Hi all,
I'm struggling a lot from a recent realisation that spun a lot of my internal thoughts on their head, I used to think more along the lines of having to deal with how I was responding to a dysfunctional family environment; having to be the one that stepped in between family disagreements/fights/yelling matches. This alone has left me in a lot of ways feeling like I am a failure for not being able to keep the family together.
My therapist introduced me to the term of enmeshment, which started to unravel a series of thoughts because some of the ongoing symptoms of being raised in an enmeshed family described me perfectly.
The void that seemed to grow from that recently is; that having to be there for my parents as a 'voice of reason' has left me with years of not being 'seen' or 'heard' by my parents (reaching into up until recently, some 20 years at least) as someone that was suffering from the fall-on affects of them being both too proud to admit there were difficulties which left me with nobody to talk to about how hard it was for me (because in order to come to my level they would have to admit they were doing something wrong).
This has hit me for a six, and I'm feeling a bit emotionally overwhelmed.
Has anyone else had any experiences like this growing up? I'm trying to listen to resources around it, but they are making me feel more and more raw. It might help to have someone to talk to that has been similarly affected.
