“If you learn to play The Blues, I'll buy you a new guitar,” said my mother.
I was around 15, maybe 16, and into bands like Pantera and Rage Against the Machine.
But I learned to play The Blues.
I played it in smoky bars and at small-town festivals, and became well-known for my Blues licks as well as my drumming and music video editing.
I was a hell of a creative kid, but I hated myself.
And just like always, I took the bait.
Dr. Robert Glover calls it “monogamy to mom.” Dr. Patricia Love calls it “the emotional incest syndrome.” However you slice it, enmeshment is enmeshment.
This is how it played out in my life.
The Split
When I was around seven, my parents separated.
We moved from upstate New York to Arizona. My mom was sick of the cold and wanted to return to the warmth she grew up with. I went with her, and my dad was supposed to follow.
He didn't (for reasons I won't go into here).
What was meant to be temporary turned into a divorce three years later. But in the meantime, something covert and insidious happened:
I became my mom's surrogate spouse.
Not physically. Emotionally.
I became responsible for holding her rage, pain, and unmet needs that were supposed to be held by an adult partner. In the absence of my father, she turned me into the “man of the house,” often bragging to her friends that I was “7 going on 17.”
I thought it was a compliment. I thought it meant I was special.
And I was, but not in the way I thought.
When Being a Kid Isn't Allowed
Imperfection wasn't tolerated.
It was “Perform like an adult.”
“Act like an adult.”
“Write like an adult.”
“Be there for me like an adult.”
We call this, unsurprisingly, “adultification.”
I was expected to skip over the kid stage and be “better” than all the other children, as if reaching adulthood was a competition.
I was expected to set aside my childhood to be there for Mom — to be flawless for Mom. Trouble-free and validating. An emblem of parenting done right.
And to be fair, it didn't start at seven.
Before the separation, I was introduced to S.H.A.M.E. — Should Have Already Mastered Everything.
I remember changing sparkplugs, holding the flashlight steady, and untangling fishing line.
Most small tasks required perfection or the punishment was severe.
So I learned early:
Being a child wasn't okay.
Mistakes weren't tolerable.
Adult-level performance was the only “safe” way to exist.
It hurts to write that, even after all these years.
My parents were essentially children themselves with the responsibilities of adults. They carried their own emotional scarring and their own adultification wounds.
That doesn't excuse anything, but it does explain the pattern.
Enmeshment and the Uncomfortable Word
Approaching middle age, deep into my 12-Step work, I finally had language for what happened with my mom:
Emotional incest. Also known as “covert incest.”
The word incest is strong. It makes people recoil. And honestly, it should.
It's an uncomfortable term, but this isn't a sugar-coated story.
It's reality, and the reality of situations like this isn't pretty.
The Cost
Once I became my mom's emotional support system and whipping boy for her rage, I lost something fundamental:
My internal compass.
I lost my sense of self. I became a shell whose job was to please Mom.
From the outside, my childhood still looked normal in some ways.
I did boy things:
- Rode bikes and skateboards
- Collected He-Man and G.I. Joe toys
- Played with Hot Wheels and Micro Machines
- Shot rocks out of homemade slingshots
- Played a little baseball
- Occasionally got into a fight or toilet-papered a house
- Later, after hearing Metallica, I fell in love with Metal and started playing guitar.
And eventually…that got taken over too.
The Jackpot
From about seven to thirteen, I was Mom's little man.
And here's the twist: I didn't know it was dangerous.
I thought I won the jackpot.
I had Mom all to myself. I felt like I had rescued her from the chaos of the marriage. I saw myself as special, chosen, a redeemer.
I willingly took on the responsibility of listening to her, validating her, becoming who she needed me to be, and casting aside who I was to keep things stable.
I didn't know who I was, but I thought I was a god.
This is where enmeshment is seductive. It doesn't feel like abuse while it's happening. It feels like purpose, meaning, and love.
