Breaking Free of Enmeshment in The Narcissistic Family System

Individuation in The Narcissistic Family

​Dysfunctional families create a climate of enmeshment. A developing child will naturally begin to establish their own identity and explore the world around them. In healthy families, these efforts are encouraged and rewarded, with the parents providing reasonable boundaries to ensure the children’s safety.
 
However, individuation poses a threat to the precarious structure of the dysfunctional family. The dysfunctional family tends to operate as a singular enmeshed unit; one big mass operated by the whims, emotions, and needs of the main narcissistic abuser. The narcissistic parent seeks to foster an environment of conformity in their efforts to control the world around them. Efforts of family members to individuate and express themselves are perceived as threats to the narcissistic parent’s sense of control and ego. The narcissistic parent secretly envies these acts of self-expression and the formation of a self-identity in their children.
 
When children within the family begin to assert their independence, they will begin to: develop their own opinions, establish a sense of identity, ask questions, form their own beliefs, and gain deeper awareness of themselves and the family dynamics.
 
The abuser finds these things threatening. They desire to live in an echo-chamber in which those around them mirror-back their image to them. When children are younger, they tend to view their parents as one might view God-larger than life, all-knowing, the ultimate authority figure. A narcissistic parent might greatly enjoy these earlier stages of a child’s development, as the child has yet to differentiate between themselves and the parent. This shifts as children grow and develop.
 
Rather than obediently aligning with the narcissistic parent’s values, opinions, beliefs, and emotions, the child might begin to question and disagree with them. The narcissistic parent, viewing their child as merely an appendage, becomes irritated and may even experience a sense of betrayal as the child begins a natural attempt to develop a sense of self. The child’s attempts at individuation may be punished with stonewalling, sneering, explosive outbursts, physical abuse, and other manipulative forms of retaliation.
 
In children, fear of abandonment is greater than fear of loss of self. To acknowledge that their parent is their source of fear and anxiety is quite terrifying to a small child who relies on that same parent for survival. Some children will bypass their natural efforts to individuate in favor of restoring connection with the narcissistic parent. They will acquiesce and bury their sense of self to protect their relationship with the narcissistic parent, seeking to placate the parent’s turbulent emotions by agreeing when they disagree, deferring to the parent’s beliefs and expectations, taking on the parent’s emotions, and accepting the parent’s word as truth.
 
As the child grows older, the narcissistic parent may seek to effectively isolate them and limit their opportunities to engage with the rest of the world. Should the child engage with the rest of the world and discover that their parent is in fact, wrong about them and wrong about how the world works, the child may develop enough self-confidence and self-awareness to leave. The narcissistic parent does not want the child to leave and live their own life.
 
Instead, the parent views the child as an object with the sole purpose of reflecting a shining image of themselves. They rely on the child to provide them with a sense of self. The child is not seen as a human being but rather as a means to an end-a tool to feed their ego and meet their needs. Their child’s love serves as an energy source to them, affirming their greatness. In essence, the narcissistic parent needs us more than we need them. They don’t love us-they love the way we love them.

The Child is Robbed and Violated

The narcissistic parent that is enmeshed with their child will seek to be involved in every aspect of their child’s life; they will be personally invested in their child’s choices, relationships, successes and failures, appearance, activities, careers, etc. Every aspect of who the child is will be micromanaged, belittled, and pressured to conform to the parent’s expectations and desires, and seemingly owned by the parent. The narcissistic parent that is enmeshed will attempt to live vicariously through the child. The child’s relationships, achievements, and challenges they face will be viewed as their own, with no rights to privacy on the child’s behalf. The child is robbed of a sense of self.
 
The enmeshed narcissistic parent will make efforts to effectively isolate the child by convincing the child that their friends don’t really like them, planting seeds of doubt in the child’s relationships: “Jessica doesn’t really like you, she’s using you” or “I don’t like Tyler, don’t talk to him”. The narcissistic parent will make efforts to convince the child that others can’t be trusted, that others only socialize with them out of pity, that others want to take advantage of them, or that they’re inherently unworthy of friendships and relationships. All of this might be done under the guise of “I’m just looking out for you” or “You’re too trusting and naïve to see it”. The narcissistic parent will attempt to sabotage the child’s relationships, especially if those relationships provide some source of support, personal empowerment, or independence for the child.
 
The enmeshed narcissistic parent trains the child to report back to them on all aspects of their life. Healthy boundaries and respect for the child’s privacy and autonomy are seen as threats to the enmeshed narcissistic parent. The child will be treated with suspicion and regularly accused of wrongdoing, delinquency, or of having bad intentions. To defend their innocence and prove their good intentions to the narcissistic parent, the child will often fill the narcissistic parent in on the interactions they had, the words that were said, the places they went, and the plans that they have. This is done to placate the narcissistic parent and diffuse the tension.
 
