Attachment Issues in response to Spilled Milk

"No weeping for shed milk."- James Howell (1659)

Aka. "Don't cry over spilled milk"

I have a love-hate relationship with sayings like this...

We respond to crappy circumstances in unique ways.

Consider this:

Crappy situation: You spilled milk.

Responses options: 

• Cry

• Deny

• Cycle between crying and denying

• Clean it up and move on

  
  

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Our responses to crap situations are based on stuff like this:

1. Present mood, energy, and attentional capacity

2. Current life circumstances in the background of our mind's eye

3. Similar previous experiences, witnessed ones, and even heard of ones through the grape vine

4. Variables like temperament, neurochemical baselines, presence of in utero stressors (or lack there of) during our moms' pregnancies with us, inherited traits activated by age, environment, physiological ailments, stress, etc...

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For better or worse, less consciously noticed motivations (like the above) behind our unique styles of responding will lead to different interpretations of well-intended statements like "don't cry over spilt milk."

Here's a general break done of how people gravitating towards certain attachment styles might interpret external stressors, respond to them with need-based motivations, and be impacted beyond the moment of realizing the stressor.

Read the below for more thorough descriptions.

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Secure Attachment

Milk is spilled. Maybe you let out a frustrated shriek or sigh (notice the external problem). Maybe you let out some angry mumbling (internal frustration). But then ultimately, you clean up the frustrating external problem, causing you momentary internal frustration.

Next, you're mentally and emotional available to focus on other things- self-esteem, worth, and capability unscathed by the occurrence, because...

the situations's meaning and its meaning about yourself & your abilities are stored separately in your mind-body memory.

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Anxious Attachment

Milk's spilled. You notice it and feel a full-body wave of internal panic. Reacting silently is preferred to cause less of 'a scene,' but your rigidity in making silence a must, often leads to an opposite response of breaking down into tears. Why? Because the spilled milk symbolizes something about you that you fear most.

Maybe that you aren't good enough to bare certain responsibilities, worthy of one's love because you can't show them the currency of love they accept (ie. "showing it" through actions), or even that you aren't capable of even the slightest perfection, while striving for some of the biggest.

Finally, you clean up the milk, if someone else didn't already (**warning: could make the feelings worse for some with anxious attachment**), and attempt to move on with whatever mental and emotional energies are still available to you.

SPOILER ALERT- if there's any energy left, your body moves on to do other things, and your mind starts ruminating over what you did and what your doing now in still thinking about it, BEFORE- if at all able to- actually move on to focusing on the other things your body already has.

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Avoidant Attachment

Milk= spilled. It's a problem. Next, sit and stare at it before doing anything. You acknowledge it as an inconvenience... because really though, it's annoying and probably setting you back ever so slightly on your to-do lists.

The spilled milk represents a mini setback, a threat to the things that actually provide you worth and value. It's frustrating because you know it's not a big deal, but pisses you off none the less.

This could go several ways- maybe you leave it for now, to clean up later (if at all). Maybe you clean it up in a huff, and move through the rest of your day feeling like you have to make up for lost time (aka representative of personal value subconsciously). Maybe you do either of those, and take more long term preventative measures like creating more rules for yourself surrounding your milk drinking, or even stop buying milk all together.

Because you #LiveByYourOwnRules and #DGAF.

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Disorganized Attachment

Imagine if spilled milk sometimes led to excessive tears & hyper-sensitive internalizations, and other times- to spirals of rebellion, avoidance, & denial.

So then what happens after the milk is spilled?

It... [response]... depends on one's current perception of unfilled/ filled needs of love & belong verses that of power & control.

If one's current position in life emphasizes more of a need for belonging (e.g. maybe kick a** at work, but 1-800-LONELY-AF in getting to the top), something like spilled milk might trigger remorseful clinginess, a need for more external validation, breadcrumbing, or even at an extreme- more or less conscious forms of love bombing.

If one's current position in life emphasizes more of a need for power, control, and individuation (e.g. maybe too enmeshed in a current relationship or community), spilled milk would be more likely to trigger distancing, minimization (of the issues and maybe others' associated experiences with it), denial of cause and effect, ghosting, or even at an extreme- gaslighting.

But we're no longer talking about spilled milk now are we? (inserts smirk)

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The moral of this story is we might do well to learn how to refrain from blurting out well-intended statements that a). assume how others interpret events and b). provide bias instruction on how to best handle them.

Because euphemisms like "don't cry over spilt milk" could be

a waste of breathe at best,

more generally invalidating, or even

triggering of complex traumatic beliefs at worst.

What looks like spilt milk to you or I could symbolize an inner theme of personal struggle, that a person may or may not be consciously aware of.

For help working through, or supporting a loved one through, real-life 'spilt milk' situations, but that comes with more serious lifestyle-altering consequences (if ya catch my vibe), reach out and inquire about the coaching I offer for breaking and forming new habits, attachment issues, abandonment issues, self-discovery, multiculturally competent healing, and obviously -disorganized attachment.

Xoxo,

Carolyn

Ps. February 11th is apparently National Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day... in case a friend asks you.