Identity Issues, Living Vicariously And "improper" Development

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I've always felt like I never developed a solid identity or personality -- more so I am just fragmented pieces over time that I try and ascribe as traits, but much so on a shaky foundation.

I think one key player in my possible (near) chronic stresses is that I have no handle on my identity, purpose, being, etc. Who am I? What should I do? It doesn't just "stick out" to me. Sure, I can know what I like and so on, but it being so broken up and various given poor health, serotonin, and just generally versatile physiological states over time that have broken up the idea of any "wholeness." Of course coupling this was a less than ideal growing environment in some ways and you have some sense of an incomplete identity.

How should you act when you've almost always refrained in some way who you are? Or "being yourself" has gotten you poor treatment in return? We want to just be, but sometimes we're encouraged to "mold" ourselves to things around us for our own sanctity and the sanctity of others -- but it can get out of hand over time. Who do you become when you live solely as an appeasement to others? And how do you gripe with this when situations and contexts do not present themselves for you to grow and develop?

I can't get a new line of development options unless there exists opportunities to do so that seem fitting. For example, I can't go back to being 12 literally and make friends or such that I never had then. It's not quite the same to try just and seek what are some of the things you may have missed developmentally (like the type of environment, nourishment, people around you and other circumstances).

In a way I have sunk in and out of a world of fantasy -- or living through a sense of others. I guess I really realize that living through others is just showing what you yourself may be lacking of, but the problem is how you obtain what you wish that you see in others. It's hard to just "let loose and do" when you're not of any specific idea of what "let loose" means given your sense of self and identity.

I mean I could go and start juggling fruit and rapping at the same time (could learn possibly), but then I'd think at the end of the day, am I "that" person? Should I visualize my tasks as a part of me intrinsically that I might subject myself to judgment or criticizing over -- or do I just try and do and not worry?

I don't want to be gradually turned in to an emotionally dead, depressed and reckless form of emptiness -- but I don't know really what I am so far as a deeper form of understand of my personality,

I've heard of borderline personality disorder, but nowadays I see illnesses differently than before due to my learning of physiological processes and other such matters as per learning of Peat and etc.

I mean I have not literally done the "Peat protocol" to a fine line since things can of course be individual, but perhaps this blends with more than just physiological state but an "underdevelopment" in a sense -- something outside that is missing in-line with my whole sense of being and understanding. Like imagine you had to pick your friends, but didn't know who you were or were like an empty shell. What would you like truly if you are unsure of who or what you are/were/should be/want to be? It's easy to say, "I like so and so or etc.," but now imagine what you like if you didn't have any gripe with who you were -- like from a blank slate as if you had your memory "wiped" in a sense. It's kind of like a need to re-live or re-learn, but a problematic measure in that you have some fears over how to approach a method through which you fully develop who you are.

Maybe this is just a sign of lots of stress and not enough neurosteroids, compromised hormones, etc.?

Kind of might ring some bells for physiological or metabolic problems, but the thing is that I'm sure there's likely no magic pill -- but of course I'll continue to try and understand this "disconnect" metabolically and through a generally relevant Peat-ish prism of sorts since anything else would likely revert to psychology which is just a whole another can of worms/dead end likely.

Like Peat says experiences can form who we are/become. What if our experiences don't constitute a sufficient sense of self/identity?
 

golder

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Great post. I'll be following this thread extremely closely as this is exactly what's going on with me at the moment. In fact, I just asked this question to Jodelle who is having a podcast with Ray very soon. Fingers crossed, I hope she gets to ask him: "Hello, Ray. I've been hypometabolic for many years and I've noticed that I display many symptoms of a Personality Disorder. Whilst I'm aiming to improve my metabolism, is there anything else I can do alongside this to help?".

Keep an eye on Jodelles next podcast to see if he answers. if he does, I'll send a link to it here. If you make any progress in this area, please please post it in this thread. This lack of completeness/wholeness/concrete identity has led to an overwhelming break down for me over the last few years and I'm still working out how to pick up the pieces. I wholeheartedly believe that this is the result of extremely poor health growing up, but also not forging a clear path and set of rules for myself. It's extremely frightening when it feels like there is no coherent part of me that is along for the ride. I really hope you are able to improve in this area. Do you have an idea which part of psychiatry would be best to try and seek help from?
 

lampofred

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I think keeping calcium to phosphate ratio very high, FFA low (via aspirin and high carb/low fat diet), and body temperature high (via coffee, thyroid) allows you to be true to who you are.

