i thought i was getting caught up and then i wasn't but then i was!
Journal Prompt #1
Describe an enmeshed relationship with an immature parent or caregiver growing up, if applicable to you.
1. What did it feel like? (burdening, special, intense, overwhelming) - i, a child, was expected to have all of the experience and emotional acuteness of an adult while providing emotionally for her, an actual adult.
2. Did you ever notice signs that something was off? - i noticed after starting school that she was not like other adults. my teachers and classmates parents were kind to children, patient and only doled out punishments when a student broke a known rule. (except for peter the recess guard he was also an immature piece of shit and actually got into intellectual arguments with children) she treated children like little dolls or pets and doled out punishment based on her mood. she treated other adults based on what she thought she could get out of them, usually by being charming and acting helpless.
3. What did you want for the immature parent? - i wanted her to be like other normal adults
4. What did you want from the immature parent? - i wanted her to treat me like other normal adults
Journal Prompt #2 What did that relationship look like as you became an adult? Write out some situations where it may have become more evident that you served a role instead of being their child.
I overheard her once on a phone call bragging that i wasn't like a child, that i was like their best friend. i think i was like 13 or 14. i had just watched some TV show where some psychologist said to someone "your kid shouldn't be your friend, that's your kid" in the context of how that guy shouldn't coddle his kid. that might have been the first time an external source validated my lived experience. After i moved out for college she would show up at my school, stalk my house, demand i call every night etc. She once screamed for several hours and made a list of demands about how often i ate, showered, what i wore, what my face had to look like etc. Now that i think about it that was probably the extinction burst.
Journal Prompt #4 What does your inner child believe about the parent in terms of guilt? What does your inner child believe about your relationships in the present regarding feeling responsible or not wanting connection? Until healed on a deeper level, an inner child will still believe they are responsible for their immature parent as they are caught in the paradox of factually having an emotionally low functioning parent and having a history of the only person who "gets them" or tolerates them. It's a paradox of guilt, responsibility, and dread. Some survivors who later rebelled against the enmeshment might believe they escaped the effects but might not realize that they are isolated or get triggered by the emotions of others.
I don't think i was so emotionally enmeshed with her as much as others. I think she definitely tried to enmesh me but i remember hating her as early as 3rd or 4th grade. Before that i definitely saw her like a dog sees its owner, absolutely obsessed with getting her affection despite how much she hit me. It was after i moved here i learned it wasn't actually normal to hit children with sticks (despite her lies) and had adults actually be nice to me so that opened my eyes to what she actually was. I think i do get triggered by the emotions of others, esp if they are similar display to her, and i do keep isolated to avoid it somewhat. I think i have pretty low social needs (maybe as a result of chronic isolation) anyway AND low-tolerance/resilience to stimulus that requires me to keep a pretty low-demand lifestyle.
Consider the following questions and ideas. They are not necessarily in order.
• Bring up the immature parent with your inner child and ask them what is hard about them? Notice what they say. - she is very unpredictable and it's impossible to know when she'll be in a bad mood. you always have to be careful not to set her off and always be prepared for her to be in a mad mood when you get home from school. she only values you as a bragging piece to her friends and she doesn't actually like you.
• From your inner adult, educate your inner child on how an immature parent is damaging (gauge how ready they are to hear this). - of course you believe you can't be truly liked for who you are/just existing because that was the first impression you were supposed to be given by your parents and they failed that. when a parents says "i'm proud of you" its supposed to mean proud of you as a person not proud of their show-off item. a child is not a prized possession even if they treated you like one. they were wrong.
• Validate the burden or overwhelm that the child went through. - children are not equipped to deal with that, you were not a failure because you weren't able to do the tasks of a trained adult clinician as a fucking 12 yr old. even regular adults without training have difficulties handling NPDs. you are not a failure because you couldn't get her to be normal by being "obedient" enough.
• Help your child with the grief about not being allowed to be a free little kid (allow them to be directly sad about it - that adult can feel it with them). - i never got to grow up i'm just a weird stunted thing who will never be normal.
• Hold the parent accountable (lack of insight, didn't go to therapy, didn't care about their impact on your inner child). - she never thought about the impact her actions had on anything, she only ever cared about getting her needs met. she could never make therapy stick just like her jobs and friends.
• Ask your inner child about what is scary about letting people be responsible for themselves or their own problems. - you don't know how they'll react when they fail. they'll likely lash out and you'd better not be in the crossfire. better to just drop those low functioning messy people, the more you help them the more they expect you to help them.
• If you rebelled, talk to your inner child about rebelling and what the right thing to do, but now it's time to reclaim intimacy with others. - no contact was the best decision but you're allowed to have intimacy in general. with other people. it's not no contact with close relationships at all, just not with her because she is harmful and dangerous. a lot of people are like her, and some are smaller degrees of harmful and dangerous, but some people aren't harmful and dangerous at all. where they live i don't know but statistically they exist or else society wouldn't function.
• Let your inner child know that the enmeshment was abuse, and it's fixable by doing the work you're doing. It helps to get mad in processing what was done to you, which feels foreign to those who weren't allowed to have a sense of self. - it was abuse to force you to have no personality as the only way to stay safe. a child should just be allowed to be a child and develop into who they are. it's unfair she stole that opportunity when you were supposed to have it and you have to play catch-up now. now that it's 100x as hard because you actually have to be an adult and not a child now.