WHAT DOES EMOTIONAL ENMESHMENT LOOK LIKE
Here are a few traits to describe what emotional enmeshment can look like:
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Usually I don't know what I feel. I don't know how a feeling of joy or sorrow feels in the body.
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If I get insecure or afraid, I get angry because that was the way I took care of myself as a child.
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Sometimes when I cry I am exploding with anger inside.
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It's essential for me that other people like me, if I think they don't I feel overwhelmed with shame.
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If I do something wrong I am very hard on myself, I don't deserve to be loved or even exist.
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If someone gets angry at me it means I am bad in some way, I feel anxious, stressed and unlovable.
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I don't like to tell others what I need, I don't want to be a burden.
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I don't know what I need.
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It's hard for me to take action on what I need. I don't know where to begin.
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There are more important things then to practice self love.
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I want others to know what I feel and need without having to ask or tell them. If they could just "read my mind".
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When people don't do what I want them to do I get bitter and feel resentful.
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I control and manipulate others with my feelings.
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I let others treat me bad as long as they don't leave me.
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I trade sex for love.
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I let others abuse me as long as I have economic safety.
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I think I need to do things that others say I need to do before I ask myself "do I want to do this?"
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I feel so different from others.
These are suggestions of what emotional enmeshment can look like. No one of us has had exactly the same experiences growing up.