The Reflection

"Who am I?"

These are three words that people often ask themselves from time to time, usually when they are wondering where they fit in. However, for me, it was a completely different story.

In 1998 I spent almost six months sleeping on a bench or in the seating shelters in Peasholme Park in Scarborough, U.K.

This wasn't the only place I had stayed while I was homeless; I had slept in shop corners, on pavements, on grassy verges, and in many unsafe places whilst being homeless and vulnerable with mental health problems after escaping my previous hometown due to repeated cycles of domestic and community violence. I won't go into details here, but much of my past is reflected in this article below:

During that time, I was alone with no friends or family to look up to, and I forgot who I was.

Winter was the hardest as temperatures in Scarborough often dropped below freezing. I had to battle biting cold temperatures, icy winds, snow, severe rain and hail, and winds that often reached gale force; all while trying to defend myself from rape and other assaults that the homeless are faced with.

I saw many people die, and I am lucky that I wasn't one of them.

I went without food and drink for many long months. When I was admitted to the hospital, I lost so much weight and had severe hypothermia and I was lucky that I didn't die.

In Peasholm Park there was a big lake, and whilst I was there I would go to the lake and stare at my reflection. I would ask myself

"Who am I?" over and over.

The truth was, I had no idea who I was, or where I had come from. Trauma had taken over, as had the battle to survive.

My world had become a constant case of

Fight or flight.

When you're living on the streets and constantly fighting the weather and having to defend yourself from being attacked all the time, you lose the world that you once knew. Your old life fades, and you lose your sense of self.

My admission to the hospital wasn't easy either. I lost consciousness for a while in the ambulance, and I couldn't remember who I was in the ambulance or during my admission. I do remember that it took four members of staff to hold me up because I was so weak, and that they asked for my name, age, and address and they wanted to know about my family and whether I had any children.

I couldn't answer any of them, not only because I had no idea; but also because I couldn't remember having children, as they had been looked after elsewhere long before I had ended up in Scarborough due to the traumatic events I had been going through.

When I awoke on my first full day at the hospital, I kept myself in my dorm. I was scared of myself and everyone around me, I was also scared of my surroundings and confused.

It was like walking through a very thick fog. I could see shadows of myself, everyone, and everything around me, but I couldn't make sense of anything or of who I was.

It took weeks before I could recognize things such as books, and television. I knew what music was, but that was all I knew; so I used music for comfort.

A kind man (now my husband, mentioned in some of my other articles) reached out to help me. However, it was a long time before I remembered who I was, even when my name was mentioned, and quite a while before I developed enough trust to let him help me fully.

I started going out a little more with this man, though even with him at my side I would still question my identity. Then came another problem:

I kept splitting.

As I started to recover, I found myself seeing two versions of who I was:

• The version I had been taught by my abusers.
• The version that felt like me, but in my perception didn't feel like me.

I found it hard to retain a proper personality whilst trying to work through these versions because time on the streets and having to fight to survive for lengthy periods of time severely deteriorates your actual personality, and instead, you end up having to identify your normal patterns of behavior and self from those you were taught by your abusers.

Breaking a pattern like this one while trying to find yourself is extremely difficult. I have no memory of who I was growing up before the trauma, all my past memories are of trauma, and the past me before the trauma that my family remembers is not the person I remember at all; in fact, I remember motherhood but I didn't remember that until many years later, and I have no memory of my younger years other than going through trauma full stop.

It is more traumatizing when people try to force me to remember things they remember because those things have been erased from my mind like a rubber permanently erases a pencil mark or a computer wiping its memory, so I'm asking everyone to stop. I can remember the trauma and I can remember my present. I remember parenting during the good times and after the bad though there is a large gap where there was trauma, and it is those times I do not remember. I do not remember much at all about my teen/childhood years other than the negative side.

Allow me to explain...

After the trauma, I had to bring up the child inside me in order to become an adult, and I had to develop a new sense of identity as my old identity had been erased.

I had to:

• Learn healthy new behaviors while undoing old behavior patterns brought on by my abusers and past trauma that wasn't serving me well.
• Learn new hobbies and interests because I was only aware of one hobby, music.
• Develop my own personality, as my personality as everyone else knew it did not exist to me.
• Develop new friendships because old friendships as known in my childhood were not 'friendships' as I remembered them anymore. Some people had become strangers to me, just like some family as my brain no longer sees it that way or simply does not recall certain people from the past.
• Learn basic skills such as cooking, cleaning, dressing, eating, haircare, body care, makeup, and health care as I no longer knew how to do these things.
• Develop my own thoughts, feelings, and emotions because I had no idea what these were.
• Discover my own strengths and weaknesses because when you have been through trauma after trauma, you forget what you can and cannot do
• Become self-aware, develop boundaries, and learn who I was as well as try to become comfortable with myself as I had no idea about these things, due to constant trauma.

Working on yourself in this way is not easy. I often slipped back into trauma, split into two different personalities, then bounced back and forth on a regular basis.

I had to be consistent and disciplined which isn't something a person who has been through so much can do overnight.

The hardest part of recovering my identity was standing up to re-victimization, which I was often blamed for bringing on the violence by being violent.

I had to change my perception of myself in order to see the truth which is:

I was never the violent or crazy one people made me out to be. I was the victim who was getting hurt, and the fighter who had to fight to survive the trauma mostly by herself.

Reflecting on today.

If I was standing by that lake looking at my reflection today, I'd praise myself for the hard work I have put into becoming the strong, caring, independent woman I have become. I would give myself credit for surviving a journey that many wouldn't survive, and if I could, I'd reach for my reflection and give myself a big hug.

People, especially those working in trauma need to be aware that homelessness and abuse change a person so much that they may not be able to write a life story, because they may only remember the trauma and who they are today, but not who they were before it. We do have blueprints on our brains, but sometimes those blueprints can be damaged just like a painting. A person may not remember dates, times, or places where the trauma occurred, and in some cases, they may not remember all the positives or their identity before it. It is often better to work with the present; allowing a person to talk about what they do remember whether good or bad if they want to or need to, without forcing them to remember what they don't remember and, allowing them to develop who they are from where they are now.

It can be more harmful to try and force a traumatized person to remember events that they do not recall, especially if their identity has been wiped out by trauma. It is healthier to allow them to work on where they are now, and allow them to develop who they are in the present moment.

It is healthier simply to be here now, rather than be in the past.