The "Sweet Side" of Enmeshment (Success at a Price)

-->

-->
--> -->

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

From pages 28 – 30:

When I work with adults who were enmeshed with their parents, I am continually reminded of the “sweet side” of the syndrome. By and large, the people I've counseled were attractive and successful in some aspect of their lives. A significant number have had an unusual amount of talent and charisma and have made outstanding achievements in life. For example, I've worked with highly paid executives, nationally recognized artists, successful entrepreneurs – even a Pulitzer Prize nominee. 

In a few instances, these achievements seemed to be the result of in born trials such as physical beauty or unusual intelligence. But for the majority of my clients, their accomplishments appeared to be the direct result of enmeshment. Some had a “Stage Mom or Dad” who pushed them into stardom: their parents badgered or seduced them into abandoning their own goals and adopting the higher standards of an adult. Others succeeded for a less obvious reason: being linked with a parent resulted in a heady sense of entitlement. After all, they had won out in the only competition in life that really mattered: the competition for a parent's love and attention. As a result, they felt destined for success. The seized opportunities others passed by and attracted people to them with their winning ways.

-->

But what was so confusing to my clients was that these positive qualities were always offset by negative ones. Strangely, they felt both privileged and victimized, both talented and worthless, both blessed and cursed. For every positive trait, they expressed it's polar opposite...

Why this contradictory mix of emotions? Typically, there are several factors involved. Part of my clients' confusion could be traced to the fact that many of their fundamental needs had been ignored. Their parents' need for intimacy and companionship had taken precedence over their need for nurturing and independence. Paradoxically, their parents' excessive interest in them had created lifelong feelings of deprivation: “No one is taking care of me!”

Another factor was that while my clients may have been delighted in all the parental attention, on a deeper level they felt exposed and confined. They didn't feel free to be who they were or to develop at their own pace. They felt manipulated and controlled.

Finally, many clients discovered that for every privilege bestowed by a parent, there had been a jealous reaction from someone else. The thrill of being “mama's little man” or “daddy's girl” was eroded by the jealousy of a left-out sibling. The status that came from being a parent's surrogate spouse was offset by the resentment of the displaced husband or wife. The alliance with a parent had thrown the whole family out of balance, and the Chosen Child was often the target of the resulting anger.

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

The Child Always Loses in a Psychological Partnership with the Parent

-->

When Children Are Used to Meet the Needs of their Parents

About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams.

From pages 11 - 12:

-->

Since the parent-child relationship is used to meet the needs of the parent in the psychological marriage, the child feels ashamed of legitimate needs. A child seeking to have those needs met by the parent fears loss of the parent. As unhealthy as it is, the child has no choice but to actively participate in meeting the parent's needs. The child already feels emotionally abandoned, and expressing needs raises the fear of more abandonment. Children do not have the cognitive capacity to see the situation as it is. They are trapped.

As the children become adults, this entrapment continues as long as the reality of being a covert incest victim continues to be denied. Adults continue to feel ashamed of their dependency needs and seek to fulfill parents' needs at a continued cost to their own ability to be intimate. One important ingredient in learning to be intimate is to accept one's own personal dependency needs. The silent seduction, if not faced directly, continues to sabotage the desire to reap the benefits of intimacy and love with another.

-->

From page 33 - 35:

When Peter came for therapy, he complained of feeling burned out and lethargic. He was a successful therapist who, in spite of his thorough understanding of himself, was unable to stop over committing and overextending himself. His life primarily consisted of helping, pleasing and being there for others. He complained of having no sense of identity and not having any free time for himself. Peter felt unappreciated and that others took advantage of him. He reluctantly acknowledged that for some time he had resented his wife. He complained he was always there to listen to the multitude of problems she had, but he never felt he got equal time. Yet Peter claimed to be going out of his way to be there for his wife even more than he had done previously. He felt crazy. He was sexually shut down and had lost all interest in being intimate with his wife...

Peter's story is not unlike those of other helping professionals: doctors, therapists, ministers or nurses. On the outside is a mask of competence supported by a proficiency in helping others by always being there for them. These individuals gain their self-esteem through pleasing and helping others. But this sense of esteem is false. Feelings of worthlessness and shame generally prevail underneath the exterior of “being so together.” A compulsion and desperation to help others usually consumes the lives of individuals like Peter. They hope that soon they will feel worthy and have their own needs met. This never happens and the desperation grows.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

Perfection Problems and the Effects of Enmeshment

-->

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.”

