Some things in childhood stick with you for life. These things are such a part of you that zometimes you don't even know where they came from. It's that way with childhood abuse. You have to adapt to survive. You lose sight of yourself for awhile. For some it may be forever. You add on these characteristics, these appendages of sorts, and act the way others expect you to act. The secret makes that necessary. You have to pretend everything is all right. So, hiding your true self becomes easy. Your inner self can get lost under all those years of survival and adaptation.

Then, as an adult you continue to run the game the way you have been. Funny, that even though you have long been out of the abuse situation and may even be far from family, you still act the way you programmed yourself to act. If and when you are around family, you definitely continue to act that way because that is who you were around them and that is what they expect.

At some time, as you begin to heal, you realize that your're not happy with that. You realize you don't even really know yourself. Maybe it's that empty feeling inside that keeps gnawing away at you. You know that you want something different and you begin to tear off layers and layers of these appendages you've added. You begin to discover yourself. And part of that is discovering who you were, what your identity was in your family.

As you try to make changes in yourself, you may find, as I did, that others don't want you to change. They like things the way they always have been. But, change anyway. You owe it to yourself to be you. But don't be surprised when your family and maybe even friends don't adapt with you.

"Taking off the old and putting on the new" requires guts. Be patient with yourself. You have to try it on for size. It takes practice. But you can do it. You are worth every ounce of energy it takes. TTFN