It's Hard to "Be Yourself"...

...when you have no idea who "yourself" is.

Here is a very insightful post on how the presence of a narcissist in your life negatively affects your sense of self and how it is sometimes only possible to assess the damage after the narcissist is no longer around to minimize it. (Here's hoping PWC doesn't mind being paraphrased. Do read the entire post.)

Getting your sense of self back after a relationship with a narcissist is hard enough. But what about those of us who had no "self" to talk about before the narcissists in our lives? What about us whose characters and ideas about ourselves were shaped by narcissists? What about us with narcissistic parents? What do we go back to?

If you asked me just a month ago, I could tell you things about myself. I "knew" who "I" was. I was an over-achiever who was never quite satisfied with myself. I was masculine and not very motherly. I was rational, cold, and unemotional. I enjoyed discussions with intelligent people and eschewed talk about emotions and relationships. I wasn't necessarily happy about who I was, but I tried to accept it and spent a lot of time and energy defending and justifying "myself" to myself and others.

Then I ran across a few articles such as this one, where who I thought I was was simply explained away as an armor that some children of narcissists develop to shield themselves from the narcissistic abuse.

I don't really lack empathy. I thought I couldn't understand others and others' feelings. Actually, I couldn't understand my father's reactions, moods, and the dissonance between his words and his actions. I couldn't relate to his antics.

I'm not unfeeling. When I let myself realize that the self I thought I knew was shaped by narcissistic parenting, I unlocked the emotions that I'd kept under key. I used to stop every emotion in its inception, telling myself "Cut the crap. You know you're not really feeling sorry for that person. You just like trying to make yourself believe you're so sensitive, and emotional, and loving, just like your father and his mother did, but it's fake. You're not fake. Neither are you a really warm, loving person like your mother." I don't block emotions any more. I trust them. They're slowly and cautiously coming back.

I'm not truly unmotherly. I was very insecure about becoming a mother because I had a deep-seated belief that mothers don't matter, because mine was forced to take a back seat by my narcissistic father.

I'm not only interested in discussions. My narcissistic father, who had no religious, political, or philosophical convictions, allowed any abstract discussion to take place in our home. But little more than that. So discussions always felt "safe" to me. Also, before I admitted to myself that there was something profoundly wrong about the way I was raised, I didn't feel completely comfortable talking about personal stuff with people. Every personal conversation somehow felt superficial and fake, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I don't really need to achieve the things I thought I did. Sure, I have ambitions career-wise, but they're normal and healthy. I used to envy people who worked at a place that sounded more prestigious to my father and a few others of his generation, although it's a horrible place to work and the people there are miserable. If I was honest about it with myself, I would have actually liked to have refused to work there, so I wouldn't seem Not Good Enough for that place, but I couldn't accept it and still claim to love myself - it's a bad place to work at if you value your sanity. So, no, I'm actually not truly envious either.

So now I know a little bit about who I'm NOT. I still have no idea who I AM.

The armor that was molding me into shape is gone, and now I'm exposed, vulnerable, and - mostly formless.

I know one thing - I do enjoy being kind to the people around me. I'll take it from there, I guess.

How did you discover your authentic selves after realizing you were raised by a narcissist or two? Any advice? Please share!