-->

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

Introduction to Love Addiction and Love Avoidance

-->

From Pia Mellody's writings and lectures, and my professional training with "The Meadows" treatment facility.

INTRODUCTION

Love Addiction and Avoidance are not about love at all. It is all about trauma reactions inside a relationship. Love starts with thought which requires an awareness of self or others that allows you to hold both in warm regard. Those who are “hard to love” require “heaving lifting” for the other party because the respect and love are not reciprocated or done so evenly. Respect is a willingness to tolerate others violations, even when you really don't have to do so. All this requires self esteem.

Note that we have three basic human needs that are God given and easily compared: love, sex and food. Just as with any need, we can manage any one of these inappropriately or to extreme. In terms of extremes, we can seek out fulfillment compulsively (like an addiction) or we can avoid and deny our needs compulsively. Both of these unbalanced extremes are self-destructive.

We all face disappointment and shame which Mellody calls “experiencing our humanity.” For the Christian, this would be experiencing our sin nature and the shame and disappointment in our failure to overcome our natural desires that have not yet been transformed to be like Christ. Until our degree and process of becoming like Jesus and our level of sanctification grows, we tend to fall into the same human trappings as everyone else. We tend to confuse love with caretaking. We tend to go about this in predictable pattern.

-->

Two Patterns

Pattern 1: Love Addiction

All about making up a fantasy about another person and falling in love with the fantasy

The fantasy involves

• seeing the other person as god-like
• capable of saving the love addict from his/her fear of not being able to make it on his/her own
• and loving him/her forever.
• They are someone who will “love you into loving yourself.”
• The fantasy objectifies the partner or the counter part in the unhealthy relationship (reducing them to an object of fantasy).
• This actually means that the partner is not acceptable to the love addict, therefore the love addict objectifies them by seeing them in terms of their own fantasy and not as the partner really is.
  

Pattern 2: Love Avoidance

Compulsive relational cycle that appears to be intimate but actually avoids intimacy and vulnerability

The love avoidant

• gets a sense of value from (compulsive) caretaking
• the partner confuses this with love
• They are “allergic to vulnerability”
• Their sense of value comes from caretaking and is a means of avoiding guilt.
  

-->

Relational Connections in Childhood

Type I: Healthy Relationship

• A relationship of Functional Bonding: Caregiver takes appropriate car of the child (affirming, nurturing, and limit setting)
• Caregiver takes care of the child and uses personal boundaries which protect the child appropriately.
• The care and responsibility for the child rests completely upon the adult caregiver.
  

Type II: Caregiver Uses the Child

• A relationship of Enmeshment: Caregiver uses the child to take care of himself/herself (affirming and nurturing must be earned by the child and must provide these to the parent as well)
• Caregiver is without personal boundaries
• The care and responsibility is partly provided by the parent, but the child is also required to reciprocate for the benefit of the parent)
• Produces a Love Avoidant type adult because the child resents the usury on some level. (Demanded sacrifice as a duty or obligation will always produce some degree of resentment.)
  

Type III: Caregiver Abandons the Child

• A relationship of Neglect/Rejection (Can be a partial neglect or inconsistent abandonment and neglect, or complete abandonment)
• Caregiver is detatched and "walled-in"
• The parent provides no care and bears no responsibility for the child and has no functional relationship with the child at all.
• Produces a Love Avoidant type adult because the child is always seeking the fantasy of love and attention.
  

From Pia Mellody's writings and lectures,

and professional training with "The Meadows" treatment facility.

And from

“Facing Love Addiction”

by Mellody, Miller and Miller

HarperOne, 1992.

