I was emotionally and at times physically abused as a child and as a result of this I have never really been able to develop my own identity or personality, and even now, at age 40, I don't feel like I really know what type of person I am, or much about myself.
As a child my dad in particular was very controlling and angry. I was told off if I was or looked miserable, I was told off if I was too happy, I was told off if I enjoyed myself or was too friendly with someone, or not friendly enough with them. I wasn't allowed friends, so don't have a group of life long friends whom I've grown up with. I was told constantly that I was awful, evil, nasty, miserable, and various other things.
As a result I have grown up as a people pleaser, and with poor boundaries. My boundaries are a bit better now and I think I am less of a people pleaser, but it plays on my mind more and more that I just don't have a sense of 'self' or a strong sense of who I am. I feel as though my mind is a huge crowded jumble of different thoughts and personalities, I guess because I grew up having to second guess what moods my parents would be in all the time and fitting in accordingly?
I am so envious of people who have a strong sense of who they are. I was wondering if anyone else can identify with how I feel and if anyone has any advice about developing my 'self' and about improving boundaries,
I have been N/C with my parents now for about 5 years, and this has helped but I still feel the classic FOG a lot, especially the guilt part if I do anything my parents wouldn't approve of (which really, is a lot of things as they never approved of anything I did!). I have also had counselling which again helped a bit but I still feel very damaged from my childhood.
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If you were emotionally abused in childhood have you found it hard to develop your own personality?
Clapwhenyourehappy · 13/03/2017 11:29
Absolutely, what you've written is me all over. It's left me paranoid that I am a dull, boring person and I don't express happiness well. Find it difficult to maintain friendships and to read people as to wether they like me or not.
I'm NC with my "mother" which is a relief tbh. I don't know how to improve myself, I just plod along. I have a friend who is a psychologist, she has aFb page called here to thrive, and has great thought provoking posts and podcasts (which I must make more use of) look her up, some might help. There is also an Aussie one called project self which i read regularly. 
I can empathise. I totally lost my identity at the age of 38 after starting therapy for anxiety. Mind you that my identity was one of being a disgusting, evil, stinking, fat bitch so no loss! It was like a thunderbolt that my mother's opinion was not necessarily the truth. I am still a bit lost and keep asking myself who the fuck am I? I have a lot of self doubt that I am worth anything and all my efforts are put into making sure my DCs NEVER feel like me so I still neglect myself a lot. Still can't make friends. I don't think I will feel like a 'normal' person or particularly like myself. I am starting to try postive affirmations and hope one day I finally believe them. I often wonder what kind of person I'd be if I'd not been the family scapegoat and my mother had had the courage to get help for her own mental health issues 
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Hi OP, i recognise so much of your post - people pleasing, poor boundaries, poor sense of self, guilt over all sorts of stuff, constant jumble of thoughts in my head. It's seriously bloody exhausting. I absolutely put it down to growing up with parents who never really saw me as a separate person and never really acknowledged my feelings, let alone value them.
Psychotherapy was the path to freedom for me. I was in therapy for 7 years in total. I'm not currently attending but I still have plenty of work to do. In terms of people pleasing and boundaries, i am SO much better than i was. The guilt is usually more of a background hum these days rather than the full on roar it used to be. I am very low contact with my family and my life is better for it
I think it also helps to know that you're not alone 
other people feel just as messed up as you do, but they are getting through it, and so are you x
OP, tho u feel lost, u are on ur way, because you have identified with your logical mind that your parents, for whatever reason, were never going to approve of you, whatever you did to try to please them. It takes time and intelligence to work that out, but you'll eventually FEEL that, as well as THINK it.
There are lots of us out there, it does get better (I also found that talking to a therapist helped - they can give you honest feedback, and will point out your strengths (I found I accepted and absorbed this a lot better, than a partner telling me I was great, because they're professionals!).
I spent a lot not too me wishing for good friends I felt relaxed with, but didn't seem to click (and like you, felt that maniy people saw me as odd). At some point I gave up a bit on that, and took up a hobby which I found really exciting. By chance i picked something where i had to work with others and there had to be trust. I met a very different set of people, and because we had a common interest, maybe no one stopped to care if I seemed a bit 'different'. Along the way I got a lot less self conscious, and found I had some likes and dislikes of my own, and now I don't mind that not everyone warms to me, I'm happy in myself. I have some great friends too now, but find I actually like quite a bit of time to myself, after all.
Sorry for the ramble OP, but please have hope that you'll figure this out, and be patient with yourself .
Lots of resonance for me in what you say, OP.
For me, having my second child was the trigger for realising that I really had no idea who I was. I think this was because it was the point where I finally became an adult (DC2 had a complex birth and I had to woman up and take control of impending medical mayhem). Also, the arrival of my children had triggered a reprise of the kind of bad behaviour in my family of origin that characterised my childhood, except that this time round I was a bit more awake to it, thanks to the support of my wonderful DP, and the fact that my relationship with him was a healthy model for interpersonal relations by comparison.
I did a lot of reading, the Toxic Parents book and various similar things, plus pop psychology generally, and then did web-based life coaching, which enabled me to get a better sense of what makes me happy and what I value in myself (being web-based instead of face-to-face was more reflective, I found, though I am not neurotypical, which may make a difference). I wrote a lot of lists of things I wanted to do/be/have and also wrote a lot generally (creative writing, journalling, dream diaries, fanfic, etc). DP and I talk a lot about my FOO and how awful they are (less now, tbf), but I don't get on well with counselling - too flitty a mind, so I leap from thought to thought, never really finish sentences and allude to things in a shorthand that DP can follow but no one else, which is too frustrating to be constructive. I think and daydream a lot and have a very active inner life, which has guided me well, now that I trust it, in identifying the things that make me happy and make me me, most of which were extremely well buried under, as you say, a great deal of people-pleasing. For example, I was well into my 40s before I remembered what career I had originally wanted, and realised I still wanted desperately - I had literally forgotten all about it and had wasted years running in the diametrically opposite direction from this ambition. Realising things, insights, lighbulb moments carry you so far towards the things that are right for you. Making them happen is often the easy bit after that. It sounds like you are on the road already, OP. The unconscious mind is such a powerful thing, it can hold you back but it can also propel you once you allow it.
15+ years on, I am finally quite solid about who I am, what I want, how I can be of value to the world in my own small way, and how to go about all that in a way that honours my inner self, but it's been a bit two-steps-forward-one-back, and I've fucked up a fair bit along the way, both in terms of personal decision-making and of my FOO. I am now NC with the parent who is the source of the problem (the other is dead) and also with most of my siblings, who are all pretty fucked up too. I still have a tendency to be a bit passive in my dealings with people, but am finally making strides with calm assertiveness, which eluded me for a long time. Probably contributing to that is the fact that the NC decision followed an explosive family row in which a great many things that were decades overdue were said, and not only did the sky not fall down but I felt a whole bloody lot better afterwards.
I don't think it helps that our society is quite coercive too, particularly of women, in terms of being socially/culturally compliant, which acts to reinforce the skill of keeping your head below the parapet that a lot of us developed in childhood - I'm talking about, eg, body fascism, mansplaining, workplace bullying etc. I think we are more vulnerable to their effects than people who had healthier parenting, which tends to revictimise us regularly and sets us back in our journey.
Hope any of that might help, OP, feel free to PM me. to all who have survived abusive parenting, may you continue to survive and thrive. Special hello to Lottapianos who I recognise from the estranged parents thread that caused such consternation on that other forum. 
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