EnCRUSHment (Season 1)

Enmeshment describes family relationships that lack boundaries such that roles and expectations are confused. Parents are overly and inappropriately reliant on their children for support, and children are not allowed to become emotionally independent or separate from their parents. Family members are emotionally fused together in an unhealthy way.

Transcript

["Crazy Bar Theme"] We're back.

The Stuck Stops here.

Welcome to Podcast 9.

I am Tami Atman and I'm with my genius podcaster.

L.

W.

Nolai,

Number nine.

Number nine.

Number nine.

Love potion number nine.

I was thinking more like Beatles number nine.

Revolution number nine.

Could be.

Better than 69.

Today's podcast is called Encrushment and we're going to be talking about the crushing effects of enmeshed families and also what you can do about it.

What do you think of that?

I think that's great.

Don't forget that we also have to tell people that we are not licensed therapists or life coaches.

And I don't do windows.

And we appreciate your time.

Thank you for joining us for podcast number nine.

So enmeshed parenting is when the parent constantly tries to sabotage independence or the child's independence from the time when they were very,

Very young.

So it's describes family relationships that lack boundaries,

Roles and expectations are confused.

Parents are usually overly and inappropriately reliant on their children for whether physical support or emotional support.

I was a victim of being leaned on for emotional support for my mother.

Often I was a confidant and a best friend.

And in my book,

I talk about a particular situation where I was awkward and unhealthy.

So I also had a similar experience.

Share that.

Yeah.

Well,

My my parents are Eastern Europeans.

So,

You know,

As we spoke with Rita last week about parents who are from Europe,

They tend to be very overprotective over their children.

And sometimes that's in the name of love.

But sometimes it also feels like you're being smothered.

That's right.

The,

You know,

Emotional claws dig deep.

Put another way.

Smother lovin' it's not a blast.

Smother lovin' jumpin' too fast.

Oh well,

Oh well,

Oh well,

Oh.

Smother lovin' way to rock it out.

Taking it back to 1979 when the movie Grease came out.

All right.

Not for this horseplay.

We got to get down to business.

So I kick that horse out of here.

All right.

Well,

Let's talk about this.

What causes enmeshment?

Great question.

Enmeshment is a dysfunctional family dynamic that is passed through generations.

What isn't passed through generations at this point?

So toxic families tend to recreate the family dynamics that they grew up in because they're familiar.

So the generational pattern of smothering your child's independence gets passed down.

If you look back on your history,

You might be able to pinpoint it the way I did.

It was very easy to see why my mother operated the way she did because her own upbringing was pretty tragic in a lot of ways.

And,

You know,

She had the an odd combination or I'd say an unhealthy combination of being pampered and pitied.

You know,

Pampered for,

You know,

She happened to have been a beautiful child and pitied or,

You know,

Indulged because of,

You know,

Her hearing impairment.

And I think there was the indulgence and the shame,

You know,

And the abandonment of her own father caused her to want to be enmeshed with me.

And what was the turning point that made you realize that all of that?

Because you say it was easy to see,

But of course,

I always knew I was enmeshed and I knew it was unhealthy,

But I had no label for it.

And that's the difference.

I knew I hated knowing,

Always feeling suffocated.

But I didn't didn't know why I felt that way.

I just felt that way,

Too.

And people would recognize it in me.

They would say,

Wow,

You really care so much about what your mother thinks.

And I couldn't understand how to separate myself from that.

It took a long time.

How can you separate yourself from something that you can't label or name?

And that's why there's so many of us out there saying I'm empty,

I'm lonely,

I'm miserable,

All that.

And they don't know why.

So part of what I try to do when I talk about how I used to feel and why I used to feel that way is to try to,

In hopes for the listener to hear themselves in the old version of me.

And when I,

As negative as those descriptions may be and as challenging as those situations were,

I want people to understand that I was there and I'm not now so that they know that somebody understands the pain that they're in.

That's great.

That is my goal.

So the enmeshment burdens children.

That's what it does.

It burdens.

So there's a responsibility of taking care of the parents,

Either physically or emotionally,

Parentification of the child due to emotional immaturity,

Which I'm a poster child for that.

Both my mother,

My stepdad and my father were angry toddlers.

And if you picture being in a supermarket and a kid throwing a tantrum because the mom says no to the candy bar,

That tantrum,

Just picture that tantrum.

That is what my parents were like and still are.

The difference is I've evolved where,

You know,

I can walk away from those tantrums.

So you're not getting the candy bar.

All done.

There's role confusion.

You know,

When I'll speak for myself in terms of when a daughter is a confidant to a mother,

It's awkward.

And it doesn't.