Characteristics of Covert (Emotional) Incest

From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

In his book “Silently Seduced,” Kenneth Adams continues to describe covert incest, the process by which a parent or major caregiver uses a child to meet and satisfy their (non-sexual) unmet adult needs. Dr. Patricia Love in her work, “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” describes her own experience with her adult clients who have also become enmeshed emotionally and psychologically with their parents as a result of the process of covert incest. She terms the child within these relationships the “chosen child,” but the dynamics are all the same. Pia Melody builds upon this premise to describe the interaction and dynamics of adult children who follow the same dysfunctional patterns that they did in their child-parent relationships because we are all drawn to what we find familiar. In any case, the basic rules are quite the same. Adults will recreate the unresolved conflicts of their childhood in their adult lives, using the only relationship skills they have and know, however dysfunctional.

Please read Adams' description of the basic characteristics of covert incest in both parent-child and adult child (grown adults who experienced covert incest as children), considering the profound effects of this type of parenting on children. [Blog host notes are italicized and noted in blue text.]

From pages 2 -4:

There is nothing loving or caring about a close parent-child relationship when it services the needs and feelings of the parent rather than the child. “Feeling close” with your parents, particularly the opposite-sex parent, is not the source of comfort the image suggests. It is a relationship in which the individual, both as a child and later as an adult, feels silently seduced by the parent. Feelings of appreciation and gratitude do not prevail in these “close relationships.” Instead they are a source of confusing, progressive rage.

During the feedback section of my lectures on the subject, some participants are quite vocal with their rage and express relief that they now understand why at times they hate with vengeance the same parent who has always loved them “so much.” Some are frozen in their seats and can't speak, while others can't wait to leave. A few courageous parents speak up, expressing that they are now beginning to understand why their son or daughters struggle in relationships.

Others listen to the lectures and insist there is no harm in their close relationship to their opposite-sex parent. Actually they claim to feel special and privileged. These children were given a special position by being idealized by the parent. But there is no privilege in being cheated out of a childhood by being a parent's surrogate partner. As adults these individuals in turn idealize their parents to cover the pain of the abandoned and victimized child within. To be a parent's surrogate partner is to be a victim of covert incest. This book is about the silent seduction covert incest victims experience and its effect on their sexuality, intimacy and relationships...

Characteristics of Covert Incest:

• Love/Hate Relationship. One often has intense feelings of both love and hate for the opposite-sex parent. On one hand, you feel special and privileged because of the relationship; on the other you frequently feel you aren't doing enough for that parent. This results in feelings of guilt which result in rage that is seldom directly expressed. [According to Pia Mellody, this is more common in the Love Avoidant counterpart in a relationship.]
  

• Emotional Distance from Same Sex Parent. In contrast to the love/hate relationship with the opposite-sex parent, you feel abandoned by the same-sex parent. This relationship often is competitive and the parent feels like an adversary. Feeling contempt for this parent is common. [Adams focuses on the opposite-sex enmeshment relationship, but a same-sex enmeshment is also possible and common.]
  

• Guilt and Confusion over Personal Needs. You feel guilty about your needs and probably never have a difficult time identifying what they are. You generally try to “be strong,” caretake or always “be there” for others as a way of meeting your own needs. [Pia Mellody terms this the“shame-existence bind” in other texts.]
  

• Feelings of Inadequacy. You are likely to have chronic feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. You believe your worth as a man or a woman is determined by what you can do rather than who you are.
  

The Hidden Messages Sent to Children in Familes Affected by Covert/Emotional Incest

-->

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

From page 44:

Hidden Messages that Lead to Perfectionism

• “You've never caused me a minute's trouble.”

Translation: “Don't rock the boat. If you want something different than what I want to give you, too bad. You can want only what I want you to have. Repress the rest of your needs.

• “You've always been an easygoing child.”

Translation: “Be happy. Be pleasant. Don't feel your anger, sorrow or pain.”

• “You're the only one who truly understands me.”

Translation: “I would be totally alone in the world if it weren't for you. Therefore, you must sacrifice yourself to be here for me. My needs are what count. Helping me is what's important. If you have needs that conflict with mine, I don't want to know about it.”

• “You are such a special child.”

Translation: “Be like I want you to be. I have hidden needs that I want you to satisfy.”

• “Of all my children, I expect the most out of you.”

Translation: “I've selected you to be the one to make my life worth living. All my unfulfilled desires rest on your shoulders. Give up your playfulness. Sacrifice your own view of the world. Cooperate with the unspoken agenda.”

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