Susan Forward

harmful behaviors you’ve learned from her and the pain you’ve carried with you for so long are not a permanent legacy. As I will remind you throughout this book, despite what she’s told you, you are the healthy one. You can change.

She holds out promise and praise that disappear when you prove to have a mind of your own. And she tries to mold you by making you feel guilty if you don’t go along with her wishes and needs.

To an engulfing mother, love means:

• You are my everything, and that makes you responsible for my happiness.

• You can’t live without me, and I can’t live without you.

• You are not allowed to have a life that doesn’t involve me.

• You are not allowed to keep any secrets from me.

• You must never love anyone more than you love me.

• If you don’t want what I want, it means you don’t love me.

• “No” means you don’t love me.

If you had an enmeshing mother, you may carry with you a great fear of abandonment or separation. You may be overly clingy with partners or your own children. You may hold yourself back because you lack confidence in your own abilities and resilience. And you may know precisely how to make your mother happy but struggle to satisfy your own soul.

Your feelings, behaviors, and decisions are no longer your own. You are not yourself, you are an appendage of your family system.

By now you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, Susan. Almost all the other books and experts say I can’t blame anybody else for my problems.”

Baloney. Your parents are accountable for what they did. Of course, you are responsible for your adult life, but that life was largely shaped by experiences over which you had no control.

“Just Because You Didn’t Mean It Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Hurt”

she held him in reverence

courtly, ruddy-faced

Melanie learned that she was the product of several generations of distant, helpless mothers