Have been doing some enlightening reading today about what the psychological community dubs as "foreclosed identities." This is where you never reach the identity creation phase due to another's (usually your parents) beliefs being forcefully imposed upon you.
This is a very interesting article from a psychologist's point of view. His example is a highly religious person. I encourage you all to comment on the article and give your testimony. He seems to be dubious about how religion can impose a foreclosed identity on someone. As we all know this is a very real phenomenon.
A good quote from the article:
Being a 'foreclosed' person means that there is a real discrepancy between one's organism-values and believed-to-be-true values. Such people must continually exert effort towards keeping their commitments to their believed-to-be-true values alive, or else their organismic-values may threaten to overwhelm them. A foreclosed person is like a mermaid trying to bail water out of a leaky boat. The water is the mermaid's natural element, but she doesn't know that in her foreclosed state (having been raised by land-dwelling humans who convinced her of the badness of her hydrophillia -- yes, I know it's a stretch, but just go with me for a minute...). She expends enormous energy trying to maintain her precarious state of floating on the water (she bails and pumps to the point of exhaustion). The moment she stops bailing, however, the water level in the leaky boat will rise and ultimately she will become submerged. The tragedy (or comedy) here is that she won't drown at all. She just thinks she will.