Also total sleep deprivation for a night might be good for sudden insights.
 

Korven

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Don't know if this applies to your situation, but I was never very happy when I kept trying to define my identity and "be" someone or act a specific way.

When I let go of the need to be this or that and started to relax more is when I started to enjoy life. I actually feel more complete than I ever have. High metabolism and being warm also helps.
 

Gone Peating

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The atomization of the individual and also tv can explain most of this I think. We all suffer from this to different extents
 

LUH 3417

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What if you just tried juggling or rapping and see how you felt? Since those are the two actions that you mentioned first. Rather than thinking about how something would make you feel, what would happen if you just did it? Obviously juggling is not a huge risk, I don’t mean just try everything that comes to the surface of your mind all the time. I think some of life is about adventure and risk taking and when you start to engage more with life you feel more courage to do things you’d never do, and you think less about what you will do.
Anyway I highly relate to your post and have often said I don’t feel like a person but a bunch of broken pieces. I feel better taking thyroid. Seeing a person centered therapist has helped me too even though I have moments where he really makes me angry. But just being able to express that anger is healthy for me instead of keeping everything inside and killing my sense of feeling. I feel like I’ve made the most strides taking thyroid and biking in the sun a lot lately. Doing things I say I would like to do also seems to give me massive amounts of energy.

I think peat said something about life being about a multiplicity of experience. Maybe consciousness is more richness of experience and if you feel you haven’t had the sufficient amount, seeking more can be fulfilling.
One thing is maybe we don’t define ourselves through what we want but through what we don’t want. Maybe it’s the things we say no to, the action of standing up for ourselves and saying we will not accept this or that, that begin to define us, and as we make more decisions and grow more energetically and resonate, we begin to refine ourselves and make more delicate decisions. In a culture that is so oppressive I feel like it’s difficult to find things to say yes too. I spend most of my time rejecting things.
 
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golder

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The atomization of the individual and also tv can explain most of this I think. We all suffer from this to different extents

I think you're right in that we all have different gradations of this issue. For whatever reason, when I was growing up I didn't have the discipline, backbone or health in order to make a lot of concrete decisions and affiliate with a certain side of an issue. In my late twenties this proved to be a force of huge anxiety and dissolution of any form of identity as per the OP. I completely understand that this could be flipped and this ambiguity seen as a liberating force and more in line with reality. I think a large part of the reason why it took a negative bent is that it was concomitant with being hypometabolic for 10+ years. Perhaps subconsciously I was aligning this lack of clarity with my poor health that tagged alongside. It would be great to read a bit more about the 'atomization of the individual' that you referred to. What do you tend to find helpful when you feel this overwhelm of a 'lack of identity'? Thanks again for your input! :)
 

Waynish

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Have you figured out why you perceive this in a negative light? A personality is not a solid thing, which is why those with clarity have a similar experience of personality...
 

golder

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Have you figured out why you perceive this in a negative light? A personality is not a solid thing, which is why those with clarity have a similar experience of personality...

I haven’t really figured out why I see it in such a negative light. You’re right, it shouldn’t be inherently negative. Thinking out loud, I intuitively feel that this ‘lack of a coherent identity’, is somewhat paired with a sense of learned helplessness which gradually gets cemented into an organism that doesn’t have enough energy to deal with its’ environment. When I start to feel in control of all of my life (eg when metabolism/creativity/discipline are all high), this seeming ‘lack of identity’ can feel a lot more playful and a lot less worrying that I seem to be unlike many other people who appear a lot more solid and self assured. If anyone knows what kinds of counselling/psychology would help with these kind of things, I would be extremely grateful, as it’s something I’ve been meaning to address for a long time!
 