You know,

It's wrong and you don't know why it's wrong.

Well,

When your mother is confiding in you,

You can't look at her and say,

You shouldn't be telling me this stuff,

You know,

But I know.

But deep down,

You're thinking to yourself,

Why is she telling me this stuff?

And this stuff I don't want to know.

Yeah.

Yeah,

You're absolutely right.

It's more,

You know,

It's all about filling the hole in her soul and prioritizing her needs over my own.

And that was a 24-7,

You know,

Situation.

So when being her,

You know,

Being her confidant and her support system,

Both physically and emotionally,

I had no idea who I was,

What I wanted,

What I liked.

And if I wasn't reacting to external situations or trying to solve a problem,

Put out a fire,

I really didn't know what I was outside of that.

And that contributed to a lot of,

You know,

All the anxiety and depression I had when I got older.

You know,

And the last burden that a children has is they have no respect for your feelings,

For your needs,

For individuality.

So when the baby's throwing the tantrum over the candy bar,

They don't care about anything except getting that candy bar.

Well,

That's how it is,

That's how it was for me,

Is as long as I was catering to their ever-changing mood swings and needs,

That was it.

That was my whole childhood.

So an example,

I'll give an example I got of a book and then I'll give an example for myself.

Let's say your son is shopping with his mother and the narcissistic mom gets angry at the store clerk who slighted her by waiting on another customer first and the mother gets mad.

The son,

In immediate response,

Will get mad as well.

So that's a parentified child,

That's an enmeshed child.

How old is this son?

Doesn't matter.

I mean,

I can remember,

Great question.

I can remember my mother hating people that didn't accommodate her hearing needs.

And I remember that too and I remember feeling embarrassed and just like,

Hey,

Feeling like sorry for the people that she was angry at.

Yeah,

All of my parents are rude to waitstaff to this day.

And now I don't get mad at the waitstaff.

I think,

Boy,

I'd love to punch you guys in the face.

But I don't.

I just think it.

I just think it.

So,

But I don't get mad.

Not the waitstaff.

You're talking about the parents.

The parents,

Right.

Not the waitstaff.

No,

No,

No.

They're actually human beings.

They're fine.

Can you believe it?

That's right.

Who knew?

So I remember,

You know,

Always getting mad at people that didn't accommodate my mother's hearing impairedness.

I remember she once made me break up with some guy who was dating and wasn't even that serious because,

You know,

She couldn't read his lips.

Whoa,

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

So,

Yeah,

It's end crushment.

So my that's the other thing.

A lot of these.

Did you make up that term end crushment?

I did make it up.

You have no idea what goes on inside this brain.

It's a scary place to live.

So I make up all the titles and all the little,

You know,

Fusing of words.

I have no idea if it's a talent or just pathetic,

But either way,

I'm going with it.

You use your power for good.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

So the other thing in MeSH parents will often do is give bad advice because it's all about their own needs.

So it's not what's best for you.

And I got a lot of bad advice.

I actually got fired from one job because of advice that they gave me way back when I was like 21.

And there's no you know,

They don't protect the child if there's any threats or bad situations because it's got nothing to do with them.

Right.

And you and I was left to fumble my way through childhood,

Through adolescent years and early adulthood with panic attacks,

Anxiety disorder,

Depression.

And did your parents see this in you or did you hide it from them?

Both.

There were times I could control how much showed.

And there were other times where,

You know,

I had a great question.

I did have a complete meltdown,

Which I would.

The better term for that is a total collapse.

An older term for that is a nervous breakdown,

Which is not a term that gets used at all.

Total collapse is much better.

When did that happen?

I was 17.

And.

Looking back,

It was because I was a year away from going to college and I didn't I was so afraid because I had no idea what to do or who I was without being a slave.

An emotional slave to my parents.

So that that freedom frightened me because I didn't know what to do with it.

And now I,

On the other hand,

When I knew I was going away to college,

I could not wait.

I packed my bags and I left.

And my first year after my freshman year,

I stayed there for the summer and didn't go home when I did go home.

It was rough.

And there were phone calls.

I mean,

Daily phone calls.

This is before that,

Before cell phones and texting.

They were daily phone calls to my dorm room.

What are you doing?

Why are you calling me?

What's going on?

And it was just it was so hard to break free of those chains of that codependency and crushmen.

It does it.

And it led me to make a lot of stupid decisions.

I keep I always say I had my head up my ass when I was in college.

I had many,

Many opportunities and I didn't seize them because I was wrapped up in this codependent relationship.

Codependent,

Self-defeating rebellion.

And it's very hard to make good decisions for yourself.

