At least once in our life we promise that we're going to start new and completely reinvent oneself (commonly a goal that most people make on New Year's Day). This usually entails drastically changing the choices one makes and how one thinks. Unfortunately, I personally have seen these fall short and fail. I think one reason for this phenomenon is that people don't push themselves far enough and revert back to the way things were.
What if we don't know what kind of a person we were before something happened? After something traumatic happens, a person can go into a state of being numb where a sense of personality (among other things) disappears. After distancing oneself from others and the things that used to bring a smile to their face, it can be difficult for someone to remember what it was like to feel again. You create the distance because of the fear of repeating whatever it was that may have happened. To open yourself up to those emotions and events leaves you vulnerable - a feeling most people don't particularly enjoy.
I think it's harder to come back and find yourself again after being numb for so long. Trying to reinvent yourself just because you're not happy with the way you are now is different from discovering how you once were. Instead of reverting back to the way you were, you just revert back to not feeling anything anymore. Which seems worse, feeling nothing or not liking the way you feel about something? You can change the way you choose to feel about something, but it's hard to snap out of a sense of nothingness.
After accepting that a change needs to happen, figuring out how to move forward is another hard step to the allover difficult process. In my own personal experience, I had to seek outside help to figure out how to begin to move forward. With just one or two people, I soon started with certain areas of my life and found where I can start to rediscover and change things. Some things were not what they seemed, and were also not the source of my distance like I thought they were. Finding an outside perspective helped me shape and change my own on my life and what was going on within it.
Putting in the work to actually change what is going on and how someone responds to life is the most painful part. Your eyes have been opened, you've pinpointed something to work on, and now you actually have to do something about it. It's taking that first step towards a change that you know will benefit you in the long run. You're not alone in your endeavors, nor should you be. I know I've felt alone in this journey, and the people that support me are keeping me from receding back into my shell where I think nothing can hurt me. Something that I've realized along the way: when you find yourself again, you can mold yourself into something more than what you were before. We were meant to be so much more than what we limit ourselves to.
"Take my mind, take my life
And make it yours
Mold me into something more
Say it again, say it again
I know this is not what we were made for"
-XXI, "Say It Again"