Waynish

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I haven’t really figured out why I see it in such a negative light. You’re right, it shouldn’t be inherently negative. Thinking out loud, I intuitively feel that this ‘lack of a coherent identity’, is somewhat paired with a sense of learned helplessness which gradually gets cemented into an organism that doesn’t have enough energy to deal with its’ environment. When I start to feel in control of all of my life (eg when metabolism/creativity/discipline are all high), this seeming ‘lack of identity’ can feel a lot more playful and a lot less worrying that I seem to be unlike many other people who appear a lot more solid and self assured. If anyone knows what kinds of counselling/psychology would help with these kind of things, I would be extremely grateful, as it’s something I’ve been meaning to address for a long time!

Right, so it has nothing to do with identity not being solid enough... It is just solidified in a way that you are averse to :) So good thing it isn't solid, so you can just change that ;)
 

Teres

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Actually to dive into such introspection is something not many people do, in a daring manner. A guy I know, of whom I'll tell you about in a minute, said something really interesting. Something I have not succeeded in proving it wrong, and I did try. People are cowards and hypocrites by nature. Not by simply character, but by nature. This makes us all, to varying degrees, pathological liars. Before anyone else, we lie to ourselves. Most people do it all the time, during the entirety of a lifespan. Then to others. Why this matters?
We may agree that lying is bad, yet we all have lied. So many people who have passed away in a way they could count the last seconds of their lives, have been sad to leave, I'm sure. And yet so many of them have wasted their lives in doing absolutely nothing worthy as if they have been certain that they'll live forever, to give a perephrased Senecan example. Not worthy to someone else, but even worthy to themselves. It's important to point it out - they have lied to themselves and have lied to others that they love life. They didn't. You also may know or have heard about people who chroniaclly neglected school, and complain how hard life is later on, seeing life itself as a subject, and seeing their unfortunate self as an object among the unfortunate events. Just few simple examples, but this applies to everything else.

The one who fools himself, pretty much most of the people I've met, has a hard time in forming an identity. Bluntly said, forming an identity is not really a matter he's trying to deal with, but the consequences of this self-neglect is something he firmly grabs with teeth and nails when the time for whining comes. Roughly, such so called identity is just a lose net of hypocritical, self-deluding convictions serving a coward. Lies one has told himself. Execution is what's missing. Without it lying to ourselves is easier, which is the true objective quite often, not the goals we seemengly have, those we lie to others about.

So, in your quest of crafting an identity, if that's a task you want to commit to, don't lie to yourself as Dostoevsky says, and execute your intentions. Dont waste time. Practice your values. Don't have such? Form them. Practice them, otherwise they're just lies you tell to yourself and to others. Practicing values, virtues or convictions incorporates them across the layers of your loose being and you become them. You craft yourself. You become virtous, strong, you aquire dignity, you become resilent, brave and daring, you form a character. Or not. This matter is in your hands.

Also, wasted time and missed steps along the way are a very, very heavy burden. How would one catch up now? Some were not good in school and believe they could've been. Others were not disciplined in academia, and now the missed opportunity is a torturing thought. What could have happened if I was a litle bit less hesitant, a little bit more disciplined, what if I did not play video games for years, what if I didn't procrastinate, what if I had many friends? What if I faced more hardships to harden my character? Where I could have been now? You can include all kinds of questins here. Well, the answer to such burden, according to a guy I know, is going grandiose. Not trying, but stand up and start swinging, figuratifelly said. From doing nothing, now he's preparing to go to the north pole. By himself. How is he gonna do it I don't know in detail yet, but it does involves a lot of water crossing and ice. He's in current preparation and planning. He would never attempt to do that if he became a lawyer, which he wanted to years ago.

If there is a desired radical change, radical measures have to be taken. Vast leaps require jumps, not steps. Execution is everything. Even failure is a proof that you have dared. Here it is, a trait of a characer.

Some stoicism, Schopenhauer, Dostoevsky, Jung and else wouldn't hurt.

If this comment turns out to be on the wrong thread it will be embarrasing tomorrow when I see it. Hopefully my English is sufficient. Likely there's more to be said, but better when the headache fades away.

