Understanding Enmeshment

Redefining the blurred lines between me and you

There are some kinds of love that feel like a warm blanket. Love touches every part of you but it doesn’t suffocate. And there are others that feel like a weight. Like something that once anchored you but now holds you to a place you’re ready to move on from. This love doesn’t always come directly out of harm. Sometimes it slowly devolves into something harmful because somewhere along the way, true love got tangled up with survival. With performance. With pressure. And the lines between “me” and “you” became blurred.

That’s what enmeshment is.

Photo by Jolly Yau on Unsplash

It’s the emotional experience of being so connected to someone that your needs become indistinguishable from theirs. It sounds like, “If you’re not okay, I can’t be okay.” It feels like guilt when you do something for yourself. It shows up in your body as anxiety, responsibility, and exhaustion—and often, we confuse it with closeness.

But enmeshment isn’t intimacy. It’s over-functioning. It’s an emotional fusion that asks us to shape-shift for safety. To abandon our voice so someone else feels secure. Because we think their security can guarantee our safety.

And when you grow up like that, “healthy love” can feel like abandonment. Boundaries can feel like betrayal. A loved one needing space feels like earth-shattering rejection as we’re left with the void of what we want in the absence of another person.

That’s why healing enmeshment is such a layered journey. It’s not just about learning boundaries—it’s about grieving the version of love that cost you your sense of self. It’s about grieving the connection you could have had with yourself if life’s circumstances hadn’t taught you that it wasn’t safe to have desires apart from another person. It’s about recognizing that you were never meant to be your mom’s emotional anchor. You weren’t created to carry your dad’s unspoken grief. You weren’t built to hold the family together with your silence, your achievements, or your smile.

Healing enmeshment is about coming home to your self—the you that existed before the pressure. The you that has needs and dreams and preferences that don’t need to be affirmed by another person.

Here’s something I hope you receive: healing from enmeshment takes time. It’s not a quick revelation. It’s not a checklist of boundaries and affirmations. It’s a slow unraveling. It’s a slow untangling. It’s learning to disappoint others without dissolving into shame. It’s choosing to pause before you say yes. It’s staying with your discomfort instead of fixing everyone else’s.

And it’s okay if it feels foreign at first. That just means you’re doing the work.

Love isn’t supposed to cost you your selfhood. Love isn’t supposed to ask you to disappear.

Maybe this is your season of sanding up. Of knowing what you want without the input or suggestions of others. Healing fro enmeshment begins with recognizing that we’re in an enmeshed relationship.

Here are some signs of an enmeshed relationship to help you determine if your relationship needs a shift or not.

• You feel responsible for the other person’s emotions.
  Their sadness feels like your failure. Their stress feels like your job to fix.

• You feel guilty for spending time alone or doing things just for you.
  Prioritizing your needs feels like abandonment or betrayal.

• You don’t know where your feelings end and theirs begin.
  You adopt their opinions, moods, and decisions without space for your own.

• You feel anxious or panicked when they’re upset with you.
  Their disapproval feels unbearable, even if it’s over something small.

• You confuse closeness with control.
  You’ve been taught that “real love” means always being together or involved in every detail of each other’s lives.

• You feel like you need their permission to do what feels aligned to you

  You feel like they must consign how you authentically express yourself

Do any of these signs resonate with you?

I hope this helps you along your journey,

Kobe