Enmeshment Quotes

“We forget in order to survive our childhoods, when we are totally dependent on our parents' goodwill; but to recover from such childhoods, we must begin by remembering-the bad and the good.”
― Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life

“If a mother has an unhealthy need to dominate her children-which she demonstrates by bullying, terrifying, neglecting, suffocating, indulging, humiliating, overprotecting or abusing them- those children must come to the recognition that such treatment is wrong in order to begin the long process of recovery and ultimate understanding.”
― Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life

“When we recognize that we are not responsible for our childhood deprivations, and that we are entitled to feel anger (but not to act on it - awareness is not a license to kill), then we are able to let go of that anger and not be controlled by it.”
― Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life

“I was conditioned to believe any boundary I had was a betrayal of her, so I stayed silent, cooperative.”
― Jennette McCurdy

“I think my mom wanted to keep me as controllable as possible. I think she really wanted to have her influence on me, and me growing up was a threat to that.”
― Jennette McCurdy

“- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother.
- Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world.
- Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But--
- Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they--
- Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates--
- Fear and pain for mother, which creates--
- Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health.
- Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to--
- Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to--
"The bad news.”
― Claire Fontaine, Comeback: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back

“Integral to being emotionally healthy is to have a mother who has the ability to respect her child's differences and not perceive them as betrayals.”
― Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life

“I have always tried to be all the tings my mother wanted me to be; ever the lady, always polite, never inconsiderate. I run my business the way my mother ran our house - everything just so. In some ways I am my mother - full of life when I'm happy, very cold when I'm angry. People say I look just like her. I'll tell you a secret: every time I pass a mirror, I gasp. I wonder if there's more here than meets the eye." - Karen, thirty-nine.”
― Victoria Secunda, When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life