Menu
Menu
Menu
A lot of people don’t start wondering what is enmeshment until they’re deep in it — feeling drained, anxious, or overly tied up in someone else’s life. This blog breaks down what enmeshment actually means, how it shows up in relationships and families, and what what types of therapy actually help you heal.
I’m a dual-licensed therapist in Los Angeles who specializes in anxiety therapy, trauma, somatic work, IFS, and attachment repair. I’ve been featured in TIME Magazine, HuffPost, Verywell Mind, and other major outlets for sharing honest, human insights about what real healing actually looks like.
Being enmeshed means you don’t just care about what someone else is feeling — you take it on like it’s yours. Their stress becomes your stress. Their disappointment sinks into your chest. Their anger or sadness starts to shape how you show up, what you say, what you hold back.
Most people think of this as being deeply empathetic. And sure, empathy is part of it. But with enmeshment, there’s no healthy line between what’s theirs and what’s yours. Your body starts to run off their emotions.
This usually doesn’t come out of nowhere. Somewhere along the way, probably early on, your nervous system figured out that staying connected meant merging with whoever you needed most. If you could feel what they were feeling — even before they said anything — you could keep things steady, avoid conflict, maybe even keep yourself from being rejected or alone.
So taking on their feelings became a survival skill. It helped you stay close, stay needed, stay safe. Even if it meant pushing down what you were actually feeling yourself.
If that’s something you’re curious about, here’s more on how somatic therapy works in my LA office.
This almost always starts at home. Maybe your parent leaned on you for comfort they should’ve gotten from another adult. Or you were expected to keep the mood light, smooth over tension, be the kid who didn’t cause problems.
So you learned to pick up the smallest clues. A sigh, a stiff shoulder, a heavy silence — your body caught it all and adjusted. Sometimes you’d even start feeling their feelings before they did.
Families like this often call it being close. They brag about how they tell each other everything or never fight. But that’s not real closeness. That’s a closeness that only works if you keep shrinking yourself to fit what keeps them comfortable.
And that sticks with you. Even later, having your own feelings — especially if they clash with someone else’s — can feel unsafe. Because your system still believes that to belong, you have to carry the emotional load for everybody else.
This is the lasting imprint. Growing up this way wires your nervous system to be more tuned into other people than into yourself. You might not even notice it — it feels normal to be hyper-aware of tiny shifts in someone’s mood, or to feel uneasy when someone’s upset, even if it has nothing to do with you.
That’s enmeshment trauma. It’s not always caused by big chaotic blow-ups. Sometimes it’s thousands of small moments where your body learned: your job is to carry how they feel, because that’s how you stay safe.
So later on, things like setting a boundary or wanting something different can trigger a flood of guilt or fear. Not because you’re dramatic or too sensitive. But because your system still believes your survival depends on making sure other people stay okay — even if it means swallowing your own feelings to keep the peace.
This is the one most people recognize first. It’s the family that does everything together, shares every detail, and maybe even brags that they “don’t have secrets.” But under that closeness, there’s usually this unwritten rule: stay in line with the family’s needs, even if it costs you yours.
So maybe you didn’t speak up when something bothered you ( because rocking the boat felt selfish or you felt that you had to always keep the peace). Or maybe you always appeased others, even when you didn’t want to. Over time, your own wants and opinions get quieter and and quieter, and you start blending with how the other person feels.
This one can feel like a total shock if you didn’t grow up this way. You might marry someone and suddenly realize their family does things very differently.
Maybe decisions get made by the group, not the couple. Or your partner feels torn between you and their parents — like saying “no” to family is the same as betraying them. You might notice your in-laws weigh in on private stuff that should really stay between you two.
It’s confusing and exhausting, because it’s not just about annoying meddling. You grew up in a family system where loyalty to the family’s feelings matters more than your own relationship boundaries. And if your spouse grew up in that, it can be hard for them to even see it’s a problem.
This is the everyday, sneaky version. It’s when someone else’s feelings take over your body.
Your partner comes home in a bad mood, and suddenly you’re tense and irritable too. Or a friend is anxious, and now you’re running through worst-case scenarios on their behalf. You might find yourself solving problems that aren’t actually yours to fix, just so you can feel some relief.
But believe it or not, this is not compassion — it’s absorption. Instead of standing next to them, feeling with them, you take it on like it’s yours. That’s how your nervous system learned to keep things stable: by carrying other people’s feelings inside you.
Many of the clients I work with get “enmeshment” and “codependency” mixed up like they’re the same thing. They overlap, but they’re not exactly identical. Enmeshment is more about blurry boundaries and identities that get tangled up together. Codependency is when your whole sense of purpose or worth gets hooked into taking care of someone else — often to the point of ignoring your own needs completely.
Where it usually starts? Parents who weren’t emotionally grown-up enough to hold their own feelings. If your mom or dad needed you to soothe them, pick up on their sadness, or be the one who always kept things calm, that wires you early. You learned love meant tending to someone else first.
In those moments, your nervous system figures out it’s your job to make sure they’re okay — because if they’re not, things could fall apart. So later on, you might chase that same dynamic without even knowing it. You feel most needed (or valuable) when you’re helping, fixing, or rescuing.
The difference is subtle but big:
But both can leave you so tuned into other people’s worlds that you barely register your own.
Here’s the honest truth: if you’ve spent most of your life wrapped up in other people’s feelings, your body’s probably going to freak out a little when you start to step back.
Not because you’re incapable of setting boundaries. But because you’ve spent so long focused on what keeps others calm, it can feel jarring — even wrong — to start focusing on yourself. Pulling back, even just a little, can stir up guilt or this uneasy sense you’re doing something bad, even when nothing is actually wrong.
