Tag: Self-Erasure

Self-Erasure describes the progressive loss, suppression, or abandonment of one’s own needs, voice, boundaries, preferences, perception, agency, or identity in order to preserve relationship, safety, belonging, or compliance.

Within the Captivity Lens, self-erasure may develop when differentiation is punished, usefulness is compulsory, refusal carries consequence, or another person’s needs, interpretation, or authority repeatedly take priority over the survivor’s own reality.

Self-erasure is not the same as humility, service, sacrifice, or Christian surrender. Those practices remain voluntary and compatible with personhood. Self-erasure occurs when the self is treated as expendable.