New term, is this me?
My mom told me (51f) she wanted a baby because she wanted someone to genuinely love her. That's where I came in, she was 20 at the time. She regarded me as her bff. She married an alcoholic (I call dad) when I was a year old. I remember waiting with her on the sofa, her crying and me consoling her waiting for him to come home from the bar. I was her confidence, we were tight, I was probably 8 years old at that time. I listened, she talked. I knew everyone's secret. I knew the only reason why she stayed with dad was because he was good in bed. She was lonely and thankful she had me. She had 2 other kids and I knew I was the favorite, she told me that.
When I was 15 she had an affair, she took me with her as an alibi. She gave me her love letters to hold. I felt special. Mom became pregnant by the other guy, dad became enraged and stole a gun, sawed it off to take the guy out. Fortunately the guy was gone that weekend and dad confessed to mom. Mom showed me the gun and told me if he took her out I could testify in court and know where the gun was hidden. I was terrified but did my duty and made mental notes. Mom had an abortion, blame me for it. I also became pregnant at near the same time and wanted to keep my baby and she said she couldn't afford two babies so she had to terminate hers.
I had my son at 16 and moved out at 17. Mom had another affair and kept using me to hide her love letters, again. Her and dad divorced, she leaned on me, every single day. I started to struggle though, she paid no attention to her grandson and I started to feel an imbalance in the relationship. I got some counseling at that time, didn't help much. I think it all felt normal, even though I felt it had to be wrong.
I started college at 23, she remarried but in no time I was keeping her secrets again. This time an online affair. She'd have me add him to my instant messenger. When her dial up crashed she'd call me 3am to get online to tell the guy she want to bed. I was irritated but that's what I thought I got for being the favorite and responsible one.
Probably about 10 years later I heard what boundaries were. I had a friend as a social worker and I brought this up in casual conversations and and she said Mom has bad boundaries. That changed everything for me. I learned what she talked about and started setting them.
I've become fairly successful in life, but I still have Mom who I feel just uses me. I'm more someone she used to brag about, it's embarrassing.
I'm a mom of 4 kids, the youngest is 19, oldest is 35. I don't think I was a perfect mom but I made a conscious effort to maintain boundaries, let them be kids, not burden them with my problems. They know I spend as little time with grandma as possible, they don't know the history.
Today I learned the word enmeshment. Is that what this is? Im going to bring it up with my counselor in a couple weeks. I do know there is trauma in there. I've been diagnosed with ptsd.