If you don't know what your authentic goals are,

You can't know.

You know,

I was I was a little me.

That's what I was.

My mother saw me as a little me and.

Little me,

Meaning like a little version of her or wanted to me to,

You know,

To be a little version of her little puppet to,

You know,

To control.

And.

It was very debilitating.

It really was.

And,

You know,

Contributed to my fear of failure and that could that those fears,

Fears of freedom,

Fears of failure.

They just ruin your quality of life.

My fear was more in trusting people because for some reason,

The advice that I got was that nobody could be trusted.

Everyone was going to steal from me.

My art.

Everyone was going to hurt me.

Everyone was going to cheat me.

And it made me less trusting,

Which led me to not collaborate enough with people.

So why did they believe that nobody could be trusted?

What was their driving force behind that?

They were controlling me to make sure that I didn't leave.

Were they treated that way?

Probably.

Well,

More more my mother than anything,

But probably.

Yeah,

I would think so.

But she also left home.

She she left home and moved to another country as soon as she could.

So she was looking for an escape as well.

Yes.

From the very thing that she then passed on to you.

Correct.

Denial is a beautiful thing,

Isn't it?

Happy that I get it now,

But hate that I was caged.

Years of being empty and leading with too much rage.

It's the storm before the calm.

It's too hot or it's too cold.

Our monsters live forever.

It's too young and it's too old.

It's so easy to lie instead of.

It's so easy to deny anything that's real.

And it's so easy to be.

It's too easy to cut an angel's face.

Signs and symptoms of enmeshment.

All right.

Number one,

You don't think about what's best for you or what you want.

It's always about people pleasing and taking care of others.

You're guilted or shamed if you want less contact.

Your parents self-worth is hinges on your success and your accomplishments.

Your parents want to know everything about your life.

And yes,

That is my mother.

I wish going to work,

Going to yoga and doing a load of laundry was interesting,

But it's not.

And that's what I have to tell her when she says,

What did you do today?

And she requires tons of information.

And that's the other thing.

We'll do another podcast on that.

Narcissists love gossip,

But we'll talk about that another time.

Parents don't encourage you to follow your dreams and they impose ideas on what you should be doing.

That sucks.

Yep.

You avoid conflicts.

You don't know how to say no and you don't have a strong sense of who you are.

Those are signs and symptoms of enmeshment.

So the younger people may not know who Brooke Shields is,

But my generation will.

She's right around my age and she wrote an autobiography about the relationship she had with her enmeshed mother,

Terry.

Now,

Wasn't Terry her manager as well?

Yes.

Terry was her God.

Too close for comfort.

Exactly.

Terry Shields is a textbook example of an enmeshed parent.

She projected her own dreams onto her daughter.

She was an alcoholic and relied on her daughter to act as the parent in the relationship.

Yet Brooke described feeling completely in awe of her mother,

Despite her issues.

She writes,

I never thought I could live without you.

I knew and understood you better than anyone else in your life.

I became the meaning in your life when it would have served you to find the meaning from within.

Your approval meant the world to me,

As did your happiness.

That was the hard part because I wanted your approval for my growing up independently of you.

Yet I feared my independence was the root of your unhappiness.

But if I had not fought to differentiate myself from you and from our type bond,

I would not have been able to survive.

Wow.

And I could have written that.

I could have written that,

Too.

How many of us enmeshed children,

Adult enmeshed children?

And you feel guilty because you feel like your mother or your parents have devoted their lives to you.

So the thought of growing up and becoming independent and leaving them is a terrible feeling.

We grow up owing,

Feeling like we owe them to stay caged and never develop.

That is the price that we pay for food,

Clothing and shelter.

You want to hear a poem that I wrote when I was like,

I must have been six years old.

Let's hear it.

And you'll remember it,

Too.

I am a flower.

I live in a tower.

I have so much to remember.

I live in a tower.

I get every hour.

I get a shower.

I can't remember the rest,

But the general concept of this poem was that I was in a I was like Rapunzel.

I was living in a in a tower and I would cry a lot.

And that's,

You know,

Kind of like what I felt like when I was a kid.

I felt like a beautiful flower that couldn't blossom,

That was kind of trapped in a tower.

But how how amazing is that that you remember most of the words as well as what you were thinking when you wrote it?

And you were only six years old.

Well,

I recognized that when I went to seek out therapy when I was in my 20s.

And I remember looking back at some of my notebooks,

Which I still have,

And looked at all my old poems.

And that was one that really stood out for me.

And I and it made new sense to me when I was in my 20s.

New sense,

Awareness,

New sense.

Yeah.

Finding labels,

Being able to pinpoint what's bothering us or why we're so unhappy and empty and lonely.

