So: What might attacks on linking look like? The patient/target person/speaker declares themself to be disappointed in the authenticity, the adequacy, of the caretaker’s efforts. They push the caretaker away and declare themselves to have been abandoned. They behave in such a way as to encourage the caretaker to withdraw, or at least to refuse their demands in self-protection, effectively spoiling whatever good may have been offered. Then they declare that they have been abandoned again. They contrive relationships in which the caretaker wishes to prove themself different from the “others”—more steadfast, more faithful and true, simply more decent—some kind of better. What might have started out as a relationship between equals quickly, so very quickly, devolves into a master-supplicant dynamic. The supplicant is cast as an inadequate caretaker; the master positions themselves as a perpetually abused child, justified in whatever vengeance they care to inflict. Yes, justified: all manner of punishment is justified as deserved. If you recognize this as the dynamic between abuser and abused, you are correct, and I am sorry that you know what I’m talking about.
You may suspect that people who employ these strategies have often had early experiences characterized by the twin evils of deprivation and absence of reasonable consequences. This is indeed the case. Both these conditions can be met by inconsistent, or unreliable or neglectful parenting, in which the child does not feel seen, does not feel that their needs will be met, nor that food and affection will be dependably forthcoming. These conditions are harmful and painful at any age; they are more damaging when the child is just acquiring speech. Consider also that, for a baby, a toddler, failure to be cared for is literally life-threatening. Infants wail as though they will die if the caretakers can’t figure out what is wrong. They are correct. Empathic caretakers find an infant’s protests very hard to endure. Those infants who suffered in silence are much less likely to have survived.
Object relations theory would predict that a failure of care for such young children, younger than three years could produce a fear of annihilation that would be overwhelming. One defense against such a fear might be proclaiming oneself omnipotent. Object relations theory would predict also that such a child would find vulnerability frightening to the point of feeling life-threatening in its presence, and would reject also manifestations of vulnerability in others. Furthermore, such a child would see any failure to mirror his exact wishes as betrayal. “Attacks on linking”—undermining the forming and maintaining of relational bonds—would be a likely consequence, and an apt description of the woes to follow. Such a person would tend to require impossible proofs of love, and would readily find others to be falling short. Relationships of genuine reciprocity would not be established. Other relationships would be short-lived, unless the others could entirely subjugate themselves to the conditions of the now-grown child. Disappointment would lead to breaking off the relationship. Said child would also likely try to disrupt others’ relationships, in ways that might strike us as distinctly cruel, because of the danger felt to be carried by the prospect of vulnerability. Not merely the absence of regard for the experiences of the vulnerable. No—not simple disregard. Rather, targeting the vulnerability and inflicting pain, so that the child might assure himself that he was not the one who was vulnerable. If this confusion about who is vulnerable and who is suffering, or must be made to suffer, strikes you as immature, you are guilty of profound understatement.
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