Dear Farnaz:

You are welcome. According to the list provided by  Healthline/ emotional incest, I suffered from all the “possible outcomes of childhood emotional incest“, including: (1) difficulty individuating/ establishing a sense of self and setting boundaries with others, (2) trouble establishing lasting, healthy friendships and adult romantic relationships, resulting in loneliness and isolation, (3) perfectionistic tendencies and a sense of superiority, (4) feelings of guilt, shame, and a low self-esteem; depression, anxiety and personality disorders.

In the book I mentioned, titled Silently Seduced, it reads: “the covert victim feels idealized and privileged. Yet underneath the thin mask of feeling special and privileged rests the same trauma of the overt victim: rage, anger, shame and guilt”-

– I remember my mother telling me how special and superior (to peers), how most intelligent and pretty and meant-for-great-things I was, on one hand,  and telling me that I was “a big zero” during long raging and shaming sessions, on the other hand.

More from the book: “The boundary between caring and incestuous love is crossed when the relationship with the child exists to meet the needs of the parent rather than those of the child…. a disregard for personal boundaries. The child becomes an object“- I very much felt like an object in her hands, literally. My very existence- my body- was her property, hers to do with it whatever she wanted. She was The Person, I was object.

“Over time, the child becomes preoccupied with the parent’s needs… The child’s core needs are rejected, not served. The child feels like an object, not a person“,  “There’s nothing loving or caring about a close parent-child relationship when it services the needs and feelings of a parent rather than the child“.

“As long as the abuse or neglect experienced in childhood remains buried within, we re-recreate our family in adult relationships”, “Assigning responsibility where it rightfully belongs is the first crucial step in gaining access to one’s true feelings, needs, and wants”, “Even as adults, we do not gain freedom of choice until we see the past clearly and experience our feelings about it“.

anita