You open your eyes as soon as you are born and, there she is… your first love, your protector and your first relationship on earth…
Your fragile body needs her warmth and you need her to feed you to survive.
You need her love, her care and her nursing. But most importantly you want to be seen by her. You want to make her happy. Her smile of validation brings you joy and growth…
As soon as you open your eyes in this world, you become aware that you have needs. You are excited to learn to explore and to FEEL…
Everything is strange and exciting… You need to feel safe and supported as you learn everything about life…
You will accomplish your first bit of success by taking that one step and walk into new experiences. You will knock down things, make mistakes and get laughed at while you are trying to make up words…
You try to do things your way, use your creativity to draw on the walls and hide your favourite belongings because you are trying to make sense out of who you are and how you feel about the world around you.
You come to this world as YOU, and you and your needs are IMPORTANT!
This is not the norm of growing up for some of us...
Some children did not feel seen, heard or feel safe enough to become who they were meant to be. Their needs and feelings were overshadowed by their parents or caregiver’s needs. Their first relationships in this life turned out to be difficult, painful and at some point, toxic. These children experienced enmeshment trauma and did not have a chance to develop a healthy relationship with their family.
When we talk about the Mother Wound, we specifically want to acknowledge the toxic relationship between a child and his/her mother. We want to raise awareness about the effects of this relationship on the child’s development and identity. Untreated traumas of this kind result in adults who struggle with a lack of sense of self, unhealthy impersonal and interpersonal relationships, low self-esteem and emotional dysregulations.
What is enmeshment trauma?
In psychology the concept of enmeshment refers to the bond between members of a family that either are distanced or have become too attached with each other and lack healthy boundaries. In both cases the child’s needs and feelings are often dismissed, neglected or seen as problematic.
Distant family: In families where the primary caregivers are emotionally and mentally unavailable, they focus on their own needs and expectations. Their relationship with their children is often a one-way road. They expect the child to behave and act exactly as to the parent’s standard and if done in any other way, the child is punished, threatened and devalued. In this type of family dynamic, the children don’t have much to say and don’t feel safe to openly express their own thoughts and feelings. They grow up with major anxiety, lack of self-esteem and are very reserved and fearful.
Overly attached family: In these types of families the parent(s) are excessively close to their children that the roles from “parent-child” changes to “friends” or the roles are reversed making the child the parent and the parent the child.
The parental figure(s) overshares with the child, informing them about their own personal experiences the parent often takes up the habit of oversharing adult information, using the child as an emotional dumping station, asking the child to take on adult roles and responsibilities, with no clear sets of boundaries and overprotection to the point that the child doesn’t learn how to regulate his/her emotions. In this type of family dynamic, the child is not allowed to process and recognize him/herself as a separate individual.
Children of these types of families often grow up to be insecure, conflicted, lost in life, experience anxiety and depression while also being involved in toxic friendships and relationships.
There could be a mixture of these two types in a family*
What is a Mother Wound?
The enmeshment trauma applied by a mother-figure cuts a deep wound. A mother who may sufficiently provide for the physical needs of her child and who may interact with her child in a positive manner but does not develop a kind, trusting and RESPECTFUL relationship with her child can hurt the child unintendedly…
As said before, the mother is the very first person that we interact with and that teaches us a lot about ourselves, our needs and our values.
When we feel unheard by our mother-figure and if our thoughts and emotions are not valued by her, unconsciously we are raised to believe we are not good enough.
When a mother figure’s personal emotional needs become more important than what we feel, then we grow up to believe we are unlovable.
Imagine a little girl who is forced to wear her hair in a ponytail because her mom thinks that its more manageable and “cute” to HER! What is really happening here is that what mom feels about ponytails are much more important than the little girl having her hair stretched out tightly… what is happening here is that the mother is not valuing her child’s feelings and opinions.
Imagine if a mother in unhappy with her marriage, feels lonely and has no one to comfort her, So, she uses her 5-year child to vent to. She shares about her feelings and her problems in her marriage with a child which has no clue and understanding about the concept of marriage problems. And the mother constantly repeats “I am only staying because of you!”
The child will grow to believe that “I am the cause of my mother’s pain”, hence I am guilty, my existence doesn’t matter and I have to please others to feel worthy.
Imagine If the mother has unachieved dreams and she continuously forces her ideas and values to her child in hopes that one day the child will live the life that she never had. Imagine a mother who is unbale to regulate and process her own pain and projects her anger and disappointments onto her child. There would be no surprises that the child will grow with no sense of self, believing that whatever she/he does has to be valued by others.
I could go on, but the point is clear. A child needs to feel respected and valued by their mother to develop a healthy and functioning identity.
The child was born to be protected and loved unconditionally, to grow and become a complete human being. No child should have to take the responsibility for their mother’s emotional needs.
How do I know if I have a Mother Wound and/or enmeshment trauma?
If you can relate to most of the following statements:
· My physical needs were cared for but never my feelings
· Received critical and judgmental comments about my body, my work and everything I do
· I never felt accepted and supported
· I was not allowed to express my negative emotions freely
· When I shared my problems, I was dismissed, laughed at and/or brushed off
· I didn’t have the space to be myself and have different opinions
· I am insecure and scared of personal decisions
· My family members do not respect my privacy or my boundaries
· I felt responsible for my family members lives
· It was always about “them” never about “me”
· I have been physically punished and was told I am always causing problems as a kid
· I felt like I am the mother for my mother or her husband.
