Enmeshment's Effects on Self Image

--> From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

The Self-Image Problems of the Chosen Child

(The child within a relationship of enmeshment with a parent.)

From pages 38 – 43:

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This is a gross condensing of the main points of the text!)

Fluctuating Self Esteem

“There have been times in my life when I've been really full of myself – almost as if I had a superhuman powers, fell as if we were operating in two different leagues. At other times, I've felt completely worthless – almost as if I was an imposter. There seemed to be no middle ground.”

Widely fluctuating self-esteem is a common problem for may adult Chosen Children. For some, the high side of the mood swing can be traced to the euphoria of winning the exclusive love of a parent. Being a parent's favorite can give the illusion of being able to conquer anything or anyone in any setting... This dizzy swing of feelings from invincibility to inadequacy is prevalent in Chosen Children.

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Fear of Rejection

“There are times when I feel worthless – totally unworthy of love. I isolated myself for fear of rejection.”

Some Chosen Children are plagued with the feeling that they're unlovable. At first this may seem a contradiction in terms: How can a child be a parent's favorite and still feel rejected? The answer is that being enmeshed with one parent often provokes the resentment of the other parent. It's a decidedly Freudian equation: to win Daddy's love is to risk Mommy's wrath. The left out parent's anger can take many forms...

Social Isolation

“When I was growing up, I never felt like one of the group. Sometimes I just felt I was better than everyone else; other times I felt inferior. It was a long time before I had a sense of equality or belonging.”

Spending less time with other kids than does the typical child, the Chosen Child has littleopportunity to feel part of a group. The problem is compounded for the only child or for the child who is resented by siblings, for the girl or boy grows up with only a limited sense of kinship and belonging.

As a result of this social isolation, the child is denied the leveling influence of peers. Children are very direct in their feedback; they socialize one another with sledgehammers. While this interaction may be painful at times, it does encourage children to act in socially acceptable ways. A child who is isolated from others may hold on to personality quirks that prove a liability later in life.

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A Feeling of Inferiority

“I feel like a failure. I keep setting goals for myself and failing to achieve them. Nothing I do is ever good enough. Not in my eyes. Not in other people's eyes.”

Children who grow up with an Invasive Parent can have an unnaturally low estimation of their abilities, especially if the parent was critical or abusive. Children believe what they've been told, and if they've been told over and over again that they're in the way or no good, they will take the message to heart.

Surprisingly, children who grow up with adoring parents may also feel that they don't measure up. [The child compares self to the adult and cannot match his skills.] This low self esteem continues into adulthood, and the boy [in the case study] grows into the kind of man who constantly belittles his own accomplishments. No matter what he does, he is never good enough.

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome:
What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life Bantam Books, 1990

Enmeshment Produces Guilt and Anxiety

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From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

The Guilt and Anxiety of the Chosen Child

(The child within a relationship of enmeshment with a parent.)

From pages 33 – 38:

(BUY THE BOOK if you find this relevant to you!

This is a gross condensing of the main points of the text!)

Guilt

“I feel responsible for everything that happens around me – especially when things go wrong. I feel especially guilty when other people are unhappy. I'm sure I must have done something wrong or failed to do something I was supposed to do.”

For some people, the single world GUILT sums up the negative consequences of growing up with an Invasive Parent. Depending on their circumstances, they can fell guilty for one or more of a number of reasons, including: taking a parent away from a partner, winning out over siblings, failing to live up to a parent's expectations, wanting to break away from an overbearing parent,and participating in a love triangle when they were “old enough to know better.”

Perfection Problems and the Effects of Enmeshment

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From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

The Perfectionism of the Chosen Child

(The child within a relationship of enmeshment with a parent.)

From pages 43 – 46:

(BUY THE BOOK if you find this relevant to you!

This is a gross condensing of the main points of the text!)

Denial of Needs

“It's really strange, but I didn't realize I had any fears or problems until I was twenty years old. I did have them, of course, but I blanked them out. It's almost as if I were two people – one who was always on top of things, and then an inner one that was terrifyingly needy. I didn't let that inner one see the light of day.”

