Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 73 - When Trauma Becomes Your Identity | Who Am I Really? (Part 1)

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EP 73 - When Trauma Becomes Your Identity | Who Am I Really? (Part 1) · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

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  Trauma changes people. We know that.
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  We know that. Trauma changes how people think,
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  how they react, how they trust, how they love.
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  We know trauma leaves marks, but there's something that people
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  talk less about. See, trauma doesn't just change
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  behavior. Sometimes it also changes
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  identity. Sometimes the wound becomes the
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  lens. And slowly, quietly, without
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  even realizing it, people stop seeing themselves apart from
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  what happened to them. The betrayal becomes a story.
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  The abandonment becomes a story. The loss becomes the story.
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  The rejection becomes the story. The failure becomes the story
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  and over time, pain stops being something that they experienced
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  and it becomes who they believe they are.
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  Today we're talking about trauma identity.
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  What happens when pain becomes your name?
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  Welcome to Unmasked, where we take off the filters and get
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  real about faith, failure, healing, and finding freedom.
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  I'm your host, Wesley Farnsworth, and today we're
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  beginning a brand new miniseries called Who Am I Really?
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  Over the next 5 episodes, we're going to be talking about
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  identity, but not at the surface level.
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  Not personality traits, not strengths, but the deeper
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  question, who am I really? Because a lot of people are
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  living from identities they never intentionally chose.
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  Pain chose it. Success chose it.
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  Survival chose it. Expectations chose it.
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  And somewhere along the way, they stopped asking whether
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  those identities were actually true.
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  And so did. And so today we're going to
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  start with the trauma identity, when pain stops being a part of
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  the story and it becomes the story itself.
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  So take a breath, pull up a chair, and let's get real.
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  This is unmasked. See, when people hear the word
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  trauma, they often think of major events.
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  They think of abuse, loss, violence, major betrayal.
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  And yes, trauma can include those things.
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  But trauma can also be quieter. It can be repeated rejection,
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  growing up unseen, constant criticism, feeling unsafe
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  emotionally, being abandoned, living in chaos, having to grow
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  up too fast. See, trauma isn't only about
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  what happened. Sometimes it's about what should
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  have happened but didn't, and that love that wasn't there, the
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  affirmation that never came, the safety that never existed, the
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  encouragement that was missing, the experiences like that.
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  And those experiences shaped people not just emotionally but
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  identity wise. Because pain always asks
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  questions, Am I safe, am I lovable?
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  Can I trust people, Do I matter, Am I enough?
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  And if those questions go unanswered long enough, then
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  pain starts to answer them. So one of the hardest things
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  about trauma is that it teaches survival.
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  And survival is not bad. Survival is what keeps us alive,
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  but the problem comes when survival becomes identity,
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  because the skills that protected you in one season can
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  imprison you in another. Maybe hyper vigilance protected
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  you once, but now you struggle to trust.
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  Maybe independence protected you once, but now you isolate.
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  Maybe shutting down emotionally kept you safe, but now
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  connection feels impossible. Maybe people pleasing kept
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  conflict low, but now you don't know who you are.
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  Maybe always being strong got you through hard seasons, but
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  now vulnerability feels dangerous.
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  The coping strategy survives even if the danger is gone.
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  And eventually you stop asking what happened to me and you
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  start believing this is who I am.
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  See, trauma creates labels. Not intentionally, but
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  naturally. It creates labels like I'm the
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  abandoned one, the broken 1, the anxious 1, the unwanted one, the
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  difficult one, the one that people leave.
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  And many people will never say these things out loud, but they
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  live from them. Those beliefs become filters.
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  You interpret relationships through them, opportunities
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  through them, you even interpret God through them.
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  And eventually they become invisible assumptions.
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  Not I feel rejected, but I'm rejectable.
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  Not I experienced abandonment, but I am someone people leave.
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  That shift changes everything because experiences become
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  identity. One story that always stands out
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  to me when thinking about trauma identity is Gideon.
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  When we first meet him, he isn't standing confidently in
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  leadership. He's hiding.
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  He's threatening. He's threshing wheat in a wine
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  press. Because the Midianites had
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  oppressed Israel for years. They had stolen crops, destroyed
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  resources, and left people living in fear.
