Does Anyone Else Feel Like The Variance Of Their Physiological State Can Feel Like Identities?

[Peatogenic]

Not as in distinct personalities, but more in the sense of confusion of ungrounded identity..

 

[Mauritio]

Yes. At some point I realized many things we think of as character traits and flaws are actually hormonal patterns that we are stuck in .
Sometimes I even wonder if there's sth like a personality, but I think there is .
how it shows is just very much influenced by our metabolism .

 

[Peatogenic]

Yes. At some point I realized many things we think of as character traits and flaws are actually hormonal patterns that we are stuck in .
Sometimes I even wonder if there's sth like a personality, but I think there is .
how it shows is just very much influenced by our metabolism .

Thank you. The outside environment of our body can influence metabolism as well.

 

[Mauritio]

Thank you. The outside environment of our body can influence metabolism as well.

Yes of course, so much . E.g. emf , ornate we stimulated enough ? And so on . Repetitive patterns / routine causes serotonin to rise.

 

[Dobbler]

Absolutely. I'd give anything to transfer my current knowledge to 16 year old me. I was autistic and retarded as hell and only through diet and supplements i have managed to change that.

 

[Sofia]

Personality is based a lot on health or sickness.

 

[Kingpinguin]

I feel that growing up and how you are raised are the major part of most people and their identities. But then how you present yourself and things like your motivation etc are also highly dependent on many other factors beyond how you was raised. To many factors involved. But most people tend to act similair as previously in social situation.

 

[opethfeldt]

I'm almost a different person depending on my hormone balance. Others remark about it. I could be totally fun and cheerful and outgoing or completely quiet, antisocial and shy depending on hormonal factors.

 

[methylenewhite]

Depersonalization. I have already separated feeling of myself and my body. I have different personality but my sick body could not sustain desired activities of myself. Feeling locked in your body is a doom. Like Otep said you can't escape meathooks of the reality. That metaphor of meathooks keeping you tight is that deep. Desperate desire to get back to that good feeling and joyful life I experienced few times briefly. Whatever it takes? Unfortunately I'm already at this point, capable of doing whatever it takes, and it's scary.

 

[Literally]

Abnormal psychology can tell one a lot about normal psychology. Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is quite real. And that suggests even normal people tend to have different parts.

There is also the fact that you can sever the corpus callosum, preventing the left and right hemisphere of the brain from communicating directly, and most people function just fine unless, for example, the two eyes are seeing different things.

All of this suggests that minds are, compositionally, holographic. IMO thinking in terms of different parts can be worthwhile. I do not believe thinking in terms of "hormonal personalities" is really getting at this. I'm not saying it's invalid... hormonal states do seem associated with sets of personality traits. I'm suggesting that's still not the right "units" to be thinking about these internal parts with.

I think a better way to think about internal parts may be with respect to particular goals and levels of consciousness. Sometimes were are short-term thinkers who want direct pleasures. Sometimes we are thinking about things like what we can do for our future selves / families / humanity. Different goals and time orientations seem to invoke different sub-personalities. Again, I can see hormones coming into play here, but as a cross-cutting aspect. Because I think many people could be said to have different parts corresponding more to different concrete parts of their lives: work-self, hobby A-self, hobby-B self, child care self, etc. It makes a lot of sense that the brain would separate different modes of thought, contextually. It would also makes sense for this to be done on a pragmatic/experiential basis, i.e. clustering around types of concrete repeated behavior patterns in each particular person (like a personality-level version of k-means clustering).

A somewhat different view of internal parts comes from IFS (internal family systems) therapy. It's one of those things that seems wacky at first, but I think it can really be helpful as a paradigm for thinking about "the self". See Center for Self Leadership, IFS Therapy Training (Official Site)

 

[Peatogenic]

Abnormal psychology can tell one a lot about normal psychology. Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is quite real. And that suggests even normal people tend to have different parts.

There is also the fact that you can sever the corpus callosum, preventing the left and right hemisphere of the brain from communicating directly, and most people function just fine unless, for example, the two eyes are seeing different things.

All of this suggests that minds are, compositionally, holographic. IMO thinking in terms of different parts can be worthwhile. I do not believe thinking in terms of "hormonal personalities" is really getting at this. I'm not saying it's invalid... hormonal states do seem associated with sets personality traits. I'm suggesting that's still not the right "units" to be thinking about these internal parts with.

I think a better way to think about internal parts may be with respect to particular goals and levels of consciousness. Sometimes were are short-term thinkers who want direct pleasures. Sometimes we are thinking about things like what we can do for our future selves / families / humanity. Different goals and time orientations seem to invoke different sub-personalities. (Again, I can see hormones coming into play here, but as a cross-cutting aspect.)

