On my blog entry entitled Unmet Needs after Child Abuse: Age Six to Twelve, a reader posted the following comment:
I’ve subconsciously taken on mannerisms and speech patterns (including regional accents) of other people, once I’ve been around them long enough to consider them friends. Long ago I recognized this about myself, but had no idea why or where it came from, just that it happened. Now, it makes sense! – Midge
This is a common aftereffect of child abuse called mirroring.
Abused children do not know how to interact well with other people. Their abusers (obviously) do not socialize them well. In fact, it is in the abuser’s interest if his victim does not know how to make friends. An isolated victim is much less likely to tell about the abuse.
Human beings are social creatures by nature. Because the abused child’s ability to learn how to socialize well with other children was stunted, many abused children learn how to “mirror” the behaviors and mannerisms of other children whom they want to befriend. As the saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together.” By mirroring other children, the child seems more like those children, making those children much more likely to bring the abused child into the fold.
I, personally, did not have the first clue about how to make a friend. I spent most of seventh and eighth grade sitting alone at lunch because I did not know how to make a friend. In ninth grade, a “new girl” moved to my school, and she became popular (as in well-liked, not in the snobby way) instantly. I began mirroring her behaviors and, voila, I suddenly started having friends.
Fortunately, this girl was a wonderful role model. I still hold onto many of the traits I learned from her to this day. Now that I know how to befriend others, I generally look for the person who is feeling left out and use the skills I learned from this girl to make the other person feel more comfortable. So, mirroring is not necessarily a bad thing.
The problem is when you become like a chameleon – when you only reflect the personalities of the people you spend time with and lose who you are in the process. Or, worse, you never even knew who that person was to begin with.
I used to believe that healing from the child abuse was about turning myself into a new person. I have come to recognize that healing is really about discovering who I have always been. Beneath all of the pain, shame, and mirroring has always been a unique personality that is all mine. Learning how to stop viewing myself through the distorted lens of my abusers opened me up to discovering myself.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Can totally relate. I guess im going to be the opposite soon – Very weary that i am myself and not anyone else.
I can remember all my childhood – the only kids i played with were the ones i fought with, thats all i knew.
Have a very strong memory – Im at primary school, im probably 5. Im sat on my own with mu lunch box with bread in it with butter on. Nothing else in there, no biscuits nowt. We are sat in the school hall where we have our dinner, and im sat on my own.
I can remember looking at the other kids and thinking they were so childish! I never fitted in, i cant remember having any real friends. As i got older i had people i hung around with – these people usually bullyed me and knocked me about. Most of these people died of drug over-doses later in life, and may well of been abused themselves. I knew some of them were.
I dont know if ive ever had a proper frined because im still trying to deine and understand exactually what one of them is.
Cycles i was in as a child went into teenage years and then adult – Looking back none of my ‘friendships’ ( ill use that word because i dont kniow what else to call them) have ever been ‘friendly’.
Take Care ,Simon
Sorry for bad spellings above – should learn to check first..
frined = friend
deine = define
Thank you Faith, Simon.
Re “I used to believe that healing from the child abuse was about turning myself into a new person. I have come to recognize that healing is really about discovering who I have always been. Beneath all of the pain, shame, and mirroring has always been a unique personality that is all mine. Learning how to stop viewing myself through the distorted lens of my abusers opened me up to discovering myself.”
I used to believe that healing meant locking all that “stuff” away never to be seen again. That it meant pretending that was someone else’s life you were watching. And that it meant playing at being a whole lot of other people – just not you.
But now, despite all the pain of trying to deal with the healing, there have been odd moments, glimmers, nanoseconds, when I see that there might something that’s all mine inside me somewhere. I’m scared to look and see what it actually is, but may be I’ll get there, one day.
Thank you.
When you do see that part of yourself, it will be beautiful. :0)
Take care,
– Faith
Once again, you have stated so beautifully the ultimate goal of healing–to find the hidden self we were always meant to be. A good person, a nice person, a person who would never intentionally hurt another. Our true inner humanness.
[…] imitating others, mirroring others, peer pressure I have previously written on the topic of mirroring other people’s behavior after child abuse. What do I mean by “mirroring”? People who “mirror” others will observe how another person […]
Great, now how the hell do I stop being other peoples clown, I want to be myself!
The bad thing is I mirror all the bad stuff that others do. A friend told me its because we want to understand the stuff they do so we act like them… but do we understand at all? And what if we cant understand? And what if we do, what good is it gonna do now that its long gone, and will probably never happen again?
How do I just be me? How do I stop continually looking for something, and I dont know what it is, its just like looking for a missing piece to the puzzle, and it has been going on for years! So many things I do that dont make sense in hindsight…
Cant I just live? How many lives do I get?!
I don’t want to be me, either. The uncovering and looking dead on at the truth is taking my denial/observations of the world around me and making them black and gray. I don’t read the paper anymore, and i wonder why am i still here? a lot. This feels like who i am but i’ve always been the optimistic one, the helper, the let me do it, the listener. now, i hang on from therapuke session to therapuke session hoping i will find out this is but a part of healing, and looking for ways out if it isn’t.