You may be enmeshed with a parent or parents or friend or partner and be completely unaware that you are enmeshed. Enmeshment is relationship betrayal that starts in childhood where the child was put in the position to satisfy the needs of the parent and where your needs and separate identity were not nurtured but ignored and discouraged. Focus was on controlling behavior and there was profound emotional neglect of your feelings and thoughts. You are now walking with internalized trauma wounds as an effect of this childhood trauma that has continued into your adult life.. Often in my practice, it’s not the enmeshed one who seeks therapy as they are in denial but the partner of the one who is enmeshed. When we are enmeshed we are unable to fully show up for ourselves or in relationships and the anger that is often unconscious toward the parent who betrayed you is expressed toward the partner. It becomes very confusing and painful for partners who are experiencing relationship betrayal by their enmeshed partner which mirrors the relationship betrayal the enmeshed has experienced with their parent or parents. . When we are enmeshed unhealthy patterns of relating have become normalized as parts of us have become frozen or gone into a fight/flight response in order to survive. The following are essential to understand as you heal and recover from enmeshment trauma. See”:Adult Pain Of Childhood Emotional Neglect”
DENIAL IS MORE THAN A RIVER IN EGYPT
Denial is so pervasive when you are enmeshed as you needed then to survive.. Since enmeshment trauma starts in early childhood and truly you were a “little hostage” and then we were completely dependent on those who were there to take care of us and not exploit or harm us. In this dysfunctional family system your emotional and developmental maturation was blocked by the manipulation and control that you were subjected to and there was no where to run but just comply. In therapy you can begin to clarify and understand what happened to that “inner child” and have love and compassion for yourself and courageously move forward in your healing and recovery as you become “authentically” you and fully alive. You can begin to understand it was never your job to take care of your parent but the roles were reversed and you paid a cost for that.see: “Signs that You Do Not Value “You”
BREAKING CHAINS OF INAPPROPRIATE GUILT AND FORCED OBLIGATION
Since you were well trained in a dysfunctional family system to comply and not have a voice and to not be able to make your own decisions then it was a set up to function as a “human doing” not a “human being” since in that system you did not receive empathy and no one heard your “cry” you shutdown emotionally and parts of you became frozen. You now do what is expected of you to do even though your heart is not in it and you feel “inappropriate guilt” if you stop functioning in the role of the enmeshed son or daughter. You visit your parent not because you truly want to although without therapy you probably believe you really want to. This is not about cutting off the relationship but inner healing so that you are not acting on “inappropriate guilt” or “forced obligation” which has historically run your life. Please know this is a process and it is slow and you will learn patience as you “get comfortable where you are uncomfortable and uncomfortable where you are comfortable” see: “Red Flags of Unhealthy relationships”
“THE “RIGHT” RELATIONAL TRAUMA THERAPIST CAN HELP SET YOU FREE FROM ENMESHMENT
If you are struggling with enmeshment or are the partner of one who is struggling with enmeshment would love to be able to guide and direct you on your path to emotional freedom and discovering who you are as you heal and become restored from the inside out! please give me a call!