I think the reason why I cried so much as a kid,

I mean so much was because of that,

Because I felt powerless,

Because I felt suffocated.

So it's amazing how you cried all the time because you felt suffocated.

And I dissociated because I was suffocated.

So opposite reactions to the very same problem.

Or curse.

I don't want to say curse because too many people go on to pass on all that toxicity.

I remember my daughter telling me a story a few years ago,

I think five,

Six years ago.

So she was either in middle school or high school and she was at a friend's house.

And her friend,

The mother and the grandmother,

All three of them were fighting in front of her.

And they were all screaming at each other pretty disrespectfully.

So my youngest calls me and said.

I was really uncomfortable because they asked me if this went on in my house.

And I was like.

How did you answer that?

She's like,

Well,

Sometimes because she didn't know what to say.

She probably wanted to not embarrass them.

Exactly.

Saying,

Yeah,

Where's she going to look at this?

You know,

Kid going to say,

Actually,

You're all are in denial and you're passing on generational dysfunction.

Kids not going to say that.

You're all lunatics.

But what I kept thinking is what a what a perfect display of that of that curse of toxic family right there.

All three generations screaming at each other disrespectfully and calling each other names.

Do we know what they were fighting about?

No.

Did it matter?

Probably didn't.

It would.

Whether it was something minuscule or something big.

Those,

You know,

Disrespectful modes of communication would have been the same.

We'll talk about that in another podcast to methods of communication.

Dr.

Patricia Love wrote a book called The Emotional Incest Syndrome.

And I have put a link into the podcast notes to this book.

And what I'm listing here is a checklist and only part of it.

On whether you have an enmeshed family or not.

And there's a long list.

And I only included a short amount,

You know,

Because you should read the book or go to her Web site to find out more.

But here's a few of them.

I was a source of emotional support for one of my parents.

I sometimes felt guilty when I spent time away from one of my parents.

A parent violated my privacy.

My parents were separated,

Divorced,

Widowed or didn't get along.

One of my parents was often lonely,

Angry or depressed.

I felt I had to hold back my own needs to protect a parent.

I felt responsible for a parent's happiness.

One of my parents was very critical of me.

That is just a short checklist to ask yourself.

I happen to have had all of the above.

So if you're wondering if you have an enmeshed family,

Those are some questions to ask yourself.

If you'd like to find out more and get the full checklist from Dr.

Patricia Love.

Click on the link that I put in the podcast notes.

Tell me more.

OK,

Rizzo,

I am going to tell you more.

How to break free from encrushment.

I mean,

Enmeshment.

So if you feel like you could.

This is we're talking about boundaries now,

Right?

Establishing boundaries.

There's several things,

But that's definitely the first one.

Anna Biggie.

So the first thing is if you need to take a break from this self-destructive relationship you have with your parents,

There are guilt free ways to do this.

First one is exactly what you talked about.

Establishing boundaries.

So how do you set boundaries?

Practice saying no,

No.

It's such a small but powerful word.

No.

Or a softer version.

Let's let's all say it together.

Ready?

One,

Two,

Three.

No.

OK,

You could also say I disagree or that doesn't work for me.

That doesn't work for me.

Set limits on the time you spend together,

Which I do now with my parents.

So I'm a very strict,

Low contact.

And that's exactly what I do.

I set it up where I only have a finite amount of time so that I know I have an escape.

I can cope better with any kind of chaos that comes my way.

Be direct,

Be polite and be firm.

Be clear on who you are and what you can and cannot do.

Even if they don't respect your limits,

Set them anyway with an unwavering,

Gentle confidence.

That's all about boundaries.

I have something important to ask you,

Though.

There is a an epidemic in this country.

I don't know if it's a I can't really call it an epidemic.

OK.

Well,

People have been living longer than they've ever lived before in this generation.

And we find ourselves with elderly parents who may or may not be widowed and alone.

And suddenly they need us.

They need their children's help.

How do you separate yourself now when your parent is in a situation where now you really have to take care of them because there is no one else to take care of them?

What do you do?

There's a lot of things.

And that is a tough,

Tough subject and probably deserves its own podcast.

And that would require meeting with a therapist or a life coach as well,

If you have if you are stuck like that,

Because that's a tough one.

There is requires a lot of strength and a lot of awareness and a lot of new skills to do the physical right thing.

Without suffering emotionally,

You know,

If you have to take them to the doctor and if you have to,

You know,

Do a lot of tending to physical needs,

You can still set the time for that in terms of doing what's morally right and then leaving or getting a nurse or your siblings or something where that it's not all on you.

