Understanding Enmeshment Trauma

Understanding enmeshment trauma is the first step to healing it.

Enmeshment trauma can harm your life, your relationships, and your future. Understanding what it is, how it appears, and how you can heal it is essential.

What is Enmeshment Trauma?

Enmeshment trauma is a relationship between two or more people where the boundaries between each other are unclear.

A person's feelings, needs, and expectations often "bleed into each other's", with each person feeling each other's emotions instead of their own mentions.

It can happen in romantic relationships or family dynamics (known as "family enmeshment").

While it sounds sweet and connective, it can harm the relationship and the individual.

A person with enmeshed trauma loses their sense of identity, developing repressed feelings of guilt and helplessness in their adult life.

In turn, it leads to dysfunctional relationships with unconscious expectations and a desire for freedom, with many people "blowing up" in anger and rage. It can also lead to intense codependency.

The two attachment styles that struggle the most include anxious preocccupied and fearful avoidant. While it might appear in dismissive avoidants, they tend to handle it better.

Let's take a look at children's emotional development, and a lack of a safe and supportive environment can lead to enmeshment trauma.

Enmeshment Trauma Root Causes

Enmeshment trauma often stems from childhood, namely parental behaviors, traumatic experiences, and unstable environments.

Unstable Environments/Traumatic Experiences

It can happen when a child grows up in an environment where they don’t have the space to feel and experience their own emotions and a lack of physical and emotional boundaries.

In this scenario, if the child experiences chaos in the household (fighting, abusive parents, or divorce) or develops a fear of abandonment, they try to please their parents in the hopes of getting their approval or protecting themselves, which can lead to some very dysfunctional patterns.

High Expectations

Another scenario is where parents place high expectations on their children without regard for their needs, boundaries, feelings, and space.

In return, the child is conditioned to prioritize pleasing their parents, sacrifice themselves, and assume identities molded by their parents. The child gives up their identity to avoid punishment or feeling guilty from their parents.

Parenting Behaviors

Enmeshment trauma may arise from narcissistic or unconscious parents, where the children are unwittingly tasked with fulfilling their parent’s needs emotionally, mentally, and even physically.

These experiences result in adults who have lost their sense of self while struggling in their own relationships.

These enmeshed family dynamics can lead people to develop the symptoms of enmeshment trauma.

The Most Common Enmeshment Trauma Symptoms

Enmeshment trauma can appear in various ways, both in individuals and in families. Here are the most common symptoms of enmeshment trauma.

1 -- Lack of Boundaries

Personal boundaries are essential to establish self-identity and consider what you want. With enmeshment, there is a lack of boundaries between individuals, which can impact self-identity. It can also appear as a fear of asserting boundaries or saying no to people within that unit.

2 -- Lack of Privacy

Parents who don’t provide boundaries for their children ultimately don’t let them have any privacy. They intervene in their lives at all costs and try to control their children. This leads to enmeshment patterns developing quite intensely.

3 -- Types of Parenting Styles

There are specific parenting styles that might cause enmeshment trauma to develop. These include:

• The Romanticized Parent (Where the parent may treat the child like a romantic partner or best friend instead of a parent. This can also be known as emotional incest or covert incest).
• The Helicopter Parent (In a bid to protect their children in the name of safety. These parents tend to control them at all costs. In some cases, they use manipulative behaviors to control them).
• The Incapacitated Parent (A parent who is incapacitated and can’t assume the role of the caregiver, leaving the child to look after them instead).

4 -- Guilt & Obligation

Enmeshed children and adults often struggle to express their personal needs and desires without feeling guilty or sad in the relationship. It also happens when the person attempts to assert independence or establish healthy boundaries, as they fear rejection or abandonment. They lack the autonomy to think for themselves.

5 -- Codependency

Codependency is when someone becomes heavily reliant on another person to live. Enmeshed individuals rely on others (like parents or partners) for validation, approval, and decision-making, resulting in a diminished sense of self and independence. Codependecy greatly alters the relationship dynamics and the emotional needs of both individuals.

6 -- Feeling Responsible for the Emotions of Others

Enmeshed people may feel excessively responsible for the emotional well-being of others, often sacrificing their own needs and desires in the process. They believe it is their job to ensure they meet that person’s needs for validation and approval. However, it results in them not developing their own personality or identity.

