A Culture Change Away From Enmeshment

Destruction of relationships due to enmeshment requires more than just words or behavior for addiction it is an entire relationship culture that needs to change.

Transcript

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Time again for Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jacques DeBruyckert, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. Thank you for watching. podcast it's for entertainment and information only so let's keep it in that light all right have a good time learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional so So why is it that every time somebody is dealing with an addict, they always end up getting overly involved and enmeshed in what's going on in their lives? It's really funny. It's so predictable. parents, husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, brothers, sisters. It's really interesting. I get so many calls from people who are looking for help for loved ones who have a problem. And it's a fascinating thing when they're dealing with them because the stories that I get from that person who's calling me is always one of like, you know, there's a lot of enmeshment and manipulation and over involvement in the addict's lives. But what's... it's like and and you know honestly with with people who have addiction the problem is that you get very dysregulated. You know, the term affect dysregulation, which means mood instability, that's a clinical term for it, goes on when people get very upset about what other people are doing. And so I wanted to address that because I think one of the big issues in recovery that keeps people from really getting into solid recovery is this involvement in other people's lives and the drama that goes on. And sometimes it's a very high level of drama that goes on within a family. And that could be a family culture of that. They have a history of that. And other times it's just something that kind of came on as the relationship evolved over time. But the idea of you somehow taking on other people's stuff and then getting dependent upon them is really fascinating. We see it all the time with people who are involved with individuals who have borderline personality disorder. They're is this codependency that occurs in this disorder dependency that goes on by the person who is the the loved one of the BPD person the borderline personality disorder so what happens is the BPD person creates such a distortion of what reality is that the person who's involved with them becomes dependent on that and there's this weird victimization dependency thing that goes on That's in an extreme case, and especially if you have a diagnosed mental health problem that's severe, like BPD. Outside of that, if you have a relationship that is being influenced by drugs or addiction, dependency on substances, or it could be food or gambling, porn, sex, things like that, but any of those, what happens is the person who is being subjected to that relationship Many times starts taking on caretaker role and then they have this dysfunction that just kind of obliterates their ability to function normally. People who have addiction sometimes fall into that as well. Like they they're over involvement in somebody and they have alcoholism, for example. The alcoholic can get all wrapped up in other people's problems, the loved one's problems. And there's this weird enmeshment dependency thing. And when I'm trying to help somebody get through that. It's really fascinating because they really struggle with trying to decouple from that. And it's a struggle. It permeates language they use. It permeates thoughts they have. It permeates actions they take in and around that person. It's every part of it. And it's frustrating. And I often wonder sometimes when somebody comes in and they have addiction, whether it's drugs or alcohol, and I'm trying to drill down. Invariably, there is something that has gone on in their childhood. It's 100%. In my practice, it's 100% of the time. I have never had anybody come in who did not have that going on in their childhood. But it also kind of gets overlaid with things like current drama or trauma. And so teaching somebody how to decouple themselves from that is part of what I do. And I think it's vitally important for that person to be able to do that. And it's difficult because that's how they've existed for so long. And so I came up with this idea that I heard that I thought, you know, maybe that should be something that could be the focus, especially early on in recovery for either the codependent person or the addict. And it's this very simple thing. You don't have to let it go if you never picked it up in the first place. It's very, very difficult sometimes to get people to stop picking things up and then complaining about the fact that they have them in their possession and they're carrying them around. It's really interesting. And I said this to the person who was complaining about it. I said, you know, You don't have to let it go if you never picked it up in the first place. And it's that picking it up thing. That's where the problem is. You picked it up in the first place. And, you know, God bless the person who wants to help. I mean, I'm a helper. I'm in the helping profession. But there's a time and place for everything. And you can't be there trying to fix and solve everybody's problems. If you do, you're just going to burn yourself out or you're actually causing more issue than solving. And so not learning how to not pick it up in the first place. Um, It's an art. It's really, it's an art. It's a change. I