Hello dear ones,
This is my “Wounding/Wanting Diary” series for paid subscribers. If you can’t afford the $5/month for a paid subscription, you can email me at hello@margeauxfeldman.com. I never want money to be an access barrier, and I need to set some boundaries with this writing. Thank you for your understanding.
Because of the nature of what I’m writing about, I want to offer a content note here that will serve for all of this writing. In these entries, you will likely find details of sexual trauma, including rape, sexual assault, sex that occurred while drunk or high or both, intimate partner violence, and physical assault during sex. Please take care yourself after reading this writing.
With gratitude,
Margeaux
Throughout high school and into the early days of university, I could classify my relationships in one of two camps: me pining after a boy who would only talk to me in secret, but had no problems sleeping with me; or me quickly ending any relationship with a boy who wasn’t afraid to be seen in public with me, who treated me in all of the ways that I dreamed of. It was too much.
This, I’d come to learn, is disorganized attachment. We swing back and forth between I want you I want you I want you and please get away from me, I beg of you. It’s funny that I somehow wrote a whole dissertation about trauma and intimacy without once referencing attachment theory. I wasn’t ready for it, for what it would reveal. I didn’t want to understand the root of my wounding/wanting.
Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby, a British psychologist. During his time working with young children at Tavistock Institute in London in 1946, Bowlby found a direct correlation between the delinquent behavior of the youths he studied and a separation event from their primary caregivers. Bowlby would go on to argue that when caregivers are absent, emotionally unavailable, abusive, overbearing, or all of the above, children’s core developmental needs for emotional regulation and attunement, safety and security, aren’t met. These absences negatively impact how they will relate to themselves and to the world.