A few days ago, a provocative post caught my eye while I was scrolling. I read it quickly and didn't think to note the creator's name, yet the core message lingered with me. The idea was something like this: "You cannot truly reconnect with your authentic self if you were raised in a coercive environment, because in such an environment your authentic self didn't even have a chance to develop-- and therefore, you now have nothing to reconnect to."
At first glance, this perspective might sound reasonable. The argument suggests that if you were systematically forced to turn away from your own voice and desires as a child, your true essence never had the space or time to form. Therefore, as an adult, there is simply nothing left inside to return to.
Let me respectfully dissent.
Many people on the path of individuation—the slow, psychological process of separating who we actually are from who we were conditioned to be—grew up in deeply narcissistic environments. If you are one of the "lucky" ones who had a parent or guardian like this, you already know the cost. You were molded to fulfill their desires, their expectations, or their unlived lives instead of your own. And often, they didn't even need to voice these expectations directly—you learned to sense them anyway, adjusting yourself in advance to whatever you believed would win their love, aligning yourself with wishes that were never actually spoken aloud. In some cases, you have internalised their voices to the extent that they have become the first and automatic voice in your mind, quickly bringing you back onto their predetermined tracks. This might have dictated your studies, your career, your relationships, or your entire way of being in, and expressing, yourself. Now, as an adult, you are standing at a crossroads. You want to hear your own voice. You want to live a life that actually belongs to you, rather than wearing a script that someone else forced you to put on.
But that internet argument leaves a heavy shadow of doubt. You might find yourself wondering: "If I was denied the right to naturally evolve into my true self from the very beginning, does that mean it is impossible to evolve into my true self now?"
My response is a resounding no. No, it is not impossible. It is difficult, yes. It is a massive challenge. But it is not impossible.
Healing requires you to separate the loud, external voices of your past from your own quiet voice inside. Let's be precise about what does and doesn't need to grow here. Your identity—the outward shape you give to your life and the way you express yourself—develops over time growing up. (This is true for everyone, regardless of the environment they have been raised in. What can go wrong, for those of us raised in narcissistic environments, is the direction it took—shaped by someone else's compass instead of our own.) The inner voice underneath it, though, the one that holds your real desires, your true likes and dislikes, never needed to grow or evolve. It didn't need to be built. It simply was. What needs developing now is not the voice itself, but your relationship with it: learning how to listen to it again, how to trust what it tells you, and how to move past the reflexive tension you feel the moment you consider following it—the tension planted by the internalised voice of your abuser, always ready to insist that this hobby, that job, this way of dressing, is useless, ridiculous, or beneath you.
This is an important distinction to hold onto: what your environment shaped, molded, and coerced was never your true self. It was the false identity you built around it—the persona assembled, plank by plank, for the sole purpose of securing the love and approval of the people who controlled your world. That persona absolutely bears the fingerprints of your upbringing. Your true self does not.
That voice has always been there.
If you look back closely, it already spoke to you in the quiet corners of your childhood—and it often revealed itself in contrast to your environment, not because of it. Perhaps your family gathered around one kind of story every night, yet something in you came alive the one time you stumbled onto something else entirely—a spark that had nothing to do with what you were being shown, and everything to do with who you already were. It was there in the games you loved to play when no one was watching, the types of movies you secretly leaned toward, or the stories that made your chest tighten with wonder, only to be told afterward that such things were silly, impractical, or a waste of your time.
It was there in those fragile moments when you were just doing what felt good—dancing, dressing a certain way, talking about a new interest—only to be instantly ridiculed, shamed, or scolded with inexplicable rage.
Even if you gave up, surrendered, and did what you were told just to survive, that pilot light never actually went out. And you don't need a perfect memory of when it first flickered in order to find it again. If you can't clearly recall a "before," you can still reach it in the present, through the body rather than through the mind. Ask yourself a simple question—do I like this? how does this make me feel?—about something small, right now, and then wait. Not for an answer in your thoughts, which are still crowded with old voices, but for a signal in your body: a loosening, a warmth, a lightness, or their opposite—a tightening, a heaviness, a retreat. That felt sense, patiently practiced, will gradually lead you back to the same place those childhood memories point to, even without the memories themselves.
Once you do, the internalised voice of the abuser will quickly pop up in your head. And this is part of the challenge. It requires separating the raw feeling of pleasure and alignment you derive from following your True Self, from the strict, authoritative diktat of that internalised voice. It also requires paying attention to the sly tricks of this voice, which tends to rationalise everything (don't do this because it's stupid, don't do that because it will be useless, keep playing it safe so your friends will still like you).
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