After 37 Years I Finally Have A Word For It
I've always hated my mother and have never really had a word to describe her behavior. Narcissism seemed like it fit in some ways, but other ways didn't. This mother's day was absolutely horrible, so once I got home I started researching and stumbled upon the word "enmeshment."
Oh my god. This describes EVERYTHING I have been experiencing for the past 37 years. Every single thing my mother does that I can't stand. I finally have a word for it. I finally feel not completely alone. I finally have something to talk to a therapist about for the first time ever.
Some examples of her behavior:
-Growing up I had zero privacy or boundaries. I was not allowed to close the door to my room. She would barge in and rummage through my trash looking for things to be upset about. She would open every piece of mail addressed to me, which she still does to this day if something happens to be sent to her house.
- She chose every activity I did as a child. I was never able to find out what things I was interested in because everything was decided for me. When I tried to tell her I hated these activities she would force me to do, she would be like "what are you talking about, you love them!!"
- Every single time I tell her I'm going to do something, she HAS to push back against it. She has to come up with some reason for why I'm wrong and shouldn't do the thing. If I say I want to drive to the lake today, she'll go "no you don't want to do that, there are potholes on that road!"
- To this day she tries to know every single bit of information about my healthcare and finances.
- Every time I come back from doing something she HAS to interrogate me to find out every tiny piece of information about what I did
- Every time I visit her she talks about how she wishes I lived closer to her, not-so-subtley hints that they are building new houses near where she lives, asks me about how my health insurance would work if I moved up there to be near her (I have never expressed interest in this ever)
- Has told me ever since I was a little kid that she expects me to live with her and take care of her when she's older
- Expects me to drop anything I'm doing immediately to help her any time she demands it
- Tries to manipulate me into doing things by asking questions like "oh don't you want to do ___ thing?" when clearly it's something SHE wants me to do
- acts like a hurt child any time I ever try to set any kind of boundary. I'll never forget the day when I changed my bank account password at age 23 so she couldn't see it anymore and she FLIPPED OUT
-expects me to text her all day, every day, and expects me to drive 4.5 hours to visit her at least once a month
-acts like my childhood was just absolutely perfect, it always felt like I was just an extension of herself and she was living vicariously through me, and she LOVED my childhood because she was in complete control. She will completely dismiss me any time I try to say anything negative about my childhood
-always demanded absolute perfection as a child so she could show me off and brag about her "genius son" to everyone she knew
- constantly yelled and screamed at me for my "bad grades" even though I got almost all As and some Bs
- I felt like I had to hide everything from her as a child because I had no idea what she would freak out about
- always felt like I had to mask, had to appear happy at all times, had to put up this fake facade to keep her happy. Had to act like the person she thought I was, not who I really was.
and many, many more things I'm not thinking of at the moment. I am so exhausted. I can't wait for this to finally be over.