Has there ever been a time in your life where you felt as though "you lost yourself"?

I think I constantly feel like I’m lost. I’m still at that age where I don’t know what to do with my life yet, and it’s just a big muddle. But I think back to the previous situations where I feel lost (about different things) and I smile and realize that it wasn’t so hard getting over those situations, and then things start to look better, because I know I’ll eventually get over this situation too.

Good luck with your situation though!

More literal than you meant, but I was hiking in the mountains a couple years ago, and didn’t really pay attention to where I was because I had GPS. The batteries in my GPS went out, and I was completely lost for 7 hours. I had no cell phone reception, and thought I was going to die out there! I finally got home, and actually found that the experience helped me find myself.
I think when we feel “lost” there is great value in moving through it, because it helps us further define who we are and our place in the world by moving through it.

I found myself in a mentally abusive relationship with a really crazy person. In hindsight, I should have just walked away, but I was young, stupid, and was really lacking in self-confidence (she preyed upon this last one to keep me). By the end, I felt I had completely lost myself, I’d given up all the parts of me that were good and made me feel whole. I used to play the flute, practice Wicca, draw, paint.. all of that completely stopped during this relationship. It got to where I didn’t really know who I was anymore.

I left the relationship and it took me a while to pick the pieces back up. I’ve had setbacks, dating some of the wrong people after the very abusive one, and I find I lose some pieces along the way. I’m now pretty sure I’ve learned that particular lesson and if I have any say in it, I won’t stay in that kind of relationship again.

About 20 years ago I felt like that so much that I packed everything up and took a 3200 mile drive to California trying to find myself again. Then I remembered that no matter where you go, there you are. Kinda strange having to go to those lengths and leave everything behind, but it was a good thing. I love it out here!
Things will get better, I think everybody may be a little stressed from the move.
Good Luck!

One day I decided to catch the Metro to school, and as I was sitting there in the back seat I sneaked a peak at the bus full of adults in their business attire. In this very moment, I realized that I wasn’t a kid anymore. It was a horrid feeling – I felt like I was five years old again, the time when I had escaped from my mother to explore the grocery store and ended up getting lost. I felt lost and completely powerless. It was only a few years ago that I was riding the bus to high school, and there I was in public transit with adults. Adults. I used to shudder at the sound of the word. While I have every intention to grow up and transcend into adulthood, part of me still wants to be a kid. Forever.

“They” say that it takes up to two years to get used to a new home after relocating. Your home is very much part of your identity so it is natural that you will feel that you have lost a piece of yourself. Take comfort in the knowledge that it will take time but you will get there. All members of the family feel the same. If you know that, it might make you feel a bit better and help you have a bit more understanding of the way everyone is reacting. Best wishes.

@MissAnthrope our stories are very similar….

It gets easier to walk away from a bad situation.

I’ve lost plenty of things, but never myself.

Sometimes Moms get the feeling they have lost themselves because it takes so much time caring for kids. It’s a wonderful “job”, but can be pretty all-consuming at times. Even though I only had one child, it felt like I was a Mom more than I was ME. But, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My son is a wonderful man now and it was an investment in his future that I consider my proudest achievement.

Yes. In 2004 I moved away from the place I’d been wanting to live since a little kid, left a good job and friends of many years. I moved to a state that makes me physical ill to do the work I enjoy and make decent money at, no friends, no family, no reliable transportation, one lousy job after another and no way to go back. I lived in a state of isolation and anger (destructive partner) for 3yrs, gained weight and couldn’t stand myself. I couldn’t imagine what kind of future I was going to have anymore tied to someone who was picking up one bad habit after another and blaming my lack of love for their impulses yet I had no means to get away. Finally I broke down and asked a family member to make a life change in order to help me, I’d never asked them for anything before but I was desperate. For almost two years I worked 6days a week in order to save enough money to squeak out a down payment on a house and in 2007 I bought one, moved my family member out and in with me and started to take my life back. It took less than 6mos. to reorient but I really did think I was all the way down to the dreggs before then.

I felt this way mostly late last year, and I’m just now feeling the wings pressing hard against the side of the cocoon, as it were.

