by Shay Vaughn

Created on: June 27, 2008

I'm not a scientist. Nor do I have a degree in psychology. In fact, the only piece of paper that closely relates to the subject of attachment style are my adoption papers. They don't make me an expert, but they do give me insight to a subject many professionals will never experience for themselves.

Though I was nearly two, I don't specifically remember that day. However, as early as age three, I remember being referred to as the "adopted child" (as well as my half brother who was adopted later)and feeling like I just didn't rate as highly as my older brother, my adoptive mother's "natural-born son". With every new introduction, I was referred to, not as "Shay", but as the adopted child. To complicate the family structure even more, my adoptive parents divorced not long after I came into the picture and although my father lived in the same town, I rarely saw him and therefore granted him no emotional attachment. He was simply a family friend to me and nothing more. Those aspects alone would normally contribute to what text books would define as "dysfunctional". What separates my family from most is that my mother was handicapped. Stricken with polio at the age of two, my mother had barely begun to walk when the disease robbed her of the use of her lower extremities. She spent most of the first eighteen years of her life in one children's hospital after another. If that isn't a precursor to an attachment disorder, I don't know what is.

When my mother became a single mother, she was in her late 20's and could no longer walk without the use of crutches. In the years to follow, my mother's ability to walk deteriorated. By the time I was a teen, she was in a wheelchair, first a manual chair, the type you wheel by yourself, then later, an electric chair.

Through the eyes of a child and early on, I rationalized that my mother was physically unable to offer affection. As I grew and was exposed to the world and to the media, I naturally took interest in advocacy for the disabled. It was then that I started to notice that disabled persons, especially those with use of their upper extremities were certainly capable of giving and receiving affection. In short, my mother had no excuse. I cannot recall a day, an hour or even a minute when my mother reached out to touch me, hug me or even hold me in a loving manner. I never even heard the words "I love you". When my mother wasn't in her chair, she was on the couch. I never once crawled up in her lap.

When I was 10 and my half

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