One of my most popular posts is about how narcissism is a subset of autism. Since then I realized narcissism and autism are both about being terrible at setting boundaries.
Autism is a disorder of extremes. Too much talking or not enough. Running around all day or not moving. Eating everything or eating five foods. Boundaries work the same way: too close or too far, because we can’t see where we’re standing. We would never believe that about ourselves. We’re obsessed with self-knowledge, so we assume we have it. But knowing a lot about yourself is different from knowing where you are in relation to another person.
Enmeshment and neglect are the same thing
An enmeshed parent can’t separate from the kid. The parent’s childhood was about making their own parent happy, so it’s logical to them that the kid’s job is to make them happy, even while they say everything I do I do for you. Neglect is not the opposite of enmeshment, it’s the same. When no one is home, the kid feeds himself, comforts himself, does the parent’s job for the parent.
In both enmeshment and neglect the parent doesn’t see where the kid ends and they begin, and from outside that looks like someone who thinks the world revolves around them. Ask the parent and they’ll tell you they care so so much and how could you even ask. Give them an example and they’ll tell you their great explanation. But a parent without boundaries always picks the part of the job that’s more interesting.
Olympic champ Alysa Liu had to quit figure skating to get her dad to stop running her life. He went to everything, fought with the coaches, and made her skating his skating. When she quit, she said he didn’t deserve to have an opinion about it. That’s enmeshment. It’s also neglect, because he only cared for the part of her that was interesting to him. He has five kids by surrogate and decided they didn’t need a mother: easier for him this way.
He devotes almost all his time to his children. He would never think he’s selfish, and he’d be right that he’s trying hard not to be. Research on narcissism shows the concern narcissists have for other people is real, and it’s driven by fear. He’s taking care of his kids to manage himself. What Alysa makes clear is her dad can’t see where he stops and his kids start.
You can see it in everyone but you
A child can’t defend herself from a parent with no boundaries. But an adult can. If you grew up with no boundaries, you marry someone who also has no boundaries. The signs are everywhere when you meet someone. Something as basic as asking for money early in a relationship is a red flag to everyone outside the relationship. The person inside it can’t see those flags.
This is the disorder: not just that we see crossed boundaries in other people’s lives but not in our own. But also we don’t believe that we don’t know what we don’t know.
So let’s say you leave and find someone different. They won’t be different because you can’t value a skill you can’t see, and the people who have good boundaries expect that from their partner. Also, don’t tell me you married your opposite. Anti-conformists date other anti-conformists, which is why they all look alike. Everyone marries someone like them. You’re better off figuring out how your partner is like you than explaining how they aren’t: that’s how you’ll learn about yourself.
Nino and I were both neglected. I felt unloved and lonely, so I made sure to always there for my kids. I quit my job to work from home, homeschooled, chose where we lived based on the kids. I was always veering close to enmeshment. I thought I escaped my parents’ neglect by doing the opposite. But really I brought that inability to see boundaries into my own marriage.
Nino grew up with an only child who didn’t do child things – the parents treated him as an adult. So to Nino, a family organized around the children felt like there was nowhere for him. From the outside it looked like narcissism: I worked all the time and he was disinterested in the kids. Inside, we were two people who wanted desperately to feel closeness and love and didn’t know how to get there.
Annoyance is part of love
First you’re infatuated, then you find out what’s annoying about the person, then the annoyingness feels like an emergency you have to fix. If you stay past that, the annoying thing becomes something you understand about the person. And only then does it become something you understand about yourself, because you picked them.
Divorce was terrible for me and Nino which is maybe explained by people with anxious attachment don’t bounce back divorce. And guess who has anxious attachment? Couples with narcissism.
I read that sharing meals stabilizes a family more than money does. I stopped fighting with Nino about money and now we eat together almost every night. I’m not saying dinners are perfect, but they’re closer to perfect than divorce. Because you can’t learn to do boundaries by getting rid of the person you can’t do them with.
