u/cheesycatnip

Any advice on how to maintain a relationship with a clingy enmeshed parent?

My mom is a really unhealthy person. She hates her husband, doesn’t have a social life, doesn’t have hobbies, and is generally very fearful of the world. She works from home, doesn’t have a lot of social interaction, and barely connects with other humans. Her best friend is her mom (my grandmother). She is someone that is very comfortable with the life she lives and doesn’t want to change anything, even though she complains a lot. I grew up very isolated & enmeshed with her, and have been healing in my adult years.

I find it extremely difficult to maintain a relationship with my mom that doesn’t end up hurting me at the end of the day. Whenever I share details about my life with her, she latches on very heavily and starts projecting her fears. She pushes her agenda heavily and feels as though she can share all her thoughts bc I am her child. She finds danger in everything - health treatments, travel, fitness, eating too much protein, etc etc. It makes it really hard to talk about anything. I find that I don’t even want to share details about my life because then I have to deal with her neurotic thoughts in my brain, or defend my choices.

Secondly, she doesn’t have much to bring to the table herself. Most of the time, she’ll just complain about my dad, talk about the same 3 things, or hyper-focus on my life. Additionally, she doesn’t really respect my privacy and will share things I tell her with my grandma or my dad; as if my life is fuel for her gossip.

I have coped by going lower contact and creating distance, but I struggle with the guilt of this. I feel like I owe her some level of connection because she’s still my mom. And the empathetic side of me also feels bad for her, even though I know she is responsible for her own life and her choices.

Any advice, words of wisdom, or similar stories that might help me feel more normal at least?

Been dancing salsa for almost a year now and I’m still struggling to cohesively move my upper body 😭

Sometimes when the shines are tough, I feel my legs do their own thing and my upper body goes limp (probably because I’m too focused on the footwork).

Any tips or advice on how to get your upper body to be more fluid, particularly the shoulders? Anything you’ve practiced that has made a difference for you?

Do dance teachers notice when students in class are flirting or have chemistry during partner work?… asking for a friend lmfaoooo

Is it normal to have chemistry with certain dance partners and not others?

There are people that I’ll dance with where it feels like the flow is off and the connection doesn’t feel right. And then there are other people I’ll dance with where everything flows, feels in sync, and we are connected throughout from touch to eye contact.

Also, is chemistry usually something that’s mutual?

Anyone have any experience with enmeshed mother/daughter dynamics and can offer words of wisdom?

Usually, discussions of enmeshed mothers happen around mothers enmeshed with their sons. But I have no brothers, and I am the adult daughter with a very enmeshed mother…

Mom is someone who has been in a shitty relationship (classic), but does not want to leave or seek help. She also lacks important adult friendships, community, and hobbies — but doesn’t want to seek this out. Idk that’s out of fear or seeing it as unimportant.

All she wants to do is be close to me & feel helpful and useful as a mother. Wants me to have grandchildren so she can have a purpose again. But I’m 30 and I don’t need her involvement in my life to that degree, nor do I want it. I want her to find happiness and fulfillment in other things / relationships

Mom is also very enmeshed with her own mother (grandma) and thinks having your mom as your best friend is normal. So there’s a level of generational trauma in my situation that I’m trying to break

Has this happened to anyone? My charge 6 touch screen is randomly unresponsive. Tried resetting (no luck) and even waiting until the battery died so I could try charging & resetting.