I really appreciate this perspective. It clarified a lot for me. I’m a woman and I tend towards avoidant attachment. My parents were both very cold to me, except when my father was being overly enmeshed and inappropriate as a component of his sexual abuse or occasionally when I was physically ill. Generally speaking, my parents would literally ignore me when I cried, at any age and in any context. That was completely terrifying and made it hard to connect with anybody. It weirdly set me up to be further abused by others, as I struggled to hold on to decent relationships with other women and was a prime target for abuse by women. I couldn’t play the “woman role” in relationships with men at all and I felt resentful when they expected it, because I didn’t know how to get what I needed in response.
Best to avoid relationships.