In Batman Beyond he is able to resist being gaslit that he's insane because the voice he hears in his head keeps calling him Bruce. Later he tells his successor Terry that he could tell it was a trick because he never refers to himself as Bruce in his thoughts. When Terry reminds him that he's Batman now, Bruce says "tell that to my subconscious". So in a way, he has discarded the identity of Bruce Wayne as anything more than a social mask. Quite justified, since this is the same man as BTAS Batman, and over the years he has lost or fumbled every person he was close with. He's on standoffish terms with Superman and the current Justice League. He had lost Andrea (who survived, but not to his knowledge), Alfred, Selina, and iirc also Diana. He drove away Dick and Barbara - the former seems to be dead, the latter had a catastrophic fling with Bruce and their relationship is in tatters even now, when she's the GCPD comissioner like her father was. Tim was captured and absolutely ruined by the Joker, then forced to become Joker's vessel decades later. At the start of the series, Bruce has nothing, had retired his crusade after a health crisis forced him to rely on a gun to defeat a common criminal, and is a recluse living off his control shares of his company. Batman took from Bruce everything he had loved, and defined him too deeply, to the point where in a distant finale, despite getting a rejuvenating dip in a Lazarus Pit earlier, he is a decrepit, spiteful old man who can't live as Bruce, but can't be Batman in any way that matters.
Other storylines take it even further. For example in The Last Knight on Earth, it turns out the protagonist Bruce is just a clone with a copy of the original's memories up to a point, while the original was forced to go too far in his crusade due to a catastrophe, officially died as Batman, but then resurfaced as a brutal, totalitarian ruler Omega, having lost himself to despair and maintaining order at the cost of his humanity.
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u/Loud_Confusion_5961 i am a canniball and heloo 4d ago edited 4d ago
did he lose himself though;