The Impact of Enmeshment Trauma

Enmeshment trauma can have profound and long-lasting effects on a person's mental, emotional, and relational well-being. Some of the impacts include:

1 -- Identify Confusion

Enmeshed individuals may struggle to differentiate their thoughts, feelings, and desires from others, leading to a blurred sense of identity. They don’t really know who they are or what they want in life because it’s entangled with the unit. As a result, they struggle with personal growth, personal space, and their individual needs. Severe cases might include personality disorders.

2 -- Impaired Self-Esteem

Enmeshed individuals often struggle to develop a strong sense of self-worth and may rely heavily on external validation. Because they were never given the space and freedom to explore their interests and needs, they then struggled to assert themselves in situations, resulting in low self-esteem.

3 -- Struggle to Maintain Relationships

People with enmeshment trauma often have significant difficulties in establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Because they haven’t been able to explore relationships on their own, they tend to lack the skills to develop them with anyone outside that enmeshed unit. They often display unhealthy relationship patterns and behaviors.

4 -- Avoid Conflict

Conflict avoidance is another way in which enmeshment trauma appears in adults. They tend to shy away from conflict, as they don’t want to experience negative fallout from the relationship. This is very much in following the childhood they experienced: they never conflicted with their parents, so they can’t do it when they’re older.

5 -- Emotional Dysregulation

Another impact of enmeshment trauma is that it can contribute to difficulties in regulating emotions, leading to mood swings, undiagnosed emotions, and a reliance on unhealthy coping mechanisms. Many people experience anxiety or depression when enmeshed because they don’t know how to regulate their own emotions.

6 -- Boundary Issues

If someone doesn't understand boundaries growing up, how can they do it as adults? Enmeshed individuals may have difficulty setting and maintaining boundaries in various areas of their lives, leading to manipulation or resentment in relationships. That’s because they don’t know boundaries or how to use them effectively for themselves and others.

How to Heal Enmeshment Trauma

You can heal enmeshment trauma; it just takes time, patience, and effort. To help get you started on your journey, here are some of the best healing tools you can use.

Recondition Your Beliefs of Enmeshment You have limiting beliefs about enmeshment, so start by listing your beliefs about it and how you respond.

Some common beliefs include “I will be abandoned”, “I will be unloved,” “I’ll be alone,’ and “I’m a bad person”. With this as a foundation, you can learn to reprogram these beliefs through subconscious tools and strategies.

You can get specific tools for enmeshment through our popular course, Healthy Balance in Relationships: Ending Codependency & Enmeshment.

Reconnect with Our Sense of Self

Healing begins with recognizing and honoring your personal needs and boundaries, irrespective of external expectations and pressures.

Take the time to introspectively assess your emotional responses and personal preferences so you can learn to reclaim your sense of self. So much healing involves reconnecting with our feelings and emotions and unpacking them to use them for good.

Meet & Balance Your Needs

Remember that most of the enmeshment trauma comes from "people pleasing. So breaking free from this cycle of people-pleasing requires acknowledging the equality of one's needs and those of others.

Identifying and prioritizing your personal needs for yourself and in these relationships helps create healthier relationships based on mutual respect and understanding while fostering self-fulfillment.

Avoid Self-Abandonment

Ask yourself what matters to you. Do you enjoy playing sports or having alone time? Ensure you have a healthy sense of boundaries and create healthy relationships. Work on finding a compromise within your relationship to empower your identity while nurturing meaningful connections.

Effective Communication

Communication is one of the most important things in a relationship. So, you must start communicating and expressing your personal needs and boundaries to foster mutual understanding and respect.

Open communication establishes healthy boundaries, reducing self-abandonment and reinforcing individual identity. It might be a struggle, but if you have the right communication tools in your toolbox, you can utilize them effectively.

The Next Steps for Enmeshment Trauma

Understanding enmeshment trauma is pivotal in breaking free from the cycle of entanglements with others. By prioritizing self-awareness, asserting personal boundaries, and fostering effective communication, you can embark on a journey towards healing and reclaiming your authentic self.

Our course, Healthy Balance in Relationships: Ending Codependency & Enmeshment, is the best place for you to start!

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