Is loss of identity common after abuse?

[Happyfarm]

I’ve been struggling with this for a few years. I was kind of neglected as a child, I think my mum had mental health issues. I entered into a 15 year long abusive marriage. It’s been a few years now and I find I struggle.

Im not 100% with my identity. I sometimes look at what other people want and try and be that and fail because obviously I am not them.

I need to find myself again and not base it on what people want.

I think loss of identity might arise from abuse, yes. I don't know anything about that from a clinical point of view but it makes sense because most of your energy during periods of neglect and abuse is redirected towards just surviving. Your brain doesn't have time to think about your wants.
Maybe try one of those self-help type questionnaires, the ones that present questions for you to think about. They can sometimes be naff but some of the questions provoke you into thinking about what you really want from life and how you want to live.

I think so, yes. From my experience, it was emotional abuse (and some other stuff but not physical violence) and the coercive control and gaslighting definitely ends up so you don't know who you are .

If you have been with a narcissistic abuser, then it's all about them. It's no wonder you lose identity.

Start with small things is my advice. Try and connect with things you liked before maybe music or favourite foods, or get into nature and just notice the small things that give you some joy.

Even a TV show that you enjoy.

It does take time.

Very slowly it will come to you that acting out for other people is conflicting with your Truth. Slowly you will discern between the actress and the Real one. One day you will be comfortable within and all will be peaceful and calm.
Get as much help from professionals as you can.

This is entirely possible, especially if we are told by the abusive partner that we are not good enough, or called names. We try hard to be the opposite of what they say to us, this becomes confusing because we were just fine as we were. They are gaslighting us. None of what they say is true. After years of abuse it's hard to know who you are anymore. It is hard to find your old self. Try to remember her, what you stand for, maybe talk to someone who can help you through this, or an old friend who reminds you of who you were before the abuse. It takes a lot of deep thought, hard work and trusting in your gut. You will get there. Stay strong.

Yes. It's a gradual shedding process and then refinding yourself. I'm now seven years out and feel like my previous self. I'm still working on my health and fitness as I ate my way through the abuse, so I had a whole person to lose weightwise. Start with little things and work your way up. I did have life coaching at the start to identify what was important to me and this gave me a focus.

For me I’m not sure who I was before my ex because my childhood was neglectful also. I don’t know where to start really.

It starts at zero. The very beginning. Before all the crap. Before all the programming and conditioning. A return to innocence!

Hi, I also had an emotionally abusive parent and have been in a long term emotionally abusive marriage. I've read a lot of books about emotional abuse in the last few years that helped me finally identify what was happening in my marriage, but the best one I've read by far is "Its Not You" by Dr Ramani. The book covers emotionally abusive romantic relationships, but also looks at issues caused to adults who had an emotionally abusive parent.

I'm in my 50s now and have never not had an emotionally abusive significant person in my life, which makes me feel that I have never known my true self either and I wonder what sort of person I would have been with "normal" nurturing parents. Perhaps I wouldn't have fallen into my abusive marriage?

Dr Ramani touches on allowing ourselves to grieve for a childhood we never received, that never offered a safe space, a sense of belonging or unconditional love that other people did get in childhood, so it might be worth a read? I felt vindicated and relieved after reading it (although I haven't finished it yet). The relief was that there is someone on the planet who seems to understand what I have been through! May be worth a try as somewhere to start?

People around me are still all horrible and complex. When I go back to innocence they are still everywhere.

Here are some of the most potent words I have found from Dr Ramani's book so far. I got it on Kindle, so I copied and pasted these sentences into a Word document so I could look at them again in the future. Some of them aren't whole sentences, some of them are just snippets I found particularly relevant:

You may be grieving what you never received. If you had a narcissistic parent, you may grieve the loss of a healthy childhood,

you never had a safe space, a sense of belonging, a soft place to land, or unconditional love.

there is no second attempt at childhood. In adulthood, decisions around maintaining relationships with your narcissistic parent can get complicated, because their presence can elicit the grief of your lost childhood.

The grief for Lauren hit home when she recognized that she had never received the life lessons that many people get from their families of origin: being seen, witnessing a loving and respectful marriage, feeling safe enough to ask for guidance, and feeling valued.

She blamed herself for being socially unskilled, emotionally unintelligent, and incapable of intimacy,

Lauren is grieving the loss of time; a childhood marked by fear, invalidation, and anxiety; wasted hope on her father
She grieves not having learned about narcissism earlier so she could have made better choices. In essence, she grieves herself.

