Restoring the core of identity

Written by Lois Meredith, Ph.D.

What does it feel like to be an abused man, woman, or child? When there is

harm to the body, damage is obvious. And because we have all suffered some injury on our paths to adulthood, we recognize that pain. But the pain of abuse lasts long after physical wounds have healed – assuming they have healed. Depression, anxiety, rage, grief, the feeling of inadequacy are common aftereffects.

When someone has suffered sexual abuse there may be no outward signs, but the damage is equally far reaching. For many victims of sexual abuse, one’s own body becomes a source of shame, even hatred.

It has been defiled. It is no longer a part of us that we want to own. In addition to the consequences of abuse mentioned above, the shame of being seen by others often leads to self-isolation.

Abuse of both kinds invades the very essence of what makes us a person. Abuse disfigures our identity.

What is identity? Identity is the ability to say, “This is who I am. This is what I want for myself. And this is how I’m going for it.” When we have a strong sense of identity, we possess agency, the power to make independent decisions and take appropriate actions. Abuse destroys both. We are the helpless victims of a destructive power greater than ours. What we want, what we feel, doesn’t matter.

M.I.N.E. gives abuse victims a path back to themselves. Muscle, by definition, equals strength, physical empowerment. Interestingly, the decision to do strength training tells us that a person is ready, not just to be physically stronger, but to reclaim their personhood: to go beyond mere survivor status to being a survivor with agency. At M.I.N.E. participants collaborate with trainers to create their sessions. They decide what they want to work on, how challenging they want the work to be. As they become stronger, both physically and psychologically, they move towards making more of their own decisions. They become their own trainers. Eventually they are on their own, running the show, and, over time, using their developing agency to make decisions about life.

Body and mind are healed together, restoring the core of identity.

Lois Meredith, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York. She serves on the Visiting Faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Her latest writing on grief is in the form of an audio play, When Love Speaks, available on YouTube.