consider, especially with marriages and families, when you have addiction, it's a culture. There's a culture that develops around that. It's not just an action. It is a culture. The culture of alcohol, the culture of drugs, the culture of destruction. And so I'm going to learn how to not Pick up the stuff that other people have been throwing around. So, for example, a woman comes in and she is an alcoholic. And she is distraught because her husband is constantly accusing her of things and making making accusations that aren't true, that she's, you know, she's not working. She's not working. Well, she can't because she's taking care of the kids. And so so then she's lazy because she's not working. And maybe she's not doing enough of what he thinks she should be doing with her time. And he's resentful because he doesn't like his job or, you know, whatever it is. So he starts making all these comments and things that are meant to hurt her. So they tend to be more personal and they're meant to hurt. So they're said in a way that is very hurtful or passive aggressive, one or the other. And so the woman comes in and she's been drinking. Now she's had a father who was verbally abusive in her house when she was growing up. So now she's married a verbal abuser herself. Of course, because that's what we do. If we don't work on our stuff, we end up marrying... the thing, the issue that we didn't want in our life because we experienced it as a child. So we just replicate it. And there's a whole, you can listen to other podcasts I've done about that. It's like, you know, you're replicating because you think you can fix it this time or you know how to handle it. It's not that big of a deal. Or you're just willful blindness and pretending like it's not really there. You can listen to the other podcast to find that out. In any case. So this is what she's got and she's drinking. She has a history of alcoholism. All right. So she comes in and she's like, my life's a mess and I got to. do something about the alcoholism okay great so um we start working on that maybe she goes to rehab maybe she doesn't have to um but you know we detox and then you start working on elimination of you know things that can trigger the drinking uh having alcohol around all the other necessary things you do all right we do all that but then we start talking about like why do you drink well because you're uncomfortable all right so what's making you uncomfortable And you start talking about the discomfort and the discomfort is caused by this constant, like almost PTSD reaction she has to what's going on. So she's taking everything that her husband is saying in a way that is so personal and that it being personal part is her picking it up. So now she's like, she's picking all this stuff up and she now she's responsible for putting it down. So putting it down, wouldn't happen if she didn't pick it up in the first place. So how do you depersonalize a message that's coming at you? And the only example that I really, probably the first example I had was when I was back in the early 90s, I was a school teacher and I had learned from in my mid 20s and later 20s when I was working at summer camp programs with teenagers and I was a director of a camp and And teenagers, man, they can work you to death. And back then we didn't have the internet. We didn't have cell phones. So people just used each other to talk and spread information. And so behaviors of teenagers were different than they are today. No doubt. But teenagers, man, they can be really nasty and offensive and be inappropriate. And they don't, They don't know how they sound. Their hormones are going crazy. So they're just completely out of control emotionally. And so there was a woman at this camp who was a school teacher and she would listen to these teenage girls. And I had never been involved in trying to deal with teenage girls before as a as a. responsible adult supervising people and I'd never supervised teenage girls and it was kind of shocking because they can be pretty nasty at times and And I watched this woman. These girls would walk up to her and they were like, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. And they would come up to her and they'd want something or they'd need something. But instead of being polite and nice about it, they would be just really kind of abrupt and nasty and dismissive. And she would listen to them and she wouldn't respond initially. She would just listen to what their demands were or whatever ridiculous thing they were saying. And it was done in an inappropriate manner. So she would just look at them and say... um, you want to try that again? And the girl would be, you know, like, you know, and then she'd say it again and she'd say, well, that was close. Try again. And the young lady would finally figure out she was being rude and inappropriate and she would change her tone and change the question and be pleasant again. And I found that fascinating because I had never, uh, you know, I'm a male, so my technique would be to confront. She was not taking it on like she wasn't picking it up. So there was nothing to put. There was nothing to put to let go because she didn't pick it up in the first place. Later on, when I was a school teacher, I did the same thing with the students in my class. I was a sixth grade social studies teacher. And that's right up puberty, right? So 13, 14 years old. And So these kids would do that. They'd just be so nasty. And I would just look at them and say, no, try again. And I'm not going to pick up what you're putting down because this is inappropriate and