Applying Mary Ann's Attachment Theory

Sables (2000) explains that with Attachment Theory it helps to explain how early childhood experiences affect the way people act and interact with others as adults. In the case of Mary Ann, she lost her mother at the age of 3 to leukemia. She has no memories of her mother and does not speak about her much to anyone nor does her family, when asked about her mother she shows a flicker of sadness in her eyes and states that she’s dead and leaves the conversation at that. Li et. al., (2008) states that when it comes to the process of grief children are at a detriment because of their developmental vulnerableness. There are a handful of different risk factors that can keep a child from going through the common steps of grief and loss that are
essential for the child to inevitably recover from their loss (Li et. al., 2008). These factors are listed as: (a) Intellectual immaturity (b) Inability to sustain emotion (c) Dependency on caregivers (d) Incomplete individuation (e) Loss of primary attachment and (f) Secondary loss (Li et. al., 2008). In Mary Ann’s case factors A, B, C, and F are significant when looking at how her mother’s death affected her and her family.
In regards to factor (a) Intellectual immaturity, Mary shows no fear or regards for her health and safety as a child and that has continued into adulthood.
As a child she would be seen walking across the exposed support beams of her family's barn holding onto nothing around her and once almost fell off but managed to catch herself, pull herself back up by herself and continue playing as if nothing had happened. As an adult she does not take care of herself physically because she is focused on caring for others in her life. She works two jobs and then comes home everyday to cook and clean the home and care for her sickly father. She never gives her body a chance to rest and when offered help from others she refuses, so like the young Mary Ann on the support beam despite the risk of injury from falling then to health issues now, she will not grab the support structures around her to help hold her
up.
With factor (b) inability to sustain emotions, she has no impulse control as a child.
Her first day of school she gets into a physical altercation with two boys who laughed at her for being in the first grade class due to her illiteracy when she was supposed to be at a third grade reading level with her peers. She even bite the teacher that broke up the fight and escorted her to the principal's office. Later on the bus ride home, two older girls heard the story and giggled at Mary Ann, she then leapt at both of them and began beating them both up right then and there. She does not have the ability to stop and process her feelings before her body immediately reacts. As an adult her temper is still short and some of her reactions are still quick knee jerking reactions to a difficult emotional situation that she does not know how to handle but she has been able to grow in maturity and give herself the time to process through a situation before immediately becoming
physical.
With factor (c ) dependency on caregivers, Mary Ann was left in the hands of her father who was not equipped financially, mentally, and emotionally to raise a little girl with her four brothers with no female figure around to help. The only home Mary Ann has known has been one that has wheels underneath it and smells of filth. Her father used her and her siblings as free labor to build up the structures on their farm despite not knowing anything about building a proper secure structure. Mentally Jewell, Mary Ann’s father, was a southern Georgia boy, who hated and distrusted anyone that was not white, was more stubborn than a bull when it came to accepting help from anyone, and when he lost his lover to cancer and Mary Ann became the only woman of the house, he took to her to satisfy his sexual needs because he was the man of the house and Mary Ann had no say in it because he was her provider. Finally with factor (f) secondary loss, Mary Ann received multiple losses after the death of her mother. She lost her chance of receiving any form of feminine nurturing and support. She then had to move from place to place with her family repeated from the ages of 3 to 9 years old so she never had a feeling of home during those years. She lost her innocence because of the sexual acts she was made to do for her siblings and father. She also received the stigma of being a child whom had lost their mother, this was shown when Guy’s mother Madeline asked Mary Ann about her mother and when she found out she was dead, her attitude and behavior towards Mary Ann changed most likely out of pity for the young girl.
Growing up without a mother figure in her life, Mary Ann followed in her brothers footsteps mimicking them in their actions and behaviors. She was a dirty, smelly, rough and tough tomboy. She was also repeatedly sexual abused by her brothers and father on a daily basis growing up. Despite the repeated abuse she received as a child, she did not see it as abuse because as her brothers and father would put it, it was a part of her daily chores so it was seen as a natural normal behavior for her growing up. With the relationship with her father, Mary Ann shows signs of having a secure attachment relationship with him. She knows she can rely on him to never change, he gives her that feeling of stability knowing what to expect from him because he does not surprise her. In a study done by (Alexander et. al., 1998) they found that women who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their fathers over those that suffered abuse from someone other than a father figure had a higher percentages of individuals that were showing secure attachment (pp. 52). As a grown woman she is the only child left of her five siblings, two of whom have passed away, who stayed in Minnesota with their father, whom she lives with in the same trailer that she grew up in and has to take care of his daily medical needs. She never does anything for herself, her focus is on making sure her four boys are happy and taken care of and that her elderly father is taken care of as well, leaving her needs on the backburner everyday. Cozolino (2014) states that when a person is constantly under stress from having to regularly care for others but they do not receive the same care for themselves, their immunal health could be greatly compromised (pp. 250).