enmeshment
Enmeshment is the sacred co-dependency ritual where mother and child dissolve their boundaries into a single anxious entity. While the child’s budding autonomy is ensnared by fear, the mother offloads her own insecurities, forging a shared dialect of reassurance and dread. To the outside world it appears as mere overprotection, but to the participants it reads like a treaty of world domination. It is the most formidable bond, swaddled in veils of love and control.