Angela, what you’ve described is actually very common among survivors who spent years adapting to survive family dynamics. When a child learns that acceptance depends on meeting other people’s expectations, the “performance” can become so automatic that it feels like a personality rather than a survival strategy.

One of the difficult parts of recovery is discovering that healing is not only about understanding what happened, but also about gradually learning who you are when you no longer have to earn safety through perfection, compliance, or people-pleasing. That process can feel uncomfortable and uncertain, but it is also where authentic identity begins to emerge.

Thank you for sharing your experience and for reading the article.

After a malignant narcissistic father and a covert mother I thought I was the problem. It turns out I was the scapegoat. But having being diagnosed cptsd and having had nearly 3 years therapy I keep finding myself with the wrong friends for me. I think aha I’ve got it only ti find I haven’t and just found out the fawn loop is at bottom of this!
I feel like I don’t know who I really am? It affects all my social interactions because there I had to “perform” and be the perfect daughter. I have been told I’m wearing a mask but how to find the real me I don’t know, I only know how to perform, it’s pure theatre 🎭. Thank you for shedding light on this difficult problem as it does feel likes it’s my personality!