Quotes About Enmeshment

Patients with combined NPD/BPD were significantly more likely to be classified as dismissing (characterized by idealization/devaluation of others and dismissal of need for closeness) or cannot classify (e.g., characterized by oscillation between angry preoccupation or passive enmeshment with attachment figures and dismissing devaluation of them) than was the BPD group.

instability, the discomfort of the relationship—feed back into the low self-esteem and self-doubt that triggered the over-involvement to start with. The only way out appears to be deeper enmeshment, getting so close to the SOP that those blowups won't happen. Soon the cycle hums, fully in place, with both parties pedaling as fast as they can.

In an enmeshed family you pay for intermittent feelings of approval and safety with your selfhood.

an enmeshed family can maintain an illusion of love and stability as long as no one attempts to separate and as long as everyone follows the family rules.

If there's no autonomy between people, then there's no compassion or empathy, just enmeshment.

Enmeshment creates almost total dependence on approval and validation from outside yourself. Lovers, bosses, friends, even strangers become the stand-in for parents. Adults like Kim who were raised in families where there was no permission to be an individual frequently become approval junkies, constantly seeking their next fix.

In families like Fred's, much of a child's identity and his illusions of safety depend on feeling enmeshed. He develops a need to be a part of other people and to have them be a part of him. He can't stand the thought of being cast out. This need for enmeshment carries right into adult relationships.

In some women Elvis saw a replica of his mother. He rushed to them, wanting to be absorbed within their boundaries as completely as with his mother. His courting rituals reenacted his and Gladys's lethal dance of enmeshment. His heart, worn throbbing on his sleeve, still belonged to Mama.

There is also enmeshment and boundary confusion between the daughter and mother. The daughter is often carrying the mother's repressed anger and sadness about the father. This feels overwhelming since these are deeply repressed emotions. Therefore, to starve and avoid eating is a protection against feeling these overwhelming emotions.

Besides lack of mirroring, abandonment includes: neglect of developmental dependency needs, abuse of any kind and enmeshment into the covert or overt needs of the parents or the family system. Abandonment induces shame in the child who is utterly dependent on the parents.

Actually getting rid of the voices is extremely difficult because of the original rupturing of the interpersonal bridge and the resulting fantasy bond. As children are abandoned, and the more severely they are abandoned (neglected, abused, enmeshed), the more they create the illusion of connection with the parent. The illusion is what Robert Firestone calls the Fantasy Bond

If we humans are essentially spiritual, then when we are abandoned, abused or enmeshed, we are spiritually violated. Indeed, when our caretakers acted shamelessly, they were playing God. Healthy shame tells us we are finite, limited and prone to mistakes. When our caretakers acted shamelessly, we were forced to carry their shame. Our self-esteem was wounded by that shame. Co-dependence is the outcome of this abuse.

In each case one parent is involved with his own dysfunction and the other is co-dependently addicted to him. The children are emotionally abandoned. To make matters worse, they become enmeshed in the covert or overt need to maintain the family's precarious and unhealthy balance. In dysfunctional families, no one gets to be who he is. All are put in service to the needs of the system.