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  Israel wasn't just struggling, they were traumatized, and
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  Gideon had learned to survive inside that reality.
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  Then the Angel appears to him and says something shocking.
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  The Angel says, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior.
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  Why don't you think about that for a moment?
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  Because Gideon isn't hiding. Because Gideon is hiding.
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  He's afraid. He's feeling small, yet here an
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  Angel is saying that God is calling him a mighty warrior.
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  And of course, Gideon. He immediately pushes back and
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  he says my clan is the weakest and I am the least in my family.
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  See, that response matters because Gideon doesn't just
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  describe his situation, he's describing himself.
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  Fear has become his identity. Oppression became his identity.
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  Limitation had become identity. Where God saw a leader, Gideon
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  saw weakness. Where God saw calling, Gideon
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  saw inadequacy. And that's what trauma identity
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  does. It teaches people to see
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  themselves through survival instead of truth.
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  The environment became the lens. The pain became the
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  interpretation. And many people, I think, live
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  there not because they want to, but because survival taught them
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  to. And this is where trauma
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  identity becomes dangerous, because trauma starts
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  interpreting life for you. You expect rejection and
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  betrayal. You expect disappointment or
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  abandonment. And when people leave you, and
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  when people love you, you brace for loss.
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  Even when life becomes safer, you still prepare for danger
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  because survival has trained you.
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  And those responses make sense, but they're not always the
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  truth. Sometimes they are protection
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  mechanisms that stayed longer than they were meant to.
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  There's a difference between living from wounds and living
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  from healing. Living from wounds says protect
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  yourself, stay guarded, expect pain, trust nobody.
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  Living from healing says move slowly, stay wise, but remain
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  open. Healing does not erase pain.
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  Healing changes its authority. The wound may remain a part of
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  your story, but it no longer drives the story.
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  The scar may still exist, but it no longer tells you who you are.
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  See, Joseph had every reason to build identity around trauma,
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  where he was rejected, soul abandoned, forgotten, falsely
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  accused, imprisoned. And yet when he finally speaks
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  near the end of his story, he doesn't define himself by what
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  happened. Instead, he defines himself by
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  what God did. What you intended for evil, God
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  intended for good. In that line, in that phrase, in
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  that saying, Joseph acknowledged pain, but he refused to build
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  his identity from it. And that's powerful, because
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  healing does not mean pretending that pain didn't happen.
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  It means refusing to let the pain define your personhood.
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  The most difficult thing about trauma, though, I think, is
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  letting go of it, because every painful identity can feel safe
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  because they become familiar. If I've always been the strong
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  one, who am I without it? If I've always been the
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  abandoned one, who am I when I when people stay?
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  If I've always been surviving, who am I when survival is no
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  longer necessary? Healing isn't just painful
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  because it asks us to release wounds.
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  Sometimes it's painful because it asks us to release our
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  identities. And that can feel like losing
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  yourself. And in reality, instead of
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  losing yourself, you may actually start finding yourself.
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  So what do we do with this? Well, first we have to tell the
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  truth. The truth about everything.
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  Not just about what happened, but what we believed because of
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  what happened. Because healing starts when
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  hidden beliefs become visible. What label have you carried?
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  What story have you been living from?
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  What pain has become your identity?
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  Because maybe you are not who trauma told you that you were.
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  Maybe you're not that label. Maybe you're not that wound,
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  that fear. Maybe you are more.
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  So let me ask you something. What happened to you that still
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  shapes how you see yourself? What labels did pain hand you?
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  What part of your identity was built in survival mode?
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  And if those labels were removed, who would you be?
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  Because maybe the question isn't what happened to me.
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  Maybe the question is what did I become because of it?
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  And is that identity actually true?
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  Think about that next time on Unmasked.
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  We're going to be talking about performance identity.
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  Because some people build identity around pain, others
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  build it around achievement, success, ministry, being needed,
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  being productive, and eventually they stop knowing who they are
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  apart from what they do. Until next time, remember this
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  pain may explain part of your story, but it was never meant to
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  become your name. You are more than what happened
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  to you, and healing begins when truth becomes louder than
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  survival and you choose to live unmasked.
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  God bless you.