Why don't you know who you are? #complextrauma

Añadido: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Why don't people from complex trauma know who they are? If you think of a child coming into the world, they have all of these competing needs and drives inside of them. So, one of the drives is to be authentic, to be who they are.

[00:00:15]But, they also have a a need to be loved, to be accepted, to connect with other people. But, bring that in complex trauma. The child comes into an unhealthy situation, and they decide to be authentic, but that doesn't work so well for them. They're punished or laughed at or teased or criticized for parts of who they are when they're authentic. And so, what they quickly realize is if I want to be loved, if I want to connect with people, I have to hide who I am. And so, I have to learn how to wear masks. I have to learn how to sense what other people want from me and become what they want, be a chameleon. I have to adopt different roles in situations so that people will like me, respect me, and want to be my friend. And so, very early on, they have this core belief that develops, I can't be who I am, I have to be somebody else.