I'm not going to react to it. I did see other teachers that would react to it very negatively and it didn't do any good like that. They just, it didn't help. So I learned that technique back then and I try, I try to do it. It's still, it's, it's, you know, nearly impossible with your own children sometimes when you're faced with that stuff, um, as any parent of a teenager would understand. But so, uh, the idea of, of not, picking it up in the first place. I'm not going to personalize what you're saying. And that's what I try to teach the people who are experiencing this in their homes with their spouses, boyfriend, girlfriend, children. Like, listen, man, just you're, they're saying something there, you know, unless they're trying to verbally assault you personally, that's different, right? The personal attack, that's a different thing. But if they're just coming at you and you just don't, you're not taking this on, It's like, try again. Well, what do you mean try again? Well, it wasn't very pleasant. Try again. Instead of responding to what they're saying, or rather responding to how they're saying what they're saying, which is instinctive, I think, in some cultures of families, they just respond. start immediately counterattacking because you're getting defensive because you're being attacked. Don't get defensive. Take a neutral position. Take a neutral position. Don't react immediately to how they're saying it, but rather work on getting the way the message is coming to you stated differently. See, I'm not going to pick. You're trying to provoke me and I'm not being provoked at all. So it's not like I'm going to get defensive. I'm not going to ignore you. I'm not going to counterattack. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to do none of that. I actually don't respond. And you're going to get a different outcome because you didn't pick up what they were trying to give you. So you don't have to let it go. So think about that. You don't have to let it go if you don't pick it up in the first place. If you don't pick it up, there's nothing to put down. And so if you can get the person to stop, you know, giving you something that you would then have to put down. And in the case of an addict, you want to drink it away. I mean, that's certainly what I was doing when I was younger was drinking all my problems away, drinking all the anger away, drinking all the resentment away or drugging it away. You don't have to. Right. So, you know, when somebody has has an issue with usage, how do you stop? Well, you know, honestly, you've got to stop what's coming at you. Yeah. response is heightened and so anything and everything that sounds like it could be what it was previously coming from their family or their friend or whatever they will respond and they respond quickly and negatively and so what we see in the first couple of weeks when somebody's in rehab is that they respond rapidly to anything perceived as a threat see that's that's part of that that culture change issue of trying to figure out how to let things go well if you don't pick them up you don't have to let them go so there's nothing being given to you in those environments so there's really nothing to let go and what we have to do a lot of times in rehabs is we have to de-escalate a person who is responding inappropriately to what they perceive as a threat so the threat response is excessive and inappropriate in that setting but they don't know that because they're so hyper vigilant to attack and to what's going on And so what I'm suggesting is in an effort to try to work on your recovery, learn to let it, don't pick it up in the first place. Not drugs and alcohol. Don't pick up the emotional stuff. And that's why enmeshment and codependency is so deadly in an addiction situation. type of a relationship I see you and I like what I see but I also want to fix this that's kind of the mindset of the person who's inappropriately enmeshed with an addict they want to fix what's going on okay being helpful Harriet or helpful Harry is wonderful but that's not what's needed And so boundaries and limits and changes in a culture of behavior is what's necessary. And it's challenging and difficult and time-consuming and not easy. And it permeates everything. It permeates your thoughts. It permeates your language. It permeates your body language. It permeates everything in your family. That culture... of dependency, codependency, enmeshment is so strong in families. If you are an addict, you know exactly what I'm talking about because you, a lot of times, are the victim of it. Many times, perhaps not quite as often, you are the perpetrator of it. And so, how do we move to change that as an addict? Well, one start start talking to somebody the power of saying something out loud de-escalates in your mind the severity of it it also many times this happens in my practice somebody will say something that they've been thinking but they've never said it uh they say it out loud and then they kind of like get this puzzled look on their face or they'll start laughing or sometimes they'll just even openly admit Well, I sound like a jackass. That doesn't sound right at all. And I'm like, yeah, you said it out loud. And now that it's out in the air and you let me bear witness to you saying it, you can hear yourself and you can hear the words. Whereas when it was in your head, you weren't hearing it. You were just, it was an echo chamber. You believed the falsehood of your own words, but you just said it out loud. And it sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? And they're like, yeah, okay.

