Let’s talk about attachment styles! In learning more about myself, I also started to see links with Jeff and a certain attachment style. I am gonna try to explain why I feel the disorganized attachment style can apply to Jeff’s way of looking at relationships.
First, let’s explain better what this certain attachment style is.
Disorganized/disoriented attachment, also referred to as fearful-avoidant attachment, comes from an intense fear, often as a result of childhood trauma, neglect, or abuse. Adults with this style of insecure attachment tend to feel they don’t deserve love or closeness in a relationship.
Fearful-avoidant attachment is often caused by childhood in which at least one parent or caregiver exhibits frightening behavior. This frightening behavior can range from overt abuse to more subtle signs of anxiety or uncertainty, but the result is the same. When the child approaches the parent for comfort, the parent is unable to provide it. Because the caregiver does not offer a secure base and may function as a source of distress for the child, the child’s impulse will be to start to approach the caregiver for comfort but will then withdraw.
People who carry this fearful-avoidant attachment into adulthood will exhibit the same impulse to approach and then withdraw in their interpersonal relationships with friends, spouses, partners, colleagues, and children.
But there are more reasons why someone can develop an fearful avoidant attachment style and it’s not hard to spot the reasons that can be relevant in Jeff’s case:
→ The caregiver experienced depression caused by isolation, lack of social support, or hormonal problems, for example, forcing them to withdraw from the caregiving role.
→ The primary caregiver’s addiction to alcohol or other drugs reduced their ability to accurately interpret or respond to the child’s physical or emotional needs.
→ Traumatic experiences, such as a serious illness or accident which interrupted the attachment process.
→ Physical neglect, such as poor nutrition, insufficient exercise, or neglect of medical issues.
→ Emotional neglect or abuse. For example, the caregiver paid little attention to the child, made scant effort to understand their feelings, or engaged in verbal abuse.
→ Physical or sexual abuse, whether physical injury or violation.
→ Separation from the primary caregiver due to illness, death, divorce, or adoption.
→ Inconsistency in the primary caregiver. The person experienced a succession of nannies or staff at daycare centers, for example.
→ Frequent moves or placements. For example, constantly changing environments due to spending the early years in orphanages or moving between (foster) homes.
Now stop here for a second. We know Joyce had trouble being there for Jeff emotionally ever since he was a baby. She was dealing with PPD after Jeff was born and didn’t emotionally connect with baby Jeff. It is very important for infants to feel safe and have this connection. According to the book Serial Killers: the method and madness of monsters, the most common factor attributed to serial killers is the likely absence of infant bonding. “An infant that is denied human touch and affection develops a sense of only itself – it becomes completely oblivious to others. This is necessary for the infant to survive but can become a destructive trait in adulthood.”
During his childhood, Jeff’s home environment wasn’t a really safe one. Lionel and Joyce fought a lot. Joyce wasn’t there emotionally and Lionel was gone a lot for work and his own education. Joyce was dealing with her own mental health. She admits in her chapters in The Silent Victims that she wasn’t ready to be a mom and made mistakes. She writes, “I now realize how damaging the constant arguments, anger and physical confrontations were on the boys, especially Jeff. Although I was rarely angry with Jeff, he was constantly subjected to a barrage of fury and anger directed toward Lionel and he toward me. It must have been extremely frightening and paralyzing to him, it surely drove him off to spend more time alone, drove him further into himself.”. Joyce also got admitted into a mental facility for her mental health when Jeff was 15. This too can be a traumatic experience for Jeff and he lost his mother figure for some time.
We also shouldn’t forget the hernia operation that I feel was a critical turning point in a young Jeff’s life. This really made an impact on him mentally and he really felt violated (the beginning of his splanchnophilia). We can assume both his parents didn’t offer enough comfort before and after surgery to make the child feel safe again. And we also know that in the first 8 years of his life, Jeff moved around a lot. That can cause the feeling of unsafety and insecurity too.
People with fearful avoidant attachment want to form strong interpersonal bonds but also want to protect themselves from rejection. This leads them to seek out relationships but avoid true commitment or to leave as soon as a relationship gets too intimate. Fearful-avoidant attachment is often considered the worst in terms of potential negative outcomes. For example, multiple studies have shown that there is an association between fearful-avoidant attachment and depression.
Research found that it’s the negative view of the self and the self-criticism that accompanies fearful-avoidant attachment that leaves those with this attachment style vulnerable to depression, social anxiety, and negative emotions, in general.
Meanwhile, another study found that, in comparison to other attachment styles, fearful-avoidant attachment is predictive of more sexual partners in one’s lifetime and a greater tendency to consent to sex even when it’s unwanted.
Jeff never really tried to form a real romantic relationship. He probably didn’t even know what it meant. But reading this, you can see similarities in Jeff’s way of thinking. Jeff had serious abandonment issues. If it was real or imaginary, it doesn’t matter. It felt very real to Jeff. So real that in order to avoid being rejected or alone again, he started killing his victims so they never had the chance to leave him.
He also admitted to having sex with a lot with strangers. He didn’t kill every guy he had sex with. But he never learned how to emotionally connect with people. His personality disorders also played a factor in this but it is safe to say it all started in childhood. His teacher in first grade told Lionel that Jeff impressed her as being inordinately shy and reclusive. She told Lionel that he had not been able to engage in conversation with other children. He had not responded to their casual approaches, nor made any approaches of his own. On the playground, he’d kept to himself, merely pacing about the schoolyard, doing what she described as “nothing”.