The first move is getting curious. Start paying attention to when you’re carrying stuff that isn’t yours. Notice if you’re tiptoeing around someone else’s reactions, or jumping in to fix something before they even ask.
Ask yourself:
It might sound small, but even pausing to check in with yourself is a radical shift when you’re used to living inside someone else’s emotional landscape.
Verywell Mind has a helpful piece on how healthy boundaries look in enmeshed relationships — not cold or walled off, just a way to stand next to someone instead of inside their experience.
And honestly, a lot of people I work with here in Los Angeles are surprised by how hard this hits. They’ll say things like, “I thought I was just being easygoing or supportive,” but under it, they were pushing down their own needs to keep everything smooth.
This one trips up a lot of people. Because on the outside, enmeshment and empathy can look kinda similar. Both mean you’re tuned into someone else. You care. You feel what they’re feeling, at least a little.
But there’s a huge difference in how it actually feels in your body — and how it shapes your relationships.
With empathy, you’re alongside someone. You can feel with them, be moved by what they’re going through, maybe even tear up. But you still know what’s theirs and what’s yours. You don’t lose yourself in it. Your center stays intact.
It’s when you start carrying what they’re feeling inside your own body. Their anxiety spikes, and now your chest is tight. Their disappointment hits, and it sinks your mood too. You’re not just witnessing — you’re absorbing.
With empathy, you can still feel connected to another person while also staying grounded in yourself. Enmeshment pulls you out of your own experience and puts you right in theirs.
If you’ve been living wrapped up in other people’s feelings for years, it makes sense that there are parts of you still stuck in those old roles. That’s where IFS (Internal Family Systems) can be huge.
In IFS, we explore the different parts inside you — the ones that keep the peace, the ones that people-please, the ones that panic when someone’s upset. It’s not about blaming them. Those parts once kept you close to the people you needed most.
The work is learning how to get curious about them instead of shaming or fighting them. To figure out what they’re afraid would happen if they stopped managing everyone else. That’s how you start creating more space inside — so you can actually be present as your full self, not just the caretaker.
If this sounds like something you’ve been carrying, you can see more about my approach to IFS therapy here.
Attachment-focused work is all about getting to the root. Because if you grew up believing closeness meant merging — or that love only came when you stayed small — that’s a blueprint your system keeps running on loop.
In attachment therapy, we look at how those early patterns show up right now. Maybe it’s in your relationships, maybe it’s even in how you show up with yourself. We start to rebuild trust that you can have your own thoughts and feelings, and still be safe and connected.
It’s not just insight. It’s experiential. Your body slowly learns, “Oh, I can be separate and still loved. I can disagree and not lose everything.” That’s how real change happens.
Sometimes this stuff is so deep it’s not just about talking through it — it’s about working with how your nervous system learned to respond. Trauma therapy helps you notice where your body still goes on high alert, or fuses with other people’s feelings, before you even know it.
In therapy, we work together by slowly teaching your nervous system there’s another option. That you don’t have to carry someone else’s emotional load to be okay. And your own boundaries aren’t a threat, they’re actually what let you stay connected without disappearing.
If you’re curious what that could look like for you, here’s more on what trauma therapy looks like in my Los Angeles practice.
Most people who find me don’t show up saying, “I think I’m enmeshed.” They say things like, “I always feel on the hook for how everyone else is doing,” or “I can’t even tell what feelings are mine.”
That’s actually the heart of my work. I help people whose nervous systems learned early on that the safest move was to blend with the people they care about — sometimes so much that their own needs, wants, and opinions get lost. It’s a pattern I see all the time in my LA practice, whether someone grew up in a chaotic home or a “super close” family where everyone was expected to think the same.
I’m a licensed therapist (LMFT & LPCC) with a background in neuroscience and attachment. My work’s been featured in Parade, Well+Good, and HuffPost, where I talk about these exact patterns — how our brains and bodies wire to keep us connected, even if it means we start shape-shifting to stay loved.
If you’re reading this and thinking “wow, that hits way too close,” or if you’re curious what it might be like to exist without holding everyone else’s feelings, I’d love to help you figure that out.
It’s feeling like you have to keep someone else steady so things don’t fall apart. Changing what you’d normally say or do just to keep them comfortable. Staying quiet about what bothers you because it seems safer. Or getting restless, even a bit guilty, if you put your needs ahead of theirs.
That’s usually an adult son who still puts his mom’s feelings first, sometimes without realizing it. He might hold off on choices that matter to him because he’s worried how she’ll take it. Could be he tells her things that really belong with a partner or a close friend. It’s like he never fully stepped into being his own person, because her reactions still pull so hard.
Most of the time it’s what she learned growing up. If nobody showed her clear lines, or if closeness was always a bit tangled, that’s going to shape how she bonds. If she doesn’t have enough solid support from adults, she might lean on her kid in ways that cross lines. Usually it’s not about control. It’s the only way she knows how to stay important to someone.
You notice you feel tense or off if someone close to you is upset. You might drop your own plans to keep them okay, or stop yourself from saying what you really think. Over time it feels like you’re more tied up in managing them than living your own life.
It shows up in all these little ways. Like second guessing what you want until you see what they want. Or needing to check in more than makes sense. Sometimes you don’t say no, even to small stuff, because a tiny part of you thinks space could break things. Staying close starts to mean losing pieces of yourself.
Ready to stop carrying everyone else’s feelings?
See how therapy in Los Angeles can help you start living more connected to yourself.