It's normal for children to be “trouble” from time to time. They need you when you're busy; they ask questions for which you have no answers...they are a constant reminder that you do not have a solution to all of life's problems.

The Chosen Child often has to repress these needs. A client nicknamed Sunny told me that she'd gotten her nickname from her mother, who elected her to be her perfect well-adjusted child. “You're always happy,” she would tell her daughter. “You're always smiling.” The hidden message was, “Don't be unhappy or have any problems.”

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Compulsive Need to Succeed

“I'm one of the most driven people I know. I once dreamed that I was going to be killed unless I was promoted to vice president of my firm. I woke up in a cold sweat. But that nightmare was just an exaggerated version of what I feel every moment of the day.”

Many Chosen Children are burdened by the belief that they count only if they are superior...It took me many years to get a handle on this embarrassing episode. What I eventually realized what that my compulsive drive to succeed was a direct consequence of my mother's high expectations and of my secret fear of inadequacy. I felt I had no choice but to live up to her unrealistic vision of me... [P]art of my legacy as a Chosen Child was the belief that to be average or ordinary is to fail.

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life Bantam Books, 1990

How to Deal With the Guilt While Looking Into the Past

From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 136 -139:

For some Chosen Children, guilt, not anxiety, keeps them from gaining a more accurate view of their childhood. This is often true of those who grew up worshiping a parent. How can they go from thinking a parent was the most wonderful mother or father on earth to seeing the parent as the source of their misery? How can they be angry at a parent who sacrificed so much for them? How can a relationship that usually felt so good be classified as bad? ...

...If you feel guilty for seeing the negative side of a parent, removing this barrier will hasten your recovery. But how do you do this? It's been my experience that learning more about the complicated psychology of guilt helps reduce its impact. In it's simplest form, guilt is a painful but short-lived phenomenon designed to jolt you into awareness that your behavior is not consistent with your beliefs. [Blog host note: This is much like the definition of cognitive dissonance, and guilt could well be an indicator of cognitive dissonance at work.] It's a voice from your conscience advising you to either (1) reexamine your beliefs or (2) alter your behavior so that the two of them line up...

[I]t's the adult who creates the parent-child alliance. A child can't be blamed for wanting preferential treatment from a parent; it's a survival mechanism built into all children: in times of scarcity, being first in line can mean the difference between life and death. A wise parent ignores the child's plea for a place of prominence and keeps all children on the same plane. No child is given preferential treatment or is asked to play the role of surrogate spouse. Ultimately, it's the parent's responsibility to create a balanced family system, not the child's responsibility to suppress a natural and understandable desire to be a Chosen Child.

Ironically, many Chosen Children discover that letting go of this misplaced sense of guilt for what went on in the family makes them feel anxious; it's a Catch-22. Once they place the responsibility where it really belongs – squarely in the lap of the parent – they may experience a surge of anxiety for having “bad thoughts” about the caretaker. Here's the internal logic: “If I was not responsible for being the Chosen Child, then my mother and father were to blame. It makes me feel anxious to see my parents in a negative light, however, because my unconscious mind assumes they are still responsible for my well-being. Even though I am 20 or 40 or even 70 years old and have outlived both my parents, I am still fearful of abandonment. It may be better to accept the guilt for what went wrong in my family than to blame my parents and stir up my anxiety.”

For many people, this complicated and erroneous belief system stands in the way of recovery. Understanding the way the unconscious mind operates is a first step to letting go of the unnecessary burden. Here, once again, is the faulty train of logic:

1. When children are young, they feel responsible for the tension in the family because of the false belief that they are in control of the situation.
2. In later years, if they try to change this belief and assign full responsibility to their parents, they feel anxious.
3. The underlying cause of this anxiety is the erroneous belief in their adult years.

If the thought of identifying the mistakes your parents made in raising you makes you feel guilty or anxious, you need to revise your belief system. You were not to blame for what went on in the family, and you have nothing to fear for placing the responsibility for where it really belongs. You are now capable of taking care of yourself. And remember that you don't have to confront your parents or disassociate from them to recover from emotional incest. You just need to remove some of the mythology that keeps you from seeing and experiencing the truth.

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life Bantam Books, 1990