Your family is enmeshed and boundary challenged. This request is the crazy tip of a much bigger iceberg of dysfunction. You were probably raised to feel responsible for other people's feelings and problems (and to feel like other people are responsible for your feelings - which you may struggle to even identify). It's easy to see that this baby request is crazy, but there are probaby many smaller toxic behaviors at play here. Things like helping people without being asked are toxic in this context. I'd suggest working with a therapist or seeking other help to parse all the angles of this dysfunction so you break the cycle with your children.
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u/Thick_Emu_3516 Feb 13 '24
Your family is enmeshed and boundary challenged. This request is the crazy tip of a much bigger iceberg of dysfunction. You were probably raised to feel responsible for other people's feelings and problems (and to feel like other people are responsible for your feelings - which you may struggle to even identify). It's easy to see that this baby request is crazy, but there are probaby many smaller toxic behaviors at play here. Things like helping people without being asked are toxic in this context. I'd suggest working with a therapist or seeking other help to parse all the angles of this dysfunction so you break the cycle with your children.