@MsLady, actually, the therapist (the wife) that I spent time with for therapy did not talk about herself. Instead she listened to what I shared about things I was observing in other parents and my own history with how my own parents were. I explained how if a parent doesn't spend time with their child they really never establish a relationship with their child where the child sits and learns how to feel safe to talk to the parent. This lack of establishing a bond with your child will make the period of when they are in their teens and experience challenges actually dangerous where they can end up getting involved in things they shouldn't or think they have to deal with major challenges alone.

Our children are like sponges, they NEED our nurturing and our nurturing is to teach them how to grow into their own confident person. These parents that are so self involved and tend to hand their children off to day care or other people never really forming their own bonds with their children is not good. You NEVER get those years back, they are an important foundation that last a child's entire life.

All these years later I read all these different articles on "childhood emotional neglect, or even emotional abuse" and I DID SEE THAT. And pretty much everything I talked about with this woman that results are things I hear many people sharing years later as adults. And a lot of these so called labels are a result from poor insufficent nurturing. I just read someone saying, "the problem isn't so much the sex, but the lack of intimacy" in their relationship. Or "he/she" doesn't LISTEN to me, well, it's very probable that individual never LEARNED the skill of listening in a caring, respectful, nurturing way.

Yes, it's possible this woman does imesh with her child too much. Having him match her outfits is a bit much, yet, I also noticed that is a trend as I had seen celebrities doing that with their young children. You do have to make sure when you raise a child that you show nurturing and appropriate intimacy, yet, the goal is ALWAYS about nurturing in a way that your child be able to develop their own sense of self and NOT feel they are supposed to do everything to please or follow someone else.

With this therapist and husband that I shared about, I had no idea my therapist was listening and learning from what I was sharing. I had no idea that what I had shared was constantly being discussed between her and her husband as they were parents of very young children themselves. I never expected to go in one day and to have her husband, the psychiatrist, call me into his office like that and say what he said to me. He sat there and told me how much they learned from all that I had shared, and they were making changes because of what they learned from me. Then he said I was very gifted and should seriously consider getting into the field myself. I suppose that's a big compliment, but it just did not feel that way AT ALL.

Yes, I suppose I was triggered, but not in the way the OP thinks. I wanted to learn more about the OP, and what triggered me is what she shared of her own relationship with her own parents. What triggered me is reading how she has labelled her boyfriend that she plans on moving in with a sociopath and it's ok because she figured out how to "control" him. So what does that mean, she never could control her own parents who are clearly awful parents so she ends up being ok with a relationship with a sociopath? Well, she ALWAYS deserved better than that, it very sad that she is ok with being with a sociopath. Oh, her answer will probably be something like "don't worry about me, I am tough, I can handle it". Isn't that being a bit of an improved minni me on some kind of personality label that is between a narcissist and a borderline who can't even function anymore? Well, sorry but being ok to move in and have a relationship with a sociopath because you can control him is NOT NORMAL, it's concerning.

From what is shared, this woman with the 11 year old needs to teach her child to pick out his own clothes if she is constantly having matching outfits and start learning how to make his OWN decisions so he doesn't end up allowing others to do that for him the rest of his life. Or worse, suddenly turning on her and revolting by becoming goth or something VERY drastic to separate himself in someway. Yet, that's only if she really is smothering him constantly.