How hurtful it can be to deny one's true self and live a life of lies just to appease others.
Quote by June Ahearn.
Children start out having spontaneous emotional desires and spiritual needs.
But,
Many times,
For a variety of reasons,
The parents can't respond to them.
The reasons could be addiction,
Physical illness,
Personality disorders,
Financial problems,
Mental health issues,
Divorce,
Whatever.
Slowly,
But deeply,
Over time,
As a direct result of this emotional neglect,
Children will start to realize that their basic need of an authentic connection with their parent is not acceptable.
Research has shown that children are very attuned to their parents' feelings and needs.
They unconsciously recognize that they need their parents' approval in order to survive.
So,
They learn at a young age to meet those needs as much as possible.
Children then becomes what Dr.
Winnicott calls compliant.
That is,
The child will adjust their behavior without even thinking consciously about it.
This conformity to their environment is the child's attempt to protect themselves from further shame or disappointment.
But it is a cover-up of the original true needs.
Dr.
Winnicott calls this the birth of the false self.
As children,
We want our parents to love us and take care of us.
We need that.
Not just the physical,
But the mental,
The emotional,
And the spiritual.
When our parents don't do this,
We try to turn ourselves into the kind of child we'll think they'll love,
And then we will receive that authentic connection we so desperately need,
Burying true feelings that probably will get in the way of getting our needs met.
We create a false self,
The person we present to the world.
When we bury our emotions,
We lose touch with who we really are,
Because our feelings are an integral part of us.
We live the rest of our lives terrified that if we let the mask fall,
We'll no longer be cared for,
Loved,
Or accepted.
All of my parents are angry,
Selfish,
Immature,
Fragile,
And inconsistent.
For a variety of reasons,
I was unnaturally and unhealthily attuned to their demands,
Sensing that I had to always comply in order to be loved and my presence tolerated.
I had to be false before I even had the chance to feel properly alive.
As a result,
Decades later,
Without knowing why,
I was dead inside.
I now understand I was forced to comply far too early.
I was obedient at the expense of my authenticity.
My false self was split off as an adaptation to immature,
Toxic parents,
Who selfishly wallowed in self-unawareness,
And they projected their needs and their misery onto me,
Even as an infant,
Rather than looking at me as a separate human being.
And this happens all the time.
The false self thought and behavior patterns stayed with me as an adult.
While they were good coping strategies that were helpful when I was little,
They were an obstacle to contentment,
Happiness,
Inner peace,
And spiritual fulfillment when I became an adult.
My false self was an artificial persona I had to create in adulthood in response to toxic parents and toxic stress in order to protect myself from re-experiencing rejection,
Trauma,
And more stress.
A false self fits in,
But out of,
Fit in out of forced compliance rather than a gentle compromise.
I was addicted to anticipating the demands of the people around me and satisfying their needs.
It was the only way I knew how to function in the world.
As with most defense mechanisms,
This was an unconscious process.
I was totally unaware that I was controlled by a false self.
My behavior did not match my words because my behavior patterns were driven by emotional wounds.
I had no capacity to be emotionally honest.
The false self consists of counterproductive self-protection methods that was created as an automatic response to emotional abuse and parental rejection that I experienced in early childhood.
But as an adult,
Not only did these self-protection methods not work,
It slowly killed me from the inside out.
Dr.
Winnicott adds that people with active false selves can go on to live perfectly successful lives,
But deep down remain unsatisfied and they feel phony.
That was me.
Often people with active false selves are overly accommodating to other people's expectations of them in the hopes of creating a connection,
But often comes across as performance-based and awkward,
Resulting in less authentic and less satisfying relationships.
That was me.
And it drove many poor career decisions on my part.
People with a strong false self persona,
Like the one I had,
Cannot live authentic,
Peaceful lives.
And they often feel depressed,
Anxious,
And empty with no idea why.
You may know or have heard about people who are successful,
Who seem to have it all,
But who are unhappy and unfulfilled.
That was me.
It is likely that people are living their lives through their false selves,
Even if they are productive,
Most if not all of the time.
Like me,
There's often a deep sense of something missing and perpetual sadness,
Even in the face of success and social gains.
The true you is who you were before abandonment,
Divorce,
Emotional abuse,
Excessive criticism,
Disappointment,
Trauma wrapped its hands around your innocent neck.
On my healing journey,
I uncovered the lies and distortions buried in my subconscious that honestly began over 100 years ago as a result of transgenerational dysfunction.
It started way before I was even a thought.
A big step in my recovery and undoing all the damage was to be brave and get emotionally honest with myself by facing the grief and the rage.
After that,
I began to see myself clearly for the first time.
We are supposed to adapt to roles that are best suited to the authentic personalities we were born with.
We are all,
Of course,
Born with a unique personality.
What happens with the poisonous roles that a toxic family assigns,
Whether it's unconsciously or consciously,
Is that we get a twisted,
Distorted,
Completely inaccurate view of who we are.
And as an adult,
As long as we are still reacting to those childhood wounds and stuck with broken coping strategies,
We will be unable to get in touch clearly with who we really are.
And a lot of us remain trapped in a miserable cycle.
To reconnect with their true selves,
People need to become aware of their tendencies to satisfy other people's wants and needs at the expense of their own wants and needs.
Pay attention to when you're being hyper-reactive or very controlling.
When you become aware of these defense mechanisms and what caused them,
You will begin to unleash your true self.
We are the creators of our life experiences.
It is never the outside situation or the outside person or the outside experience that is responsible for our mental and emotional state of mind.
It is always our way of reacting to people,
To situations,
And to daily life in general.
We choose to be angry,
Sad,
Rational,
Forgiving,
Impulsive,
Or joyful.
Inner peace comes from getting rid of all those learned toxic behavior patterns and getting to know who you really are.
Knowing who you are starts with knowing where you came from and how and why you got here.
Discovering your true self means facing and dealing with the damage from a toxic childhood and then learning strategies to re-parent yourself.
It means starting and staying on a healing journey by becoming aware of the defense mechanisms you acquired and the root cause of your dysfunctional behavior and unlearning all those behaviors so you can find inner peace,
Spiritual fulfillment,
And happiness and contentment by discovering who you were meant to be.
This is Tammy Atman with The Stuck Stops here.
I am not a therapist.
I am not a life coach.
I have no clinical training.
I just want to try to be the resource for others that I needed during the most darkest of days.
