Emotional Incest

Have you experienced emotional incest? If so, how has it affected your life. How are you dealing with the effects? Any comments, or insights, would be greatly appreciated.

Define emotional incest, please.

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pachyderm said:
Define emotional incest, please.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_incest

Yes ...... mildly if it can be mildly .... Please feel free to pm me as I'm not redy to share the information just yet publicly ....

Jin xx

My relationship with my mom could be called emotional incest. She expected me to listen to all her troubles and all her anger toward the men in her life - my dad and brothers. She put pressure on me to be "on her side". She prevented me from having any relationship with my dad. It took six years after her death before I could realize how much she had embittered me against my dad - unfairly. I did not speak to him for six years after she died and even though he did some wrong things to me and neglected me, SHE was the real abuser in the home. I felt responsible for her happiness, I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around her to keep her from getting angry. I didn't get to be a child with her. I was always her satellite, my life revolving around hers. I was a miniature adult.

I finally decided the best definition of my relationshp with my Mom could be called "Stockholm Syndrome". S.S. is where a person develops an unnatural affection or bond with a captor. To survive the person "goes over to the enemy's side" so to speak. I abandoned who I was to be who my mom wanted me to be and I'm spending a lot of my adult life trying to get past my past. I'm tired of the work and struggle, but the only way out is through the middle! I've spent many years in counseling for this and other issues. I've journaled, been in support groups, 12-step groups and church. I've read and studied and done whatever I've had to do to get better. This is not the focus of life I wanted for myself - I'm in my mid-50's and thought I'd be past all this by now. But, I have to do this. I help others where I can so my whole life is not about me and my issues - that is so important. When a person has been damaged it is too easy to make all of life "about me".

I hope this helps a little, it is not easy to define this kind of damage and it took me a long time to realize that it affected me just as much as all the sexual abuse and physical abuse I experienced - the bruises were just harder to see since they were on my heart and mind, not my body.

Leslie

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Originally Posted by Malachite Have you experienced emotional incest? If so, how has it affected your life. How are you dealing with the effects? Any comments, or insights, would be greatly appreciated.

I realize this is a REALLY old post. But I am sort of taking this all in; I'm just now learning what emotional incest is and am realizing that this happened/still happens to me. I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet.

My mom and dad divorced when I was very young, due to the fact that my dad was an abusive asshole, particularly to my mom. She received the majority of the physical abuse, though I was really quite young and don't remember much of it. When my two brothers and I would go stay with our dad every other weekend, he would sometimes lose his temper. I don't think he ever really lost total control around us, at least not to the point of beating us mercilessly; most of it was emotional abuse, though I remember a few instances when he got especially physical, but I'll spare you the details. He definitely made a point (numerous times, in fact) that he was going easy on us, and that his own father was a REAL abusive asshole, like he was trying to make us appreciate his method of “parenting”, or some bull**** like that... But he wasn't like that all the time.

Quick story before I continue: my dad was born and raised in the Philippines, and there's a lot of poverty there. Many houses/shacks have only one bed, in which ALL the family members pile into at night to sleep. So his actions might not seem all that strange when you look at the cultural background.

At his house, my dad had one large, square bed that we (my dad, my two brothers, and I) would share. Oftentimes, if one of us ended up lying next to my dad, he would usually, I guess the word for it is spoon---like, snuggle up REALLY close behind one of us (he did this quite freqently, and with each one of us), and wrap one leg and one arm around in a suffocating embrace. He never touched us inappropriately, as far as I can remember, but it just felt... I don't know, really uncomfortable, and I don't mean just because it was stifling and constricting. He was just much too close for comfort. I vaguely remember if he did this to my brothers as often as he did to me, but I've always avoided sharing sleeping space with him since then. Eventually, my little brother and I started sleeping on the carpet while my dad and older brother took up most of the room on the bed. About a couple of years ago, my dad and I stayed up one night watching a scary movie while I was at his house one weekend (he's remarried and moved since then, but the marriage between my dad and stepmom is a whole other issue; they're obviously completely unsatisfied with each other, and often use my little halfsister to get back at eachother, which I hate...).

Yeah, moving on. So I was in the guest bedroom where we often sleep on those weekend visits, and I was by myself in the bed (my brothers have stopped visiting completely, but again, that's a whole other issue, though not entirely irrelevant...). My dad comes in while I'm already lying down, and I'm a little freaked out by the movie to be perfectly honest (if you've ever seen the Exorcism of Emily Rose, you know the significance of 3am, and the movie ended at EXACTLY 3am—freaked us out like crazy ), so I didn't object to his entrance. He claimed to be freaked out by it too, which I didn't doubt, just because we made a huge joking deal about it earlier. Well he asked if he could sleep with me in my bed, and I didn't object, but he started up with the spooning thing again, which was even more so uncomfortable that it was before. I mean, I wasn't 5,6,7 years old; I was in the middle of my high school years. It was awkward/really uncomfortable.

