Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
When we are voiceless, who are we really?
BlueTopaz:
CJ, I have depersonalization several times, and have for about 15 or so years. It comes & goes.
I think identity is something so many struggle with. For me, I have this sense of duality.
I know who I am personally, for myself, but I don’t have a strong sense of who I am when it comes to being out in the world, and interacting with others, if that makes sense. To me, these two things are very different, and I am trying to make them the same. Just to always be the “me” I am in my moments alone.
I don’t quite know why “me” gets lost so easily when I venture out into the world? Perhaps a lack of confidence in being accepted for who I am is a part of it. I know I think somewhat differently than the masses & am definitely a non-conformist.
I have the feeling that I am my authentic self in certain close relationships, and also have small glimpses of it when communicating with others. Most of the time I feel like I’m putting on a persona that has remnants of the “real me” in it, but is mostly made up of
my fears, and ways of acting that are more mechanical, that I think are acceptable for that situation.
Bunny—I really like the idea of starting small, with simple things. This method works so well with many things, and I think it would be great to use with identity. Sometimes it can be that one starts at the most heated point with such complex questions, becomes burned out within 15 min., and doesn’t want to address the darn thing again because it was just too exhausting and confusing!
I’d like to try to look at some small preferences I have when out in the world dealing with others…
BT
OnlyMe:
I am new, here, and was just reading this because it is something I am struggling with, as well.
Here's a thought : It is hard to know who we really are, because we have had to mirror back to our nparent exactly what they wanted us to say or do, or suffer the consequences. We were not only voiceless, but invisible as well. I find that i have spent so much of my life trying to say and do the right thing, because if nmother is happy, I am safe. We become automatically programmed to say and do what the nparent needs. Then, when we are alone, we can revert to being true to ourselves, for a short while. We have missed out on all that normal interaction that most people have, and so it is harder for us to be with people for any length of time, because the casual open, trusting interaction with others is foreign to us. We have been told, so many times, that our ideas are stupid, wrong, irrelevant, that is sometimes hard to know what we really feel or really think. Does that sound familiar?
BlueTopaz:
--- Quote --- Does that sound familiar?
--- End quote ---
Hi Only Me,
I didn’t have an N parent, but conditions were that I felt voiceless and invisible as you describe, and I also got the message that my ideas were not valued at all.
I do indeed think this affected my level of self confidence, and the maintenance of a strong identity when I am relating with others.
I also relate to the difficulty in having trusting interactions because I secretly wonder whether the other person is judging my ideas a stupid or "wrong", just as I felt as a child.
It is getting less with age (in my 30's) though thankfully! I have no idea what, why how it happens, but in many cases one just begins to care less about what other people might think, and to take less junk from others, as you get older.
I have only heard so much more to the contrary of my feared inner voices. Isn't it something how deeply ingrained our parents messages become, to endure so many years later, and in the face of so many other people and things pointing to the opposite....
My own mother (the source of the initial insecurities) has even praised me in this manner many times as an adult, but yet it is still her voice of decades ago when I was a child, that I hear louder! Incredible.
OnlyMe:
Thank you, BT for being there! Yes, the voice of the mother seems to be too strong, and it has a power that I still can't explain. But the emotions attached to her criticisms, or worse, to the fact that she doesn't hear or see me, are nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. Intellectually, I know not to absorb her cruelty, but emotionally, I feel like a little kid again, and regress to becoming voiceless and invisible. Logically, I look at her, and wonder how on earth a little old lady can wield such power over me, but somehow, she does.
It is so exciting to get glimps of our authentic self, and I know when I am being true to myself, because it really feels different from mirroring the nparent's expectations. It feels wonderful to be able to just be 'me'.
My friend suggested I find a chat room. Can't keep dragging my kind husband through all this morbid stuff, day in and day out.
So glad to find you all.
DenmarkGuy:
--- Quote from: BlueTopaz ---
I know who I am personally, for myself, but I don’t have a strong sense of who I am when it comes to being out in the world, and interacting with others, if that makes sense. To me, these two things are very different, and I am trying to make them the same. Just to always be the “me” I am in my moments alone.
--- End quote ---
That continues to be the real challenge, for me. And for many others, it seems. The process of bringing the innerself into alignment with the outerself is such a difficult one.
At some point, I came face to face with a question, a "choice point." And I had to ask myself if I was really here on this planet to live out someone ELSE's idea of "my life," or my OWN idea. And that allowed me to start the process of (inwardly) going from just being a "colorless void" to being "someone." And I have done a pretty good job of "Defining me." In isolation.
But then comes the next step. Taking that identity into the world, and not "selling out." But it hasn't really been about not selling out, as much as it is about realizing that you're taking a "new identity" into an "existing paradigm." I have a "life infrastructure" based on voicelessness-- and how do I (can I?) take a voice into that environment? I suddenly become very jarring with my surroundings. So then the question becomes one of whether I just "throw everything out" and start over from scratch. Tell my work, my friends, my life, my relationship "goodbye," move to a new city and start over in a place where I have no "history" and nobody knows me. There's a certain joy in entertaining such a thought, while at the same time it also feels like "running away."
--Peter
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