How to Find Yourself Again

When you have been through trauma or endured a toxic relationship, it can feel like you have lost yourself completely. The world becomes unfamiliar. You second-guess your choices, feel disconnected from your body, and the person you once were feels distant or unreachable.

But here is the truth: you are not lost. You are still there underneath the pain, the fear, and the protective walls you had to build to survive.

The Disconnection Is a Survival Response

After trauma or emotional abuse, the mind and body often disconnect as a way to cope. You may feel numb, overwhelmed, or unsure of your identity. This is not weakness it is a protective response to overwhelming stress. Recognising this is the first step in giving yourself the compassion you deserve.

Step One: Begin with Safety

Before you can rebuild yourself, you need to feel safe. This does not always mean external circumstances, but internal safety too knowing that you will no longer abandon yourself, silence your truth, or tolerate harm. Journalling, grounding exercises, and soothing routines can begin to anchor you again.

Step Two: Reconnect with Your Needs

In toxic relationships, especially with narcissistic or controlling people, your needs were likely ignored or used against you. Take time now to listen inward. What do you need emotionally, physically, creatively, spiritually? Begin to meet those needs gently, one by one.

Step Three: Rewrite the Story

Trauma tells us we are broken. It lies. You are not broken, you adapted. You survived. Begin to rewrite the story you tell yourself. You are not the person who was rejected, blamed, or controlled. You are the person who endured, who learned, and who is now rising.

Step Four: Explore Your Identity

Try small things that reconnect you with joy. Dance, paint, take a walk in nature, read, speak out loud the things you love. These moments remind you that you are more than what happened to you.

Step Five: Accept the Slow Bloom

Healing is not a straight line. Some days will feel light and freeing. Others will feel like setbacks. But even in the hardest moments, growth is still happening. You are shedding the version of yourself that survived and growing into the version who can now thrive.

You are allowed to begin again. You are allowed to be whole. The world needs the version of you who has walked through the fire and found their own way back.