I don't see him nearly as often anymore, but when I do, sometimes he gets a bit touchy... sometimes he'll pop or squeeze my butt, but I always brush it aside as a scolding sort of playfulness, like when a parent playfully spanks his child... I've never really put much thought into it until now. Whenever we go somewhere he walks next to me with his arm wrapped around me, which I don't really mind, but I think it's just because he does it every time I see him...idk. He's always treated me much more favorably than my younger brother, whom he treats like crap. But he won't hesitate to buy me stuff, or give me money without question, or take me places, while completely ignoring or putting down my younger, 17 year-old brother, despite my brother's frequent attempts to please him; my brother's just given up trying. I don't want to whine or complain about being treated nicely, but I feel like to be a good daughter I have to like my dad, but to be a good sister, I have to hate him and side with my brother...

After reading about emotional incest, everything he does is all making more sense, when I see how poor his history with spousal relationships is...

God this is long, and I'm still not finished...:/ the next part should be simpler to explain...

My mother, on the other hand, has, since we were little, post-divorce, always shared her problems with us, her kids. She used to bring up the fact that my dad wasn't paying his child support, and I always felt obligated to side with her; it eventually turned into a “dad-is-the-enemy” sort of thing, and for the longest time, it's been like that. She doesn't have a very good adult support system of friends, and she stresses over talking to family members (for other reasons I also won't go into—DEAR GOD, the digression...), so we were always the best option. She's been coming to us with her problems ever since. I think she's definitely lessened up over the past few years, but I know when I come home for 3 months of summer, I'm going to have to put up with it again... I mean, I've always considered her my friend, and I know a family should be there to support each other, and I want to support her, but she MARTYRS herself... I always feel guilty when I tell her, lovingly, that I don't think I'm the one she needs to tell certain problems to. She'll either get mad that I'm not listening to her, or she'll make me feel guilty by saying that she doesn't have any one else to talk to. And she's a very emotional person. She cries A LOT, which doesn't ease any of the guilt...


Ok, NOW I think I'm done. I appreciate everyone with the patience to sit through that insanely long rant...

emotional incest runs in my family. my mother did it to me and aunts and uncles have done it to my cousins. unlike my cousins, i have sought professional help. still, there are huge scars.

mom is a controlling person; a frustrated princess / party girl who wants other people to take care of her. as a child, i was told that i was born to take care of her and that i should not ask for anything. i was told that friends and love and affection are not necessary and that i should not tell her my problems because she did not want to hear them. mom never hugged me. mom told me i was ugly. she rarely said anything nice. i was an emotional punching bag child. a rageaholic, mom told me that she yelled at me because she loved me. if my feelings became hurt, i was told that i was not tough enough. she seemed to control my father to a large extent too. he was a non-confrontational guy and his dislike of getting involved was neglectful. i was kept isolated from others so that mom was pretty much my sole influence. mom told me her parents spoiled her oldest brother and that she would make sure not to repeat that mistake. i had few toys and never learned to play with others. i drank all this in and believed it because i did not know better.

i grew up to be very reticent and guilt ridden. i have anger issues and stay pretty much to myself. i don't understand interpersonal relationships very well. i do not date and have touch issues. dating is problematic because i don't really understand what love is. for me, love has negative connotations. not too long ago, i went to see a new therapist who told me that, considering my background, i was well adjusted. i was like, look, i don't have many friends and have never dated. when people try to get close, i run away because it's too foreign and i don't enjoy it. but, he replied that people with my background were usually alcoholics or drug addicts or sex addicts or abusers and i am none of that. i am able to hold a job (though there has been lots of turnover) and am therefore a walking miracle, the most well adjusted abused child he had ever met. he also said he really could not help me because i was set in my ways (i am in my early 50's). after that i found a therapist who claimed he could help and did weekly individual and group therapy though he said that was not enough, that i needed more visits. i tried hard but made no progress. the T became furious with me for the lack of progress. i really don't want to do further therapy and have been trying to focus on spirituality instead.

emotional incest exists and it is very difficult to deal with. often, it feels like i am expending all of my energy just to get basic things done and to hold myself together emotionally. there is so much negative energy and thoughts that i have to brush aside or stuff to accomplish basic things. i feel that i am constantly fighting my instincts and myself. i don't know where i'm going . . . but i am still here and am basically healthy and i am trying. still.

the lessons i was taught made it imposs