Trauma recovery and personal identity.

In trauma recovery, we very often confront issues and conflicts surrounding our core identity. 

Many people reading this might feel like we don’t even HAVE a core identity. 

Every time I write about how something we “recover” in trauma recovery is our true self, several people comment to the tune of, “I don’t know who my self even IS.” 

That’s part of what abuse, neglect, and other trauma does to us: it confuses us about who we are. 

In some cases, trauma even seems to rob us of who we are. 

Many trauma survivors get through their experience in “fawn” mode— extreme people pleasing. 

Anyone who “fawns” can tell you how easy it is to lose ourselves in a “fawn” response. We literally become who we think “they” want us to be. 

Other survivors get through their experience by “freezing” or “fleeing”— neither of which allow us to st with who we are, figure out what we’re all about, develop our personality or interests or values. 

And, of course, when we’re lost in the “fight” trauma response, almost all of our meaningful personal development stops— because we have to devote all our resources to either winning or not being destroyed. 

The very common trauma response of dissociation, on the other hand, often quite literally has us floating away from ourselves— not feeling present, not feeling real, not feeling connected to ourselves OR our surroundings. 

Is it any wonder so many of us come through trauma not feeling like we even HAVE an identity? 

Many people describe feeling that their entire “personality” is just a collection of trauma responses— and it’s not hard to understand why. When we’re busy surviving, we just don’t have the time, space, or safety to truly develop who we are. 

Fast forward to now— here we are, working a trauma recovery, for the first time asking ourselves meaningful questions about who we are and what we’re all about. 

That is to say, figuring out, for the first time, who we are and what we’re all about. 

For many of us, it’s not a simple question. It might even provoke anxiety in us. 

For some of us even thinking about the question of who we are and what we’re all about scrapes up feelings and fears that we’re about to be criticized, shamed, or ostracized. Because that’s what happened, again and again, “back then.” 

For others the project of fleshing out our personal identity might feel like a “trick”— as if the only reason anyone would ask us to define and refine who we are is so they can attack us or manipulate us. 

Here’s the thing: our personal identity is integral to our trauma recovery. 

Why? Because it’s who we are and what we’re all about— our personality and our values— that is going to inform the entire “why” of trauma recovery. 

And make no mistake: the “why” of trauma recovery is also the “why” of staying alive. 

Figuring out who we are and what we’re all about starts with thinking about what we like. 

What books we like. What poems we like. What shows we like. What music we like. 

I’ve written before about how attached trauma survivors can get to our entertainment and media— and this is one of the reasons why. When you grew up in the pressure cooker of abuse and/or neglect, it’s often our books and shows and music and other entertainment that gave us ANY opportunity to reflect on or develop who we are. 

Now, in recovery, we can use our favorite stuff to consciously, intentionally, shape who we are. 

Don’t get me wrong: the stuff we like is only a starting point. But it’s an important starting point. 

Look at the stuff you like, then take a step back, and ask: if all I knew about this person was that they liked this stuff— that they strongly connected to this music or these books or these characters on these shows— what could I surmise about them? 

Slowly but surely, we figure out who we are. Who we choose to be. Who we were meant to be. 

Slowly but surely, we shed “their” ideas and beliefs and demands about who we “should” be. 

Slowly but surely, we realize that creating ourselves, maybe even from the ground up, is actually one of the best things about recovery. 

Starting from scratch can be overwhelming. 

But it can also be the best thing we ever do in or new, recovery life.