Complex PTSD - Searching For Identity

[Dylan]

With regard to (Lionheart's post): "I am not totally clear on what is so bad about spending our lives in search of ourselves; I mean what better reason for living than the continual exploration and daily discoveries of who we truly are?"

Well, I guess that depends on how you're going about it. If I'm out there living, enjoying life, but at the same time continuing to grow, that's one thing. However, that has not been my life experience; most of my life has been spent trying to figure out how to fix myself so that I could live. I couldn't get on with living simply because my symptoms ruled my life, ran my life....ran me.

I very much relate to Johnny here: "And when you are living under "extreme" stress almost 24/7, you will never know who you are because you are simply "surviving and reacting" to the environment - nothing more."

Although, through correct diagnosis, treatment methodology, etc., I find Lionheart's statement profoundly true for me: "what I discovered was that “I” was only buried deep within myself as part of yet another miraculous protective mechanism. So that I never lost that part of me - I only temporarily “misplaced it” if you will."

I once told a counselor that, as a child, my time was spent desperately trying to preserve something of a "self", that it felt like I was playing some desperate form of shell game (where there are three or more shells and under one is a pea...the gamer moves the shells all around and you try to guess which one contains the pea - but in this case I was the gamer, my abuser was trying to get to the pea, and the 'pea' was the essential/real part of me that was somehow selected to be 'saved'.). From ages 4-17, pretty much my entire world/reality/purpose was this 'game'.

But then, when it was safe and I picked up the shells, I found that I could no longer find the 'pea', that tiny kernel of 'self' I gave everything to protect, and thought I'd forever lost it.

However, as I said in my first post, in the last couple of months through a great deal of persistence and effort in the last 4 years, I've "found" it. It was just a whisper at first, but as I continue to practice, it comes more and more "forward" into who I am and my life - for which I am grateful beyond words. Living as just the 'sacrifice', the shell, was a horrible, empty misery.

-Dylan

 

[JohnnyM53]

Me too Dylan. I just re-discovered the "I" that I thought I was as a child that was buried under the ill-conditioning caused by the abuse and traumas.

Obviously, not everyone is on a mission to discover themselves and grow. Some are happy with the way they have always been. Some are afraid to question themselves, their beliefs, their reality, maybe due to some form of brainwashing or irrational fears, etc.; some want more out of life and challenged themselves to test their own limits, and those like many of us sufferers trying to get beyond the abuse and figure out who we really are underneath at the effects the bad stuff had on us.

Years ago, if you would have asked me who I was, I probably would answered: I'm a depressed person (thinking I'd never change).

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my experience, I thought "how" I was until age 25 was "who" I thought I was. When I realized that the abuse and traumas affected me deeply, I no longer knew which part of me was the real me, which part was a conditioned response (physio as well as psychological), or on what basis my negative, irrational or false self-beliefs were formed to the abuse/traumas.

I had to question everything I could and find the grain of truth. I had to dig deep to get rid of all the anxiety, the faulty thinking patterns and thoughts and the deep depressions and try and change the affects of the abuse.

It was not easy to get to "here". But nor was it "impossible" in my case. But I never knew (nor had any guarantee) that I could become healthy enough to enjoy my life. I always thought "I am what I am" or I'm damaged goods", only to learn we can change just about anything we want to if we work at it (ooops there goes another rubber tree plant!). It just takes time and effort and hope, just like it took time fo the long term abuse and traumas to affect us deeply.

Thanks all for posting under this thread. It's good to get your perspectives.

 

[Dylan]

Hey Johnny -

You said, "Years ago, if you would have asked me who I was, I probably would answered: I'm a depressed person (thinking I'd never change)."

Years ago, if someone asked me who I was, I had to make it up, fake it. Anxiety and shame would well up if someone asked me my opinion on something (particularly when I was young -- high school age, when everyone has a budding opinion on everything!); the anxiety because I was on the spot (and would have to try and keep track of what my opinion was supposed to be) and shame because I knew I should have an opinion, that there was something wrong with me because I simply didn't.

Over the years & with a lot of work, it's morphed into a healthier view: I have opinions, but am not rigid and, if I can be logically convinced that another stance makes sense, I can change my POV pretty easily.

I feel sad for those who give up the search for an answer; I have a friend who has done this. I think she just got tired, or couldn't see the way, and/or lost hope. Coming off of a two year very high stress/symptomatic time, I feel somewhat guilty that I'm not any kind of stellar example of healing, myself.

-Dylan

 

[momofmany]

I guess I'm not as far along as all of you. For years I've struggled with the conviction that "there's no there there". It's not just the blankness inside, it's the inability to form opinions and convictions. I'm constantly looking to others to try to get a clue as to what is the "right" way to think. Once someone told me "Here's a quarter, why don't you go buy a personality?" And he was then my closest friend!

My T keeps saying I need to accept and love the child me to find the adult me. I can't. She is ugly and broken and stupid. Why would I want her? On the other hand, if I'm to start over and rebuild to be who I want I don't see how one creates something out of nothing.

This is all so confusing! I know this sounds pathetic and whiny, and I'm sorry, but I just don't get it.

Please, all of you keep talking, maybe something will click and I'll be able to figure something out. Thanks!

 

[NIKI]

I have a base line of the type of person I want to be. I strive to be the kind of person that my dog thinks I am!!