Families can be dysfunctional in various ways. Parents can be narcissistic, distant, neglectful, or even abusive.
But surprisingly, even loving and extremely close-knit families can have unhealthy dynamics. And it’s the latter that’s actually far more common than most of us think.
Eye-opening explanation of the “enmeshed” parent-child relationship
Loving, extremely close families can sometimes suffer from a dynamic called “enmeshment.” An enmeshed family is often tightly bonded but lacks clear personal and emotional boundaries between family members—especially between parents and children.
It’s officially defined as “A condition in which two or more people, typically family members, are involved in each other’s activities and personal relationships to an excessive degree.”
But what does enmeshment look like in action? And why is it problematic?
Social worker and popular social media creator Patrick Teahan recently performed a brilliant, blunt role-play that perfectly illustrated the problems with this dynamic. Teahan specializes in dysfunctional family dynamics and childhood trauma.
“I’m the enmeshed parent. I overshare my emotional life, and I invite you to be on my level,” he says in a recent Instagram reel. “I’ve erased any parent-child boundaries between us, and we’ve kind of become like one person.”
Indeed, enmeshed parents often overshare details from their personal lives, as they would with a therapist or close friend, venting to their children about love-life struggles or adult problems. They may also be overly involved in the details of their child’s life.
Also playing the role of the child, Teahan responds, “I’m your child, and I’ve spent my whole life as, like, your therapist friend. I’m ‘parentified,’ which means I skipped my own childhood to carry your secrets, and we’re really more like fused friends than parent and child.”
That kind of oversharing takes a toll on a kid and can lead to parentification, in which the child becomes the parent’s emotional caregiver.
“The main boundary I cross with you is that I don’t allow you to be a child,” Teahan continues, once again the parent. “You’re my everything, which is a huge burden I give you so I don’t have to navigate actual adult relationships. Those are intimidating because people might call me out on my behavior. So I overly attach to you to get my needs met.”
On the child’s side, Teahan says, “That really helps explain why I have so many holes in my own boundaries. I’m hypervigilant about secrets, and I seek out fast, intense intimacy with practically strangers so I can replicate that fused magic feeling that you and I had.”
Ultimately, enmeshment is considered a dysfunctional family dynamic because it holds kids back from “individuation,” the process of developing an identity separate from their parents. When this process fails, people can develop severe depression, low self-worth, poor boundaries, and high levels of anxiety.
Video sparks familiarity among nearly a million viewers
Teahan’s video went viral on social media, garnering over 900,000 views. His direct reenactment seemed to strike a nerve with viewers who recognized patterns from their own upbringing.
Here’s what commenters had to say:
“This is pretty unbelievable to hear my childhood spoken through your video.”
“You’ve just explained 5 months of my therapy!”
“I am my mom’s therapist, since I was a kid. If I don’t I get called selfish. So that’s been fun to deal with as an adult. I also have a habit of quick, intimate relationships that I turn into a therapist for the guy. Thank you for the video. This explains a lot.”
“I had to go no contact with my mother to stop being so enmeshed, best thing I ever did for my sanity and growth.”
“Woah this hit close to home. Especially the crushing guilt! Navigating individuation now, I feel guilty for ‘not calling her enough’ and living my own life. But she has done some work as well, so I’m lucky in that way. Thank you for giving these experiences a voice!”
“My mom used me as her therapist and best friend and told me all about her personal, financial, and intimacy problems with my alcoholic father. I’m the eldest daughter, she did not do this with my siblings. It was very very difficult to disentangle myself from her.”
One commenter raised an empathetic point: our awareness of mental health and unhealthy relationship patterns is far higher than in previous generations:
“We’re so blessed to have access to [content] like this in this generation. My parents generation did not. They had no way of knowing what they were doing.”
Enmeshment has been a concept since the 1970s, but it has only gained a foothold in the zeitgeist in the last couple of years.
It’s a sneaky concept because it’s easy to confuse, for outsiders and those in the middle of it, with healthy closeness. Enmeshment often comes from love and affection, so kids struggle to recognize the downsides of a parent who wants to be their best friend. It’s less inherently obvious than the much-discussed narcissistic parent or the emotionally unavailable parent.
Teahan’s video shows there’s a huge audience of people just opening their eyes to the dynamics they grew up with. And he’s not the only creator talking about it; there’s an entire community on Reddit dedicated to enmeshment trauma, in addition to tons of therapists openly speaking about it on social media.
The good news about enmeshment is that it’s never too late for adults from enmeshed families to start setting boundaries. Even just tiny amounts of space (like less frequent calls and texts) or physical distance can make a difference. But ultimately, you can’t change a dynamic you can’t name. Teahan’s simple, two-minute role-play finally lets many people do exactly that.