But you still do the right thing in your own morally and ethically,

In your own mind,

That you've taken care of somebody that's ill.

There is a way to do it.

But because every situation is different,

Some people live in other states,

Some people live with their parents.

Some people have a husband,

Some people have big family,

Some people don't.

So there is no one right answer to that.

And that is why I would highly recommend therapy,

Life coaching,

Group support.

But there is a way to do all this and execute the right thing while going gray rock and not getting engaged in the emotional pain.

I can tell you from my own experience that it is extremely difficult.

You feel like you are drowning and then somebody hands you a baby.

You know,

It's just it's so difficult and it's so difficult to separate yourself and not get sucked in.

To a lot of those feelings,

A lot of those feelings of guilt and and stress and anxiety and depression,

Having been through it,

It's very,

Very difficult.

And I haven't spoken to many people who are going through it.

You know,

They call themselves the sandwich generation.

That's true.

It is.

You just feel like you have no choices.

You feel like you can't just leave this person alone.

You know,

They're in their 80s.

They're maybe an invalid.

Maybe they're taking a lot of drugs or meds and they need your help.

And you just don't have the heart.

You can't just leave them alone.

And yet they're still strong enough to do their little manipulative and passive aggressive things that drive you crazy.

You know,

I have an aunt that went through that.

You know,

Her mother was both physically and emotionally abusive and she ends up having to take care of her.

And it nearly killed her.

Where is the justice?

It is one of those life is not fair.

But I don't.

There's that is just requires.

A skilled mental health professional to cope.

Agreed.

But you do have to stay true to yourself and your own safety in terms of emotional safety.

That you have a right to,

You know,

Go get coffee,

Go get meditation class,

Go have lunch with a friend,

Go see a movie.

That should not change.

That's where the boundaries come in.

That's why I still do what nurtures you and maybe even double up on it.

And don't give up something you love doing or that helps you feel calm and gives you some inner peace because you have to take care of somebody who is going to torture you.

Right.

And maybe it also helps to speak to other people who are friends or relations who are going through similar things and can empathize.

I'm so glad you brought that up.

Number two,

Number two on how to break free.

Oh,

So.

All kinds of support.

Now,

One of the benefits of the Internet is there's there are so many Facebook groups.

There's the meet up app.

There's there is a support group for everything.

Most and a lot of them are free.

So if you cannot afford a therapist and you cannot afford a life coach.

A friend that actually brings out the best in you and that doesn't you know,

Yes,

Empathizing with your situation,

But not somebody that's going to pile on the negativity.

Yes,

This is awful.

You must hate it.

How do you get up every day?

You already feel that way.

You don't need somebody to remind you.

You need a positive supportive hand.

ACA,

Adult Children of Alcoholics,

Is free groups all across the country.

I actually have their book.

ACA was developed by renowned experts for adult children of alcoholics,

But it now encompasses dysfunctional families because the effects are the same.

Free groups everywhere across the country.

I urge you.

This would this would really help people a lot because everybody in there had severely toxic parents,

Whether they were alcoholics or not.

And they have a book that you can buy for 15 bucks,

Which is life changing.

Worth it.

I want to tell you that Al-Anon saved my life.

Yeah.

When I was living in New York City and struggling with this kind of dysfunction,

You know,

The codependency and all that,

I found Al-Anon.

And even though my parents were not alcoholics,

I went to meetings and I felt like I was not alone.

Right.

From what I have heard about Al-Anon,

It is a wonderful resource to help you cope with the situation that you're in that you cannot get out of,

Whether it's alcoholism or not.

And they have a book called One Day at a Time.

Yeah.

And that is when you're wallowing in the misery of what you're in.

This is a wonderful resource.

ACA actually takes it another step further.

Where it actually teaches you new skills to grow and move forward.

And so it's both.

Actually,

I would tell everybody go to both.

And they're all free.

They're all free.

Wow.

Google search that.

Find a meeting.

ACA.

Yes.

Get the book.

Number three,

Accept that you are your own person.

You have your own experiences and you have a right to your own experiences,

Your own feelings,

Your own preferences and your own interpretations of life.

The world you grew up in is very different than the one your parents grew up in.

And they cannot.

Unless you allow them to impose their will and their views on you,

It's not the same.

You accept yourself for who you are.

So you don't have to depend on them for approval.

Good one.

Yeah.

Number four,

Set your expectations for any conversations with them very low.

Don't call them wanting to be understood.

That won't happen.

Right.

What do they say?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over.

Reviews

Lost audio the last 13 minutes or so. I will check out iTunes to hopefully hear the ending. It cut off as you were talking about ACOA and Al Anon and I needed to hear this part!