Durvasula, Ramani. It's Not You: How to Identify and Heal from NARCISSISTIC People (p. 195). Ebury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I think it's that both abuse/neglect as a child and difficulty establishing your identity as an individual are both outcomes of having a parent who was struggling with identity themself.

If your mother had MH issues, she may well have used your attention and admiration to bolster her own poor self-esteem. Everything you did will have ended up revolving around her - calming her down, cheering her up, keeping her company or whatever form it took. Because of that you won't have been free to move away from her psychologically in a healthy way, and as a result have developed an identity that exists relative to her and how she thinks of you.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family makes you more vulnerable to getting involved in dysfunctional relationships, because they feel familiar and 'comfortable' even though they're also unhealthy and ultimately damaging.

I have been where you are. You could really benefit from therapy. I would also google things like 'inner child work' as you need to find a way to integrate the adult you are in the everyday world with the little girl you once were, who was denied the opportunity to develop as an autonomous person.

You could also start by making a bullet list that starts "I am:" and then list as many qualities and attributes as you can come up with, no matter how random, e.g. I am a woman, I am kind, I am interested in politics, I am happiest by the sea etc. You could start with "I am brave" because leaving a 15-year abusive relationship must have been really hard.

Exercises like that will gradually help you to develop some instincts about which parts of your life make you happy and derive from the real you. She is still in there, you haven't lost her, but she was buried alive and you need to start unearthing her gently now.

You'll learn to live without their nastiness. You'll not take it personally. You'll see the damage in them.

I agree that it might be helpful to just start some new things.
Read a book
Start a TV show
Try a hobby/take a class
Visit somewhere new

It's going to take a bit of time to work out what you find most joy in, but you can!
Even if some of the things you try you might decide aren't for you - that's ok!

They will still help you hone in on what does bring you joy.

Good luck!

That would be nice.

It is.

When the knowledge returns you transcend all that noise!

You might find mindfulness helpful.

I don’t quite understand why I seem to take other people’s issues so personally. Is this just left over from trying to always please other people and be what they want that in the real world when it doesn’t work I blame myself?

You probably learned to over-empathise as a child, so you could anticipate what would keep you safest in any given situation. It was an essential survival skill then but it's an unhealthy coping mechanism and a burden to you now.

You have been conditioned so much that it has become a habit. Once the habit is recognised you will be able to let it go. In other words it comes out of the subconscious into the conscious. You'll see the habit and discard it. Every time you do it you become more free.
As a PP stated earlier about mindfulness. You become mindful of the habitual behaviour and learn to discern. Therefore unravelling years of conditioning.

So is the correct response you’re a bit of an idiot don’t want to give you much time?

It’s hard to override that need of mine to have a close family feeling. I know that has passed for me but I can give to my children. It’s just so hard to let it go.

What you are letting go is the inbuilt reaction to their behaviour.

ah ok so stop this feeling of rejection and the pain it causes. What is a better way to feel and say to myself instead? It doesn’t matter if I am rejected because I’m good as I am?

Would need more detail to answer this! But in any case the point is not to have a stock response someone has told you is the 'correct' one, but to put the work in with developing your sense of self so that you can judge in any given situation what you want. At the moment, what you want seems to be defined as what would keep other peple happy.

I would say you need to spend some time getting to know yourself, and getting in proper touch with your feelings. It's also an embodied process - how does your body feel when something happens, someone makes demands on you, you agree to something you didn't really want to do etc. Do you get a knot in your stomach, or get headaches, or a pain between your shoulder blades, or have diarrhoea? The body of someone who has been abused as a child (in the widest sense of the word) is often smarter than their conscious mind, which has been bamboozled over the years. Get to know how your body speaks to you by observing how you react to stressors, and then do it the courtesy of paying attention to it.

Just to add that once you start saying no to people, they won't like it! They will try to reel you back in. You may need to stop, pause or minimise contact with certain people in order to regain control over your choices and reactions.

I’ve been there. I had some counselling where I realised I didn’t know who I was. I was so busy being who my mother wanted as a child, then who my husband wanted I had no clue who I actually was.

Baby steps op. My first was buying a nail polish set from Aldi - without asking permission- because I LIKE having my nails polished. Seems ridiculous but that was a massive step for me. My counsellor actually cheered when I told her 😂

You will find yourself bit by bit.

I also discovered I apologised constantly as I always assumed it was my fault. I had to work hard to overcome that one! Best of luck OP, you’ll get there.