It feels like a drug.
Whose Dream Was It Anyway?
As I approached sixth grade, I wanted to be a scientist. A marine biologist, maybe.
But my mom wanted me to be a rockstar.
So when music became my number one passion, and I showed real talent, she didn't just support it. She looked for ways to control it.
Her abandonment issues surfaced. The long, dark arm of emotional manipulation rose to direct my music life, and I let her.
Once again, my “mission” became: Ignore self-direction. Gain Mom's approval.
And later, if I'm being honest, this generalized into women's approval.
The Pattern It Created
One of the most insidious outcomes of enmeshment is what it does to your relationship with steadiness.
It trained me to equate intensity with truth.
So my life became a repeating cycle:
- Rapid adoption and escalation
- A rush of meaning, identity, and “This is it.”
- Emotional drop-off
- Boredom and detachment
- Exit
This showed up everywhere.
Careers
I jumped from path to path. First from music style to music style, then musician/composer to recording engineer.
Then real estate.
Then IT.
Then back to recording and composing.
Then web development.
Then coaching.
Then back to web development (though I kept coaching as a side gig).
I sabotaged success at every turn because everything felt real at first — exciting, electric, and passionate.
Then wrong, when the anxiety and novelty wore off, and things became work.
After two to four years, anything I was doing started to feel like a slog. And I'd interpret that slog as evidence I was on the wrong path.
Relationships
Same template.
The “jolt” of enmeshment made stable relationships feel flat and uninteresting. Commitment felt like boredom. Calm felt like a sign I was settling.
In other words:
intensity = love
steadiness = something is horribly wrong
That's not to say that relationships don't require work to keep the spark alive; it's that I re-enacted the pattern of unavailability (Dad) and enmeshment (Mom).
I'd engage, get high on limerence and chaos, and when things began to stabilize, find someone new to repeat the cycle with.
Recovery
I came into adulthood as an adult child, loaded with:
- Codependency
- People-pleasing
- Fear and anxiety
- Low self-worth
- Toxic shame
The most meaningful work I've done since entering recovery in 2015 is this:
- Getting in touch with the pain of enmeshment
- Letting it move through me instead of managing it
- Discovering who I am underneath all the coping and false selves
I've got a long way to go, but I've made real progress integrating the parts of myself I was afraid of, and parts I didn't even know existed.
Though my nervous system was programmed to seek outside validation to regulate, I've begun to feel less needy.
I've gotten less sensitive to rejection, though my mind still jumps to worst-case scenarios.
Though I'm tempted to outsource my worth to unavailable people, I've learned to set better boundaries and work through fears of abandonment.
And because my compass still feels like it's missing pieces, I need constant reminders that this is an inside job and no woman is responsible for completing me.
And it is not my responsibility to complete her, either.
Toxic Shame
Above all, I know now that the core driver is toxic shame.
Not healthy shame. Not conscience. Not accountability.
I mean that deep, inherited, corrosive belief that something is fundamentally wrong with me, and everything I do will turn to shit.
I have to let go of what was handed down and keep walking the path of self-discovery.
I also know something else that's hard to admit:
I have to experience Hell to leave it.
Not to live there forever. Not to romanticize suffering, but to integrate it as part of a 360-degree acceptance of my story.
I can't recreate my childhood and get that time back, but I can fill the needs that weren't met in mature and healthy ways.
I can learn to cultivate a positive self-image and face the fear of uncertainty.
Maybe things will work out the way I think they will. Maybe worse; maybe better.
All I can do is the work.
The rest is not up to me.
Music
Today, I listen to music when I feel like it, but I mostly listen to self-development audiobooks.
When I look at my guitar, I see an instrument I'm relatively good at (when I practice), but also a validation vehicle that was used to fuel someone else's dream.
In a way, I feel robbed, but I also feel blessed to be able to write and share my story.
I've heard enough sad songs to know I'm not alone.