in the discomfort, stay connected, and repair the damage.
Often someone’s first reparative relationship is the therapeutic relationship. As therapy progresses, we may increasingly take risks within and outside of the therapeutic relationship. It is only when we try something new that we can restore the foundation on which secure attachment is built.
When I think of all the late-identified/diagnosed neurodivergent clients I’ve worked with over the years, all of them were doing some kind of attachment work. The Venn Diagram of healing from neurodivergent-related trauma and healing attachment trauma is nearly a circle.
Final Takeaways
I have intentionally used the word healing throughout this post. I mean to emphasize that healing is possible. And it doesn’t require you to become someone else. In fact, it asks you to come home to yourself.