In this post, I explore how self-erasure can develop and lead to the inability to advocate for oneself. Remember that you are important. Your life matters.
Adolescence is a socially acceptable period for discovering one’s identity. However, understanding oneself is a lifelong process even for the best character judges amongst us, because we are continually evolving. But what happens when the idea of ourselves doesn’t emerge beyond blurry, distant images? What do we do when the grip we had on ourselves feels like its unfurling from our consciousness and receding into a place that’s impossible to access? As unlikely as these scenarios might sound for some, self-erasure is a real problem that leads to a loss of self and an inability to advocate for one’s livelihood.
Self-erasure can cause people to feel fraudulent in their skin, leading to them questioning their worth and value. It serves to undermine one’s identity and staunch the ability to advocate for oneself and assert basic wants and needs. This kind of self-defeating attitude can emerge due to many different reasons. It can stem from serious issues such as mental health disorders, childhood abuse, and abusive relationships. When a person begins to feel as though they are helpless and incapable of agency, they can start to lose grasp on their identity. At times this occurs due to being in the shadow of a dominant personality. Being subject to the dominance of someone else can cause a person to lessen their shine if they don’t have a strong grasp of who they are. Groups that are marginalized and discriminated against also run a higher risk of internalizing the negativity they receive.
The roots of self-erasure can stem back to childhood. Abused children often have the importance of self-sacrifice to meet the needs of the adults around them instilled in them. While it’s necessary to care for others, it is not the responsibility of the child to attend to the adult. Being forced into this position can lead to a child failing to develop a sense of caring for himself or herself. A failure to resolve this childhood neglect can develop into the child undermining the importance of advocating for their own needs. It’s also very likely that victims of childhood neglect don’t even know how to advocate for themselves. People who are more likely to erase themselves and undermine their importance include those who are people-pleasers, self-destructive, lack proper boundaries, and those who are too focused on self-sacrifice. These behaviors can develop due to a lack of love, forced suppression of emotions, and emphasis on serving others before the self.
Self-erasure is also something that can develop after adolescence. Many people enter into abusive relationships as happy, well-developed, jubilant individuals. Withstanding repeated abuse, disrespect, emotional neglect, and a loss of agency can sadly reduce people to a shell of who they once were. They might look in the mirror and find themselves unable to recognize the person they’ve become. Due to the manipulative and complicated nature of abuse, they can also feel powerless to reclaim the person they once were. When people diminish into themselves, they run the risk of erasing who they are. Abuse victims are plagued often by feelings of intense shame and unworthiness, which can cause them to neglect themselves and fail to recognize their worth. In the case of imposter syndrome, people can feel like frauds in their bodies and suffer from overwhelming guilt that they don’t deserve happiness, love, and/or success. In most cases of self-erasure, the person ultimately fails to recognize his or her worth and view themselves as less deserving than those around them.
As important as it is to advocate for others, especially in the current times, it is equally necessary to advocate for oneself. Don’t allow your identity as a wife or a father or a corporate employee to overshadow your identity as an individual, or you might start to neglect caring for yourself. While it’s true that individuals won’t have much of an impact on the world in the scheme of things, what we do affects ourselves and the people around us. The importance of retaining and cherishing a sense of self should not be undervalued. Regaining a sense of oneself through therapy, meditation, and distancing from negative influences is crucial to achieving sustainable happiness. Remember an important inflight rule: you need to put on your oxygen mask before you help others with theirs.