This dynamic may extend long into adulthood, and the sharing will go beyond the scope of healthy parent-child interaction and parental concerns for safety. The child gives up their autonomy in hopes of gaining the narcissistic parent’s approval and trust, with the goal of obtaining closeness and security within the parent-child relationship. A child that has been forced into this dynamic may fall into the belief that they must justify their existence to others.
 
The lack of boundaries (where the narcissistic parent ends and the child begins) may extend further to manifest as physical and sexual forms of abuse. The enmeshed narcissistic parent might insist on conducting “purity checks” or “wellness checks” under the guise of concern for the child’s health. The narcissistic parent may weigh the child and control the child’s diet, grooming, and appearance. The narcissistic parent’s enmeshment may also involve covert and overt sexual abuse: barging into the bathroom while the child is using the toilet, peeping under doors and key holes while the child is dressing or undressing, barging in while the child is showering, insisting on bathing the child past the age this would be appropriate, sleeping next to an older child, molesting, raping, or exposing themselves to the child, or making inappropriate remarks about the child’s physical development, sexuality, and body.
 
The enmeshed narcissistic parent will use their child as an emotional dumpster, forcing the child to act as a parental figure or therapist to the parent to placate or gain a sense of connection with the parent. The child may adapt to fill these roles knowing it is the only way to gain the narcissistic parent’s approval or affection. The enmeshed narcissistic parent may also force the child to take on the role of a surrogate spouse, using the child to meet any needs that are currently going unmet within their romantic relationship. The child learns that to gain love, they must cast aside their own needs and boundaries to meet the needs of others. The message, whether spoken or unspoken, is that the child’s needs are irrelevant.

While a healthy parent seeks to prepare their child to leave the nest, the narcissistic parent seeks ways to sabotage, shame, and discourage their child’s attempts to spread their wings.

​As the child develops, the enmeshed narcissistic parent will attempt to transfer their own fears and paranoias about the world onto them. If they can convince the child that they are ill-equipped and incapable of navigating the world, they can isolate and continue to use the child to meet their own needs, mitigating the threat of the child leaving the nest and “abandoning” them. Examples might include “You need me to manage your bank account, you’ll make a mistake if I don’t”, “The world is a dangerous, scary place, you can’t trust people” or “If you go out with your friends, you might get raped or abducted”. While the narcissistic parent may believe these things, they are also attempting to foster fear within the child to discourage the child from developing confidence and manipulate them into remaining isolated.
 
The child’s attempts at individuation will be met with stonewalling, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and even threats of self-harm or suicide by the narcissistic parent. For instance, if the adult child of an enmeshed narcissistic parent decides to move away, the narcissistic parent may retaliate and threaten to take their own life. The narcissistic parent will seek to remind the child that they raised the child and therefore have the ultimate say-so in how the child decides to live their life, and that the child is being ungrateful for exercising any self-agency. To further punish the child, the narcissistic parent may retaliate by launching a smear campaign and turning other family members against them. These manipulative tactics are designed to generate fear, guilt, and shame within the child with hopes of gaining control over the child.

The Impact On Adult Children

The adult child of a narcissistic parent that engulfed or enmeshed with them may experience a feeling of isolation and loneliness in the world. After a childhood of severe enmeshment and smothering, they may struggle to be alone with themselves, feeling as if they are doing something wrong. They may experience a sense of guilt around asserting their needs, making decisions, or enjoying themselves, feeling as if they need outside permission to do so. They may seek to justify themselves and their actions when they did nothing wrong, chronically over-explaining their very existence for fear that others are skeptical or distrustful of them. They may struggle to assert their own needs, to establish a strong sense of self, and to exercise self-agency in their lives. These adults were parentified as children and are left with the hard task of grieving the childhood they were robbed of.

Healing cannot be done alone.

​Abuse by a narcissistic parent leaves adult children in a vulnerable and dysregulated state; therefore, it is essential that adult children build a support network as they do the hard work of healing. Therapy, ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families), safe family members, relationships, and friendships are extremely important resources in the healing process.
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It is important to ensure that any therapist they choose to work with is properly educated in the effects of long-term childhood trauma, abuse recovery, and narcissistic abuse specifically. Remember: you are hiring them-they work for you! Don’t be afraid to ask your therapist questions regarding their experience working in abuse recovery and their therapeutic approach. Your therapist should work to ensure that you feel safe with them and strive to tailor their approach according to your needs.

Breaking Free From Enmeshment

1. Determine what beliefs belong to your parent and which beliefs are your own, for example “The world is a dangerous place”. It may help to list these out or to journal them.
2. Decide what you want to believe. Choose the beliefs that you want to adopt into your subconscious. Writing them down or saying them out loud will help create new neural pathways in your brain until you naturally believe it.
3. Make a list of things you want to do with your life. This can be a bucket list, a list of goals, or a list of things that seem challenging and exciting to you. Anything you were discouraged or scared into not doing, consider doing it now-e.g. world travel, publishing a book, getting a degree, owning a house, etc.
4. Give yourself permission. Permission to ask for what you need, permission to stand up for yourself, permission to enjoy yourself, permission to pursue your goals.