Another fascinating view of internal parts comes from IFS (internal family systems) therapy. It's one of those things that seems wacky at first, but I think it can really be helpful as a paradigm for thinking about "the self". See Center for Self Leadership, IFS Therapy Training (Official Site)

Thanks, I see what you're getting at. I've researched IFS somewhat heavily but not practiced it. However, a lot of the effects of IFS that are described, such as unblending and discovering the wise Self I had actually experienced prior to finding IFS....through hormone therapy as well as bodyweight therapy for dissociation. I kind of just assumed that this feeling of "parts" unblending was a byproduct of my dissociation therapy, which was focused only on reconnecting body with "brain", but apparently IFS achieves the same or similar strictly processing parts, talking about stuff. When I started to see the Self it was so vivid, and an almost exact match to how IFS describes a Self. Which was validating. But it's also led to so many questions of what's actually going on here.

 

[Literally]

Thanks for sharing. It seems to me that splitting of these kinds of parts is a coping mechanism, or it can become one. More basically it may just be a means of organizing our mental states. Trauma seems to induce an over-splitting of parts. Like the mind says, "I'll come up with a mode just for this flavor of trauma... and that one! And that one" in more extreme cases. That kind of splitting doesn't necessarily benefit one in the long term.

It does seem possible to merge parts back and take a more holistic view. This kind of thing may seem very far out to those who have not had certain experiences. I am not able to share my experience with a person with DID here but I know massive progress is possible in terms of integrating split parts.

Yes another angle on this -- which again I think has a totally different mechanism -- is time. Do you love and support the person you will be in 1 month? 1 year? Are these the "same" person? My personal experience suggests that coming to see different versions of oneself, separated by time, as more of the "same" person and learning to love that future person is healing.

 

[Peatogenic]

Thanks for sharing. It seems to me that splitting of these kinds of parts is a coping mechanism. While it's there for a good reason an over-splitting of parts doesn't necessarily benefit us long term and it does seem possible to merge parts back and take a more holistic view. This kind of thing may seem very far out to those who have not had certain experiences. I am not able to share my experience with a person with DID here but I know massive progress is possible in terms of integrating split parts.

I've read the book. I've kind of been in both camps, if they can even be split....but I also question some of the dissociative models, remaining skeptical. I definitely feel a resonance with "parts" I just don't know what they truly are yet, and I don't really experience that going in and out fragmentation much anymore via triggers. When I do, it's much more mild and I have difficulty discerning if it's anything more than a stress response/hormone profile change. Plus, I've not had any concerted "trauma processing" in a psychotherapy setting, where the focus has been to focus on traumatic events. I kind of understand how the dissociative models perceive them, but not in great depth. I recently returned to my trauma specialist and I think this could be something to really pinpoint.

As far as the "correct units", I totally resonate with that word choice, in that "parts" seem to have a very specific kind of "unit". Nevertheless, it also resonates because I've perceived my experiments with hormones to actually work in those units as well. But it's pure perception/anecdotal.

It'd be awesome if any others have experienced manipulation of "parts" via hormone profiles changing.

 

[ebs]

I'm almost a different person depending on my hormone balance. Others remark about it. I could be totally fun and cheerful and outgoing or completely quiet, antisocial and shy depending on hormonal factors.

I can very much relate to this. And it suprises me how much of a difference it can make on my surounding. It makes me cynical knowing how a simple change in mood can result in being either treated with respect or like ***t.

 

[BearWithMe]

Absolutely. I'd give anything to transfer my current knowledge to 16 year old me. I was autistic and retarded as hell and only through diet and supplements i have managed to change that.

Would you share what dietary changes and supplements helped you the most?

 

[Arnold Grape]

I can very much relate to this. And it suprises me how much of a difference it can make on my surounding. It makes me cynical knowing how a simple change in mood can result in being either treated with respect or like ***t.

You need to reach more for Peat nirvana, lol: if the stress response can be defined by increased resilience, one can handle the worst environments, most of the time.

Meanwhile, this is something that I have been thinking a lot about in reference to gender and masculinity, as well as its manifestation in other men and how this informs behavior. In fact, once you realize hormonal fluctuations within yourself, it’s kind of fun to make deductions about the behaviors of the people around you with regards to all sorts of things. Thentbere is no end to it.

The game is also a lot more fun when you can induce or prevent specific reactions within yourself. I struggle with depression, so the experience is a lot less desirable when I cannot align the parts correctly.

*Edit* I misread the quote above and understand fully what you’re saying @ebs.