There are families that use the excuse of culture, traditions, religion to specifically enmesh female members, and the other hand give male members the freedom to go out, do whatever they want and feel fulfilled. They want the males to enjoy their lives and have fun, but the females can only go out with the whole family, or have strict curfew to before sun down. This is the kind of misogyny, some families with a more conservative lifestyle have.

Thank you Dr.Kirk Honda. Just came here after a very heartbreaking fight with my mom. It helps me to understand my family dynamic a little bit.

I come from an enmeshed family. I'm the youngest. I have very controlling parents, who overprotected me as a child. They decided EVERYTHING for me. At 13 years old my curfew was freaking 5pm. For some time, when I was much younger, I somehow didn't seem to mind that. I guess I haven't tried to, what you call.. "individuate". But when I got into my 20's boy OH boy, I started to get reallllyyy rebellious (I still am lol). I wanted MY OWN LIFE. It's SO true when you said that we have a TREMENDOUS amount of repressed rage. Because I know I do, till today, and I'm turning 30 next month. Right now I can't stand being too close to my parents, because they suffocate me. I would say that 3 out of 5 times my dad will always have something mean, sarcastic or deprecating to say, and any normal innocent conversation can quickly escalate into an argument blown out of proportions. In the worst cases (which isn't so frequent now thank God) my dad would bang things, raise his voice and say extremely mean things. Growing up until now, I felt like I could never express my true feelings, as they would never listen and understand. My mum too, who has trouble accepting that I have a different opinion about a lot of things, has a tendency to "indoctrinate" and never back down when she's relentless on winning an argument.

God, you're basically describing my life. I went from foster care to an abusive alcoholic father who ended up leaving me in the care of a severely enmeshed family who were extremely judgmental and critical and emotionally abusive. At 12 i was left to take care of their disabled mother who needed care around the clock. It made focusing in school, sleep, and any kind of normal social life non existent. If I failed to keep her house clean enough or showed displeasure when serving her children when they came over multiple times a week then I'd get shunned and talked about like I wasn't there. That thing you said about living with your family in your head stopping attempts at disengagement is an every day thing for me. I am 31 now and I've been left feeling very lonely yet afraid of close relationships. The older I get, the more obvious the more I am becoming aware of my deficits in just about every aspect of my life. Even typing this out I have this irrational fear of one of my family members seeing this. I made the mistake of mentioning that I started seeing a counselor around one of my aunts and now she the rest of my family know. I saw her a couple of months ago for a family get together and she made a point to tell me in front of everyone that it was ok that I was crazy...It really hurts, thanks to whoever read this.

The "Requirement for Frequent Communication." I know an extended family that calls that requirement, "report filings."

Ive actually never heard of this before, i was first introed to the concept of enmeshment by Joe Ryan podcast found on spotify, whos selfparenting episode was initially what drew me.

At 20 minutes in my heart broke and I think I might decide to live under my dest for the rest of my life to spare my children from what I am doing that I dont even know I am doing.

cause how can you be close with someone if you control them and thus dont know who they are? (in the case of enmeshed families)

The role of scapegoat is assigned to them whether they "fit" the part or not. The scapegoat casting comes from the authority figure not dealing with their troubles in an appropriate way and take it out on others. Same as one being assigned the golden child. They don't necessarily always fit their given roles, which could change depending on the family dynamic. Maybe self fulfillment prophecy plays a part but it's more the associations that the person built who is seeing others as such and it's influencing how they treat others. We give roles to people in our lives. If a child is rebelling in a typical way they may have given in to the role but there are also many others that don't "volunteer" for that role.

my whole childhood was rigid parentification

i wouldnt say scapegoats "volunteer" i know some scapegoats who were scapegoats from birth onwards and scapegoated for things that are normal/not bad. such as not latching on for breast feeding as an infant

So interesting. I love how you explain things. I’m from a very disengaged family and have theories that other family members of mine are in enmeshed families. Would love to hear a podcast more on the disengaged family.

Can there be enmeshment for some family members and distance for others?

Omg, I was just learning about this in-depth.

these questions are great

You guys should check out some Ingmar Bergman films. A lot to process with those, especially Persona.

Have you seen the plathville family tlc documentary? The mother controls her kids to an extreme level. She isolates then to the highest degree. Sounds like enmeshed to me.

Thanks for this.

Is it explicit and implicit? I gotta know!

Indian families are mostly enmeshed