Wow, great responses. Very thought provoking.
Kelly:
I can really relate to your divorce story. You figuratively and literally needed your Mom’s permission to divorce. You went against your intuition and complied with mom until a 3rd party validated your feelings and then you did what YOU wanted to do.
This must have been very painful for you. Thank goodness you divorced and freed yourself. That took guts.
There’s things that my mom talked me into doing/not doing and I look back today and say to myself “What an idiot I was to listen to my mom”.
To me, your story makes me feel that the worse thing about my enmeshment was that I was like a slave, zombie, robot to my mom. WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING???
I am not a push over, but when I think of how mom swayed me, manipulated me (and I’m not sure when or whether she did this consciously or unconsciously), I want to SCREAM!!! I feel robbed, feel like she took something from me without my permission.
This all makes me think that enmeshment (& its accompanying codependency) is like a drug. I was an enmeshment junkie.
I see what your saying about maybe enmeshment could have been an indication of your mom’s love for you if she defended you. However, at this point, I think that both positive and negative enmeshment is bad. Enmeshment steals one’s self and negates inner power. At this point, I believe it’s way healthier to just let someone (as my former therapist would say) work out and follow their own karma.
Regarding your third point, I agree with Pennyplant:
Pennyplant:
Bingo, Pennyplant!! I think you really hit it:
“I don't see how a person raised by N parents could be anything but enmeshed and co-dependent on some level or in some form. The child has known nothing else from birth onward.”
For me, you have basically answered the question I raised. Although I have not per se read any thing that definitely links enmeshment/codependency with Nism, I think one implies the other. That’s why I’ve been saying that I’m not sure that my parents were Ns, but I KNOW I was enmeshed and codependent with mom. Therefore, mom was probably an N.
“Something from outside has to come into the child's mind in order to even alert them to how different Ns are from average parents. “
Sad thing for me is that I NEVER realized that my parents were Ns until after they died and my therapist told me that I enmeshed with my mom.
“There has to be some kind of awakening to even have a chance to get out of it, to even see it. “ Amen, Pennyplant. Sadly, my wake up call has come late in life.
“Each of us came up with a unique way of dealing with it. But "it" was always there--we ate, drank and slept it. How could a child not be enmeshed and/or co-dependent? Especially if the parents either had poor social skills (as in my case) or only associated with "suppliers" who toed the party line. How would the child know any better? Plus, the child is in something of a powerless position and would have to learn how to survive life with the powerful N parents. The power imbalance certainly would limit the ways the child's personality could develop. Generally, everything would have to refer back to the N parents in some way.”
Pennyplant, I don’t mean to gush over you (nor bruise anyone else), but I think you have made a brilliant analysis.
“How could a child not be enmeshed and/or co-dependent?” YES! Thus, N parents can be a major cause, if not the sole cause, of enmeshed/codependent kids. Conversely, if kids are enmeshed/codependent, then parents MUST have been Ns: this is what I have been trying to figure out.
It was very difficult for me to set boundaries with my parents because they (as my therapist put it) “bulldozed” me.
Hops:
I love your positive thinking and optimism. Yes, these are wonderful traits, but could I have still possessed those traits without loosing my ‘self’, my core?
Thank you all.
w/ love,
dazed
