attached a template to a document

I really hope someone can help me this one...

I attached a template to a document to bring in styles - mostly
because the 'organizer' has proven nothing but trouble - but that's
another story.

The template attached as it should - but now when I open a new
document in word it is no longer a blank (normal.dot-derived)
document. It contains a few of the styles from the template I attached
to the other document - and several of those style definitions have
been distorted.
I have tried to remove the template attachment from the original
document- which appears to do nothing but distort those styles even
further.

Normal.dot is still intact - I haven't messed up THAT bad...

Does anyone have any insight?

Thanks - Corey