u/Business-Site-9024

This is another enmeshment story I have. I'm middle aged now, so this was years ago.

It was junior or senior year of highschool. My friends and I had all recently become licensed drivers, and we finally had freedom to do all we wanted! It was any teen's dream. I always had a reasonable curfew and mostly just had to state when I'd be home so that no one was left worrying. I'd arrive home most weekend nights at a reasonable time like 10 or 11, and this was fine with my parents, as long as I said when I'd be home. I always stayed out of trouble and so did my friends. My parents knew that. My mother has a history of saying something is fine, but then guilting you for it anyway.

One night I came home floating on cloud nine simply by living a normal teenager's life- hanging out with friends without adult supervision. I walked in the door and my mom looked like she was in a catatonic state. She looked like she had just witnessed a horrific crime. I said, "What's wrong???" I was very worried something bad had happened. She said to me in a monotone voice, "Just make sure you spend time with me too."

That was it! Nothing had happened! She was just wallowing in her own misery and hinting that if I only I were around more, she'd be happy. It was the most covertly toxic message I had ever received, and totally confusing. Here I was, a newly licensed driver, hanging out with friends as teenagers do, coming home at reasonable hours, and never going out on weeknights, which I spent at home, and she had no answer for my "what's wrong" question other than hinting I should be spending EVEN MORE time with her. The way she looked, I thought something devastating had just occurred.

This sort of toxic behavior has continued into my 40s, along with many other covert toxic behaviors, and only very recently I started putting up boundaries when I started working with a therapist.

I plan to post more on this topic but I just want to write briefly about my experience because some of the other stories I see are so overt that they don't match my experience.

I am 45. My father was an alcoholic and my mother regularly vented to me about her misery since around 10 years old. She made me so responsible for her mental health and guilt trips me regularly. I call her an emotional black hole. I've noticed that even if I visit her three times a week and call twice a week, each interaction ends with an emotional plea to "at least call her more." Each visit clearly doesn't count as I'm begged to see her more WHILE with her. She even starts sentences with lines like "I'm just feeling so sorry for myself." Conversations are never light hearted or about me. Each conversation, she thinks shes dropping some sort of shocking revelation, yet its the same plea repeated regularly "actually I've been meaning to talk with you... I'm so lonely can you AT LEAST call me."

Ive been in therapy for several months now and had no idea this behavior had a name. I always said things like "My mom tries to make me feel guilty for being alive. My mom is a poor me. My mom is an emotional blackhole." Etc. This behavior is so toxic and damaging. I cannot emphasize how much of my life was consumed by it and how she ruined things for me like my own motherhood.

She thinks I am her cruise ship director and should be planning fun events for her regularly. Her siblings are her flying monkeys and contact me on occasion that they're "so worried about her."

I didn't even know what a boundary was until my 40s and I've been working on understanding I have no reason to feel so guilty all the time. My mom messed me up more than my alcoholic father.