A Pandemic of Family Perversions

Why Drawing Clear Lines Between Generations Matters (Vol. 5; Issue 26)

Earlier this year, a 31-year-old woman named Angela consulted me in a fit of rage*. Her mother had used her username and password to access her birth control information contained in her online medical chart. Because Angela’s mother is a physician in the same major medical group as Angela’s primary care doctor, the task wasn’t difficult.

You probably already negatively judge the mother’s invasiveness. However, it turns out that Angela, who had never worked, never left the family home, and was “best friends” with her mother, freely gave her the login credentials for her medical chart. Angela was long in the habit of delegating her responsibilities to her mother. She often asked her mother to contact her doctor for her or to arrange for medication refills. Her mother also ran errands for her, cooked and cleaned for her, and bought her clothes.

The mother, a single parent, and Angela, engaged in an unconscious conspiracy, almost a folie à deux (now known as a shared psychotic disorder). But neither the mother nor the daughter are delusional. More accurately, there was a kind of severe, inter-generational enmeshment. It was only when Angela’s mother delved into her daughters’ sexual life that the repressed pain of the perversion came into her consciousness. The silent, emotionless game converted into Angela’s scream.

The extremity of this boundary violation illustrates a common phenomenon in our era. Particularly in rich countries, parents are encouraged to be “best friends” with their adult children. These “friendships” often involve parents paying mobile phone bills, medical or legal expenses, or other costs of living for their adult children. These delay normal individuation processes. Before elaborating further on the risks of these enmeshments, here are more details of Angela’s situation:

Angela was an only child and, therefore, had no siblings with whom she could compare her situation. Her father died young, and mother never remarried. Angela completed high school and college, earning a degree in early childhood education. Several of her college friends also lived at home. Therefore, Angela thought, what’s the big deal? Why not have my mother continue to do life tasks for me as she always had?

The arrangement worked for both parties: Mother enjoyed the role of doting parent, and Angela enjoyed the benefits of permanent childhood. The situation remained static until Angela fell in love. Her desire for her boyfriend, a normal life event, threatened the perverse dyad. Angela’s mother, upset by the intrusion of the romance, determined to see if Angela was sexually active. She did some digging.

When Angela reacted with anger, her mother reacted with dread. Mother’s pain was evacuated into Angela who, she believed, became mentally ill. She told Angela she “needed to talk to someone.” Angela told me her mother diagnosed her with “severe depression.” But Angela displayed only anger. She proceeded to describe the dyadic family situation and its background. Her mother paid for the sessions. Angela, an intelligent, attractive woman, initially resisted seeing the severely enmeshed family situation. Her hesitation was understandable. This was the only “world” she knew.

Nonetheless, before the end of our first meeting, it became clear that the “depression,” an inaccurate diagnosis, was actually the “return of the repressed.” The phrase, coined by Ronald Fairbairn (1952), refers to how dissociated emotional states can re-enter consciousness. Angela felt overwhelmed at the realization of how much she lived more like an 8-year-old than a 31-year-old. The enmeshed situation had seemed “normal.” Angela was, by her own admission, rather childish. But one sign of her maturing, she had just started having sex with a man she’d met at college. Delegating chores for her mother to handle was one thing; having her mother investigate her sex life was another.