. I felt like she was in competition with me.
· I am extremely anxious in everything I do and assume the worst-case scenario
· I have a fear of abandonment, rejection and how others perceive me
· I can’t validate myself or regulate my own emotions
· I deeply believe I am unlucky, cursed and never will feel truly happy
· I get overly attached to someone and often they don’t feel the same way about me
. I struggle with myself and don't know who I am really.
. I feel the need to over-explain myself to others. I feel like nobody understands me or they will judge me wrongly.
How did the mother wound affect me?
As a result of being unseen and pretty much invisible to my primary care givers and having to always fight and fight alone for my sanity, I became conflicted. The irony was that I am from a one child household and from the outside everyone thought I was being spoiled with love and attention.
My mom wanted to portray that image, she would go out of her way to decorate my room, buy me toys and dress me up pretty. But what others couldn't see is that those were all her needs and she was seeking attention through me. Me, as her child, I was like a doll who had to play with her so she didn’t feel lonely. She would complain to me about her life, If I wanted to do something she didn't approve she would threaten me with "mommy don't love you anymore if you do that " even if the thing I wanted to do was to go barefoot on the grass. Whenever my mom got upset, she would give me the silent treatment or throw tantrums. I felt I was responsible for her and had to take care of her all the time.
Battling with severe anxiety and not even knowing that I was battling with anxiety had put my body in a state of shock for years. I had a deep fear of rejection and of how I looked and a fear of being judged by others. The worst thing, I guess, that as an adult of enmeshment abuse, I had to experience was loneliness. “I am alone in this world and no one will ever truly love me “. So, I was desperate for connection and I needed company, a true friend or someone to come and save me from my misery. I felt and behaved like a 6-year-old child until my mid 20s.
Doing adult stuff for myself felt so odd... Like, why should I be doing my own laundry...How can I take myself to visit a doctor... how can I manage my responsibilities... I am just a child that needs help and support, but I also had to take care of myself, because no one else was there to do it. I just couldn't recognise my strength and needed someone to validate me.
My relationships were the worst... I was constantly dumped, rejected and was told that I am too much. I would jump from relationship to relationship or completely isolate myself to not get hurt. I couldn't be truly myself and feel confident with other people. Terrified of social gatherings, I would spend days and hours over thinking and preparing for a casual meeting. I would daydream of my family and relatives finally noticing me as the victim and come to rescue me. Nobody did!
I felt miserable, hopeless and couldn't understand why I felt this way!
What should I do now?
The first thing in healing is raising awareness and gaining knowledge, the more you know the more you will understand that what you thought is your “fault” has NEVER been your fault! You were a victim in this story and although we want to have compassion and understanding for our parents and not hate them but we MUST identify and recognize our own pain.
Next…
Therapy...
Therapy...
Therapy...
You have already done so much to survive and you have done an amazing job! Now you need to get a little extra help to unlearn what has been implemented in your identity and mind. Let that beautiful authentic “self” shine bright.
Getting yourself into therapy is going to be an empowering decision because you are taking back your life and putting it into your own hands, you are acknowledging your self-worth and valuing your own needs.
I managed to change my life and shift things for myself. I managed to build myself up again and cultivate a positive and self-loving relationship with myself. I have a purpose now. I regulate my emotions and know how to manage my anxiety when for whatever reason I get triggered. I am in a healthy, loving and respectful marriage. I see myself as a complete person, separated from parents and my past.
I have also developed compassion for my parents and for myself.
What I recommend as a fellow survivor and therapist:
Inner-Child Healing & Re-parenting therapy
· Survival instincts required that we suppress our emotions and the hurt we felt as a child, but that only results to self-destruction, self-battle and worse case self-hatred
· Finding that little child in us who has been neglected for years by so many people including ourselves is the beginning of finally valuing him/her and giving him/her the attention that he/she deserves.
· Reparenting techniques will teach you how to undo whatever has been done to you and learn how to value yourself as a unique and complete individual
· Shaping your identity and scrubbing away the unhealthy mechanisms that you had been using to manage this pain, will allow you to form a new perspective about yourself and the world around you
· You will learn how to establish healthy boundaries with yourself and others.
· You will learn to love yourself and allow others to love you!
Sounds good right?
These are my solutions to this complicated journey. I say complicated because there are just too many layers when it comes to healing the mother wound. Especially if we start our healing journey later on in life because the longer, we wait the more layers of pain and wounding we will need to get through.
As someone who has experienced enmeshment trauma from both parents, and took years to understand it and get the help I needed, I highly believe and encourage my fellow friends out there to get into this journey.
Surprisingly (or maybe not really), as soon as I started practicing therapy, I came across clients who had exactly similar issues that I did. That encouraged me to educate myself more and add on to my recourses because it had become clear that this is it... this is my calling...
I would like to think I had to go through all that pain because I was able to transform it into something powerful, meaningful and life changing.
I believe with all my heart…if I did it.. anyone else can too.
If you are ready to change your story too here are my Services. I have coaching programs and psychotherapy sessions.
I am ready whenever you are!
Happy Healing.
Yelna.