A person with a fearful avoidant attachment style may crave closeness and reassurance from their partner, fearing that they will abandon them. In another instance, they may begin to feel trapped or afraid of how close they are with their partner and attempt to distance themselves.
A person with a fearful avoidant attachment style may display some of the following characteristics:
→ find it difficult to open up to others and discuss their feelings
→ have difficulty trusting others
→ have a negative view of others
→ have a negative view of themselves
→ have difficulty regulating their emotions
→ dissociation
→ lack healthy coping strategies for stress
→ withdraw in times of intimacy and closeness
But back to adult Jeff and his view of (romantic) relationships. Apparently people with a fearful-avoidant attachment style also have associations with symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Which is one of the personality disorders Jeff has been officially diagnosed with. A person with a fearful-avoidant attachment style is often at an increased risk for behavioral addictions and/or compulsive behaviors surrounding sex. Some theories suggest that persons with a fearful-avoidant attachment style may use sex or have higher rates of sexual partners as a way of trying to get their core needs met for connection and belonging that typically went unmet in childhood.
Jeff his compulsive behaviors surrounding sex were a little extreme in comparison to what the people in the article mean but it was still a compulsion to find the best looking guy to have sex with. To have complete control over them. To make sure they never could leave. In the bathhouses were Jeff started drugging his victims he admits in a interview Dr. Frederik Fosdal that he had sex with 200 different men. He said “You don’t develop a lasting friendship there.” and that he was not routinely rejected or disappointed. Jeff said that there were very shallow relationships amongst each other in the bath houses.
In the Psych Reports we can also read in the interview notes of Dr. Fosdal that he didn’t believe Jeff tried hard enough to find a compatible partner and that Jeff got abandoned over and over again with his heart broken so that he had to do what he ended up doing.
Dr Fosdal said “I’m not impressed – that you started so many relationships and that you were abandoned and jilted and had your heart broken time and time again and finally you resort to what you did.”
Jeff: “No I didn’t — no.”
Fosdal: “I would assume that there are a lot of people out there that would have liked to have an ongoing relationship. It’s just a matter of finding each other.
Jeff: “Uh-huh, no I didn’t. I guess I didn’t look hard enough.”
It seems Dr Fosdal forgets that Jeff needed more than what a partner mostly likely is willing to give but it can also be why Jeff never tried to look for a real steady relationship is because he felt like he didn’t deserve one or the fear of being abandoned and ending up alone again is what kept him from it. It’s easier to have shallow relationships that only revolve around sex. His fearful avoidant attachment style could have played a role in this.
One more snippet of the interview:
Fosdal: “In talking about your personality style you are a kind of stand-offish kind of guy in general with people. There is no reason why you should be extremely warm and honest and get real close to a gay man.”
Jeff: “Yes, that was my mindset. I was never one that was really interested in getting involved with a big group of people or anything – even from my earliest childhood.”
Fosdal: “Where you lonely? Did you miss people – were you missing something?”
Jeff: “During high school it was frustrating to not be able to meet someone of my interests so it was frustrating – yeah it was lonely.”
Fosdal: “Like in Milwaukee – are you lonely?”
Jeff: “Uh huh”
Fosdal: “You felt lonely – being lonely and being by yourself – kind of sad – Some people don’t mind it.”
Jeff: “I can take it to a point, but not years and years.”
Fosdal: “See, maybe had you been a little more susceptible to form a relationship with some other guys – maybe none of this might have happened.”
Jeff: “And if I didn’t have such a desire for total control and domination – right – if I wasn’t so selfish. I have to admit what I was doing was the ultimate in selfishness.”
I must admit Dr Fosdal seems a bit naive. He made it sound like a boyfriend would have fixed Jeff when we all know that wasn’t so easy. Jeff’s issues went far deeper than that. But I wanted to share this part because Jeff admits to being lonely and it seems he wanted to connect with people. Not big groups but maybe one person. Someone special that he could share his interests with. But his fear of rejection withheld him from this. He never learned to open up, his home environment never was a safe enough place to share his emotions even if he wanted. His emotional needs were never met by his parents so why would a potential boyfriend accept him and his needs? Why even bother to try to open up if you end up getting left alone anyway? Jeff sought out other disturbing ways to keep someone with him forever.
Again I want to make clear that there were more deeply rooted problems with Jeff than just having a disorganized attachment style. Even if this was already a thing back in the days and he worked on his attachment style, in his case that wouldn’t have solved his desire to have complete control and dominance over someone and his personality disorders. But I just wanted to point out that if we forget his crimes for a second and just focus on his desire to want to be with someone, if it was possible for him to have a normal romantic relationship, if he wanted to connect with a guy and learn to be better at communicating his needs, he would have had to deal with a fearful avoidant attachment style like many of us in the present time. If he were in a relationship or maybe just dating, he would constantly have the fear of not being good enough. He probably would have a really hard time being vulnerable and opening up to his partner. He would constantly fight the urge to leave before the other person leaves him. He probably look for any sign from his partner that they didn’t really like him. It would not be easy to form an emotional connection with Jeff even if he didn’t have his dark intrusive thoughts.
Sources [x] [x] [x]
Jeffrey Dahmer Memorial 