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Yeah.

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So then we will practice on trying to change that. So we'll reformulate what they're thinking. We'll say it again. I'll say it. They'll say it. I'll repeat it back to them. They'll say it again. It's like, okay, how do we make that message actually sound not so derogatory or not so manipulative or not so condescending or not so ridiculous? That just is ridiculous. It's like, yeah, I didn't really think of that. So the power and the influence of verbalizing it out loud, it really can deescalate it. That's one. Two, when you're experiencing it, understand that there is a process you can use or take a step back. And I've been trying to teach people this for a long time. And a lot of this is the familiarity of doing things like forgiveness, where you can learn to take a step back emotionally from whatever is occurring. and not absorb it. The story that I told earlier about the woman who was the teacher who was encountering these teenage girls, that's an example of it. She was not taking personally what they were saying. She knew that she was the adult. She knew that she was in charge. She knew that they were going to start speaking to her inappropriately because this is what they do. She knew that they had an agenda. And she also knew that ultimately she could give, grant, or refuse whatever it was that they wanted. And so she would just let that pass. happen and she didn't personalize it so that's that's part of it is not personalizing them walling it off I always kind of think of myself as being sort of in this observational box that has you know an observation tower and I'm a little bit separate from whatever's going on and when I do that I'm very successful at not personalizing and then being able to hear what they're saying and and saying okay that didn't sound quite right it's not i don't like what you're saying and i don't like you it's that didn't sound quite right and i'm gonna now not immediately respond so you want to try again right that's it's like that right so you're just not confrontational Depersonalize what's being said until you finally get to a type of message and a message that's said in a way that is appropriate. That can help you a lot. And the other part of it is so those those boundaries are having that boundary that the other part of it is, frankly, practice, practice, practice. You are not going to learn to do this first time. right off the bat, it's practice. It takes practice. It takes patience and an incredible amount of forgiveness and self-forgiveness. If you're an addict, you are so dysregulated all the time, you don't even know what's up and down. right so just you're in that frame of mind if you're a family member who has an addict you probably are in the same place but at least you don't have a chemical influence dysregulating your brain so just practice and forgive when you make a mistake and then practice again and then when you make another mistake you practice again until you start getting it right culture change If you viewed it from that standpoint, it's culture change. It's much easier for you to understand that it takes a lot of effort to get there to make a culture change. It'd be like if you moved from the United States to Sri Lanka. Man, everything is wrong and different and you're having a hard time shifting how you perceive everything because language, food, geography, housing, everything is different. That's what's going on when you have a culture shift. And a culture shift within a family is tough, especially if somebody's rejecting it. So practice, practice, practice. Practice putting boundaries down. Practice being calm. Practice being okay with mistakes. But practice, and you'll get there. So you don't have to let it go if you never picked it up in the first place. It can just lay there and be what it is. Those are my words of advice for today. I hope that has helped you and I hope that you got something out of this podcast because if you did, then great because I really do appreciate it and if you would like to be able to give a suggestion to me, you can do that through comments that you can add to this or you can reach me on my website at wellspringmindbody.com and give me some suggestions. Also, I appreciate if you have subscribed And if you can spread the word, then the audience will grow. So if you need help, go get help. Contact a rehab center. Check in. Get free from your addiction. It's not worth ending your life to save your addiction. So until the next time, I really want you to stay sane, stable, and sober. And until then, this is Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard, saying see ya.