How to Break Free from Enmeshment and Codependency

By Laura K. Connell.

Enmeshment refers to a lack of boundaries and separateness between you and another person. If you had a narcissistic mother, she would control your thoughts, opinions, and identity, and her thoughts and feelings would take precedence.

When enmeshed with a narcissistic mother, you are conditioned from birth to believe that you exist to serve her needs and reflect her back to herself. Enmeshment is a role reversal where the daughter is tasked with understanding and taking care of the needs of the mother. 

Your mother is not concerned with your needs except as it enhances her image. For example, she may buy you nice clothes or send you to a good school because all that reflects well on her as a mother.

Your sense of self is non-existent when you grow up like this because you make all your decisions based on your mother’s needs and desires. You lose the ability to tune into yourself and instead look outside yourself to know you’re okay.

You feel responsible for your mother’s happiness so when she’s unhappy you rush to fix it. You might be constantly doing the singlehanded repair work on a relationship that is unfixable because it’s built on a toxic foundation.

Enmeshment leads to codependency

Enmeshment leads to codependency which means your self-worth is tied to how others, not just your mother, perceive you. You’ve become so used to prioritizing her needs and putting yourself last that you put everyone else’s needs first as well. 

Your mother’s enmeshment has set you up for codependency in all your relationships, ensuring your needs don’t get fulfilled. You will not know how to ask for what you want because you were prevented from doing so as a child. 

You may resort to manipulation to get your needs met or feel resentful when people don’t “read your mind” and give you what you want. If you feel angry when someone asks something of you, that’s a good sign of codependency.

Partners and friends may take for granted that you are there for them to lean on because you have given so much and asked for so little. It becomes your identity that you are trusty, strong, and reliable, but it feels like no one is there for you. 

You don’t know how to ask for help and become hyper self-sufficient instead. You may take the blame for things that aren’t your fault and take on tasks that aren’t your responsibility to avoid conflict.

People in your life don’t appreciate all the things you do for them, but they certainly notice when you stop doing them! You will likely feel very guilty and selfish if you do anything for yourself. 

You will be primed to enter toxic or abusive relationships with people who don’t care about your needs and who may even be narcissistic like your mother. Your urge to fix things to make the other person happy keeps you stuck in unhealthy relationships.

How to break free from codependency

The antidote to enmeshment and codependency is to learn to set boundaries. Many daughters of narcissistic mothers have no idea what boundaries are because they’ve never been taught and in fact were not allowed.

Boundaries proclaim where you end and someone else begins. For this reason, your mother can’t tolerate boundaries. 

You can’t set boundaries with a narcissist because they won’t follow them. But you can set them with other people, and you can have consequences for when your mother crosses the boundary. 

This is not to punish her but to protect yourself. Boundaries are all about YOU. 

A lot of mainstream self-help on boundary setting focuses on scripts and strategies and ignores those feelings in your body that make it feel impossible to set boundaries. It also fails to prepare you for the pushback you inevitably receive when dealing with toxic people.

Many survivors will try to set a boundary without preparing themselves for this blowback and without caring for their nervous system. If you set a boundary using a script and without tending to your nervous system, you will not be taken seriously. 

You will appear dysregulated and disconnected from yourself instead of rooted in your identity as someone who doesn’t allow herself to be treated less than she deserves. Toxic people will not respect the boundary you are trying to set and will bully you out of it.

How to set effective boundaries

Take the time to develop a set of values separate from your mother. Get to know yourself and your standards so you can be clear about what you will and won’t tolerate.

The most effective boundaries come as a natural expression of our identity. For example, “I do not answer phone calls or texts after 9 pm” (that’s who I am).

If you were raised by a narcissistic mother, you may have many toxic people in your life. These people don’t like boundaries because they don’t respect others. 

You need consequences in place to protect you when these people cross your stated boundary.

These consequences are not punishments but self-protection. They give you some control and autonomy in your situation which has been missing for so long. These include ending the conversation, limiting contact, or taking a break from the “relationship”.

Now you know how enmeshment with a narcissistic mother leads to codependency in other relationships. And you know the best way to break free: setting healthy boundaries based on your own value system, independent of your mother’s.

Laura K. Connell is an author, coach, and creator of Confusion to Clarity, a proven program to help you overcome the family dynamics at the root of your adult self-sabotage. Watch her free masterclass “The 4-Step Process for Healing Your Childhood Trauma” here: https://www.laurakconnell.com/masterclass-registration