Can your childhood personality save you?

[EricS]

You know how they say that every little child comes with their own little personality that shines through? Well, we retain that spark throughout our lives, even though we cover it up as I attempted to. You may laugh, but mine was a very shiny bright kind of leave it to beaver kid who was always very happy and willing and excited. After puberty, I got made fun of a lot and I guess I wanted to be cool. Should we go back to our SOURCE? Even though I'm an adult, I still feel that thing deep within me as the true real me, even after all these years, that it's my essential true character. Kind of like a trunk of a tree that starts in childhood and grows from there. We can't change who we are, why would we need or want to? Unless you were ashamed or something as I was...and maybe that's why I changed or tried to change.

Trauma, stress ....and especially any trauma of any kind can predispose you to peer pressure because you're so weak and your sense of self is shattered or vulnerable, this is why I believe it was so easy for me to miss myself or bury it under...
I should always be true to myself.

Real question, honest question. Waiting for replies!!! 

thanks.

[Dee]

I honestly tried to be what anyone else wanted me to be.  I put on mask after mask, trying to fit in, be liked, cover up the real me, the bad me.  I ended up without a sense of self.  Right now I am learning who I am.

[Three Roses]

I tried and tried to be different, I never wanted to hear "See what you've made me do!" or "I'm sorry, but..." one more time. So I buried and ran and denied who I was, until I didn't know who I was anymore. I'm starting to come back, just now, in my 60's and because of the insights I've gained into CPTSD largely thru this forum.

[AphoticAtramentous]

I miss the old me, that was so bubbly and energetic, without worry, without fear, without pain. I hope one day I can return to that personality, if it's possible...
But I wear these masks every day, still wear them so I won't be told off by my FOO. I hardly know who I am anymore. :\

[woodsgnome]

I don't know that I was ever allowed to just be someone I can identify as a 'me'. The abuse started very early, then snowballed so as to totally disorient any notion of the person inside. While I didn't gravitate to conformity with what others wanted either, still it seems any original self was destroyed, and by mid-teens I had no idea who I was or should be, felt suicidal, lost all feeling for life, and no one around me could help--they were the problem; I just became a lost cause.

My good fortune was to accidentally become an actor. Somehow it was like I found parts of 'me' I never knew I had or had been hidden. But I realized too that part of that was a convenient cover, where I basically could hide my pain in plain sight, behind the roles I played (or my masks as Dee describes this hiding). Eventually, though, this refuge couldn't assuage my deep-seated grief/depression and I'm still groping my way out.

As to my childhood personality 'saving' me, I've no idea what that might mean or look like, being as it was taken from me early. So perhaps it's better to accept what can't be recovered and continue building anew to the best person that I know how to be.

[radical]

I'm getting an idea, a kind of understanding of who I was at heart.  That person never went away entirely, though I thought she had.  It is in my curiosity most of all, but also in my difficulty in holding a grudge, except in the face of a strong sense threat or active aggression directed at me, in quickness of emotions running through me (when there is nothing making them stuck), in the parts of me that can't keep my mouth shut, even when it is in my best interests to do so, if I see someone else in pain or experiencing or unfairness, also  in soft, puppyish affections.  Most strangely to me, in the enthusiastic extrovert buried beneath the cautious introvert.

[Blueberry]

It's only been in the last few years in therapy that I've begun to have an inkling of who I am other than all the negative descriptors I heard as a child/teen/young adult. So I didn't really have a childhood personality to save me.

[Candid]

Even though I'm an adult, I still feel that thing deep within me as the true real me, even after all these years, that it's my essential true character.

That's your power, Eric.  It's mine, too. I don't remember what it felt like, but I do vividly remember one particular photograph my father took of me, from a distance and among other children, at a kids' Christmas party.  We were watching a Punch and Judy -- and how anyone could have hated that little girl as my mother already did is beyond me.  I haven't seen that photo for many years and it's probably been tossed out, but I remember every detail of my expression and clothing, as well as my sister's beside me.

I now believe my enthusiasm and sparkle was a threat to Mother, that she had no idea how to handle my strength of character so instead sought to crush it out of me.  From my teenage years to now it has mostly looked as though she succeeded.  But that little girl, and that little girl's spirit, has never really left me.  Forgotten, yes, many times, when I've been so overburdened I've felt as though I couldn't take another step.  But gone?  No.  Definitely not.

Thank you for the reminder.  I'm going to end today's OOTS session now, on a high note.   

[Eyessoblue]

Dee your words really rang true with me, that's what I'm doing, I've told my therapist she's the only one who sees the real me the weak vulnerable one trying to make sense of myself and the world, everyone else sees the lively vibrant girl full of make up and so much to talk about, making people laugh. It's exhausting then I get home take my make up off sober up and become that lonely little girl again. I was convinced I had a personality disorder which I've been confirmed I haven't, she's just said that that Little girl was lost at a little girl therefore I have had no sense of self and have had to act out every day that I'm fine, I'm ok as in please don't ask me as I don't know what to say, not that I am ok. Only now in my 40's am I through therapy starting to re establish the real me and it's hard as I don't always recognise who I really am or supposed to be, but I'm slowly starting to find it, hard as it is.

[samantha19]

I feel this recently. I was a very active, energetic, sporty kid. I lost a lot of that. I think doing the things I loved as a child would help me. That's why I'm considering playing football again.
I feel like my life was stolen from me at about 10 or 11. Probably before then too but that's when I remember things getting really bad.
I've been reintegrating or something recently, and I feel like me from back then (about 10 / 11) has been added back into who I am - like memories have been coming back and I feel like that's me again. I think I was quite severely fractured and dissociated for a long time, I almost felt childhood-less - lost and floating.
So yeah, I think in that sense having childhood me back to an extent is helping. It's not easy but I'm so glad to feel real again etc. And I'm looking forward to doing the things I actually like(d). It's hard to put it into words but it feels good. I think it feels like loving myself and coming back / home to myself.

[BlancaLap]

I think I get what you're trying to say. Some sort of like the "I want to be myself again, like the person I was before... *trauma*" that people with "Simple" PTSD says. To think about the personality we had when we were young, the energetic, optimistic child we were, before we buried that personality under a hundreds of masks,... that a really beautiful idea, to be who we were.