I’d lost my job and I was in some intense personal and group therapy that was yanking out my issues like dandelions. But I’m dealing with these things one day, one moment at a time and really coming to terms with the ideas that I really am an adult, I am responsible for the way my life goes, I am free to do whatever I want if I accept responsibility for the outcome of my actions, it’s OK to challenge old implanted ideas and that I have nothing to be anxious about by living my life the way I want to.

I don’t need to live with self- or other-imposed guilts, rules or anything. And I’m coming to terms that things change all the time; that I’ll be changing, hopefully, for the rest of my life, and that that is what is supposed to happen. It would be a sad life indeed if we left it after 90+ years as the same tabula rasa as we came in.

It can be a little scary to see yourself morphing. I didn’t realize until maybe the middle of this year how long I’d held on to being a little girl, emotionally, of how I felt I was incapable of doing anything until some higher authority told me it was OK and that I wasn’t being bad and selfish. But that’s not how adults live. Adults note what desires and dreams break through to their consciousness and determine whether those dreams meet their goals for living and their values.

I didn’t realize until very recently that I was still living the values taught to me by a person who was rather unqualified to raise anyone, much less a child, and I hadn’t questioned if they were MY true values. It’s like when some poor schmuck becomes a factory manager because his dad demands it of him when he really wants to be a concert violinist. Who is he serving in such a life?

The part of me that would still like to cling to the old mindset, the old comfort zone, has been shrieking in terror at new ideas about life I’d never learnt, such as goal-setting, writing plans down, taking honest-to-Bob action about something I want to do instead of daydreaming.

I’m recognizing that I spent a lot of years giving my energy in pursuit of goals for other people and none of my own, and that my current situation is the result of all my decisions in that regard. That ratio is changing. I’ve been questioning negative thoughts, confronting self-deprecating thoughts, checking to see if the situations I’ve felt strongly about were of present things that I need to deal with or replaying past messes, and so on.

It’s a lot of work. I know my experience that I’ve recounted here is somewhat different in scope to yours. Especially when a family is going through reorganization and reassessment all at once, as I know yours is, @jmah. You will pull through. You are, right now, exactly where you need to be. It’s all good, it’s true! You will come out of this part of your life stronger, wiser, more compassionate, and ready for the next challenge. All the good things! I’ve seen that even as things have been for you lately, you’ve still got your sense of humour, and seeing that give me faith that you’ll be all right, kid! We are all stronger than we think we are. The challenges come to prove that to us.

(((((((HUGS!!!)))))))

Yes, right now. I’ve lost myself and I don’t want to find myself.

ive lost 120 lbs total… so yes

over 380 down to 260

@Xilas Wow! Good for YOU!!! Congratulations!!!

@aprilsimnel aw, you’re awesome. Thank-you. I love ya, girl.

Yes. And I got divorced. It took a long time for me to rebuild myself, but I learned to never give myself away to someone else.

Now I’m married, incredibly happy and grateful, and feel totally authentic.

@jmah – Aw, thanks.

yeah right now
i have no clue who i am anymore ive changed into something i cant recognize anymore

The past couple months have felt that way for me and I can’t explain why.

Yeah, I’m also lost right now. I can see where I want to go, but it might be a mirage. Once I start going there, I can’t go back, so if it is a mirage, I’m totally fucked.

I feel this way right now. My husband left me in June. He cheated on me and left me for one of my friends. We had been married for 9 years and I had thought we were happy together. I didn’t see this coming. It has turned my world upside down. I feel completely lost. Nothing seems right anymore. I have completely lost my sense of self at the moment. I don’t know what the future holds and it really worries me. I wish I had a map. I feel like I don’t know who I am or what I really want out of life anymore. It’s horrible. Everybody says it gets better. I hope it does…

I’m so sorry @Adina1968. That’s awful. We all go through things that hurt so much we feel like we’ll never make it through… but we do. Some day you’ll stand at the other side and think, “Wow. I made it.” I hope that day comes for you sooner than later.

@Adina1968 your friend?... and obviously they didn’t respect you at all…

that’s the perfect definition of a horrible friend