All best
 

gaze

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I would highy reccomend reading books such as "mans search for meaning". Start reading classic and well known books, theyll help you form a world view.
 

golder

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Actually to dive into such introspection is something not many people do, in a daring manner. A guy I know, of whom I'll tell you about in a minute, said something really interesting. Something I have not succeeded in proving it wrong, and I did try. People are cowards and hypocrites by nature. Not by simply character, but by nature. This makes us all, to varying degrees, pathological liars. Before anyone else, we lie to ourselves. Most people do it all the time, during the entirety of a lifespan. Then to others. Why this matters?
We may agree that lying is bad, yet we all have lied. So many people who have passed away in a way they could count the last seconds of their lives, have been sad to leave, I'm sure. And yet so many of them have wasted their lives in doing absolutely nothing worthy as if they have been certain that they'll live forever, to give a perephrased Senecan example. Not worthy to someone else, but even worthy to themselves. It's important to point it out - they have lied to themselves and have lied to others that they love life. They didn't. You also may know or have heard about people who chroniaclly neglected school, and complain how hard life is later on, seeing life itself as a subject, and seeing their unfortunate self as an object among the unfortunate events. Just few simple examples, but this applies to everything else.

The one who fools himself, pretty much most of the people I've met, has a hard time in forming an identity. Bluntly said, forming an identity is not really a matter he's trying to deal with, but the consequences of this self-neglect is something he firmly grabs with teeth and nails when the time for whining comes. Roughly, such so called identity is just a lose net of hypocritical, self-deluding convictions serving a coward. Lies one has told himself. Execution is what's missing. Without it lying to ourselves is easier, which is the true objective quite often, not the goals we seemengly have, those we lie to others about.

So, in your quest of crafting an identity, if that's a task you want to commit to, don't lie to yourself as Dostoevsky says, and execute your intentions. Dont waste time. Practice your values. Don't have such? Form them. Practice them, otherwise they're just lies you tell to yourself and to others. Practicing values, virtues or convictions incorporates them across the layers of your loose being and you become them. You craft yourself. You become virtous, strong, you aquire dignity, you become resilent, brave and daring, you form a character. Or not. This matter is in your hands.

Also, wasted time and missed steps along the way are a very, very heavy burden. How would one catch up now? Some were not good in school and believe they could've been. Others were not disciplined in academia, and now the missed opportunity is a torturing thought. What could have happened if I was a litle bit less hesitant, a little bit more disciplined, what if I did not play video games for years, what if I didn't procrastinate, what if I had many friends? What if I faced more hardships to harden my character? Where I could have been now? You can include all kinds of questins here. Well, the answer to such burden, according to a guy I know, is going grandiose. Not trying, but stand up and start swinging, figuratifelly said. From doing nothing, now he's preparing to go to the north pole. By himself. How is he gonna do it I don't know in detail yet, but it does involves a lot of water crossing and ice. He's in current preparation and planning. He would never attempt to do that if he became a lawyer, which he wanted to years ago.

If there is a desired radical change, radical measures have to be taken. Vast leaps require jumps, not steps. Execution is everything. Even failure is a proof that you have dared. Here it is, a trait of a characer.

Some stoicism, Schopenhauer, Dostoevsky, Jung and else wouldn't hurt.

If this comment turns out to be on the wrong thread it will be embarrasing tomorrow when I see it. Hopefully my English is sufficient. Likely there's more to be said, but better when the headache fades away.

All best

This is an extremely helpful post and something I needed to hear. I won't do it a disservice with a rushed reply, but I wanted to thank you.
 

skittles

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Jan 12, 2013
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@Teres is right on.
I've been beginning to emerge from the same sort of fractured identity issue.

I think getting rid of the internet at home for a few months really helped. During the whole quarantine situation, I had a lot of time to just sit and stare out the window, with nobody to talk to and no internet at my house. And it isn't long before you get sick of your own company and your flaws become glaringly obvious, and you realize that you've known all along how to fix all your issues, because it's common sense - but the world has pulled you so far away from common sense with its endless void of 'opinions'.

At some point, I just had to get up and do something. I started cleaning and rearranging furniture, stopped caring about any opinions other than my own. I went through a massive hard drive full of things I swore I would get to someday, and started organizing it and chipping away at it. I started making to-do lists and made the goal of crossing things off. I set a higher standard for myself, began to build a routine and started cultivating good habits - keeping them simple at first, simple enough that I had no excuse not to do them, and I started crossing off the days on graph paper, trying not to break the chains.

I confronted myself about my overindulgences with gluttony and lust and sloth and earnestly sought to overcome them.

And now, by some miracle, I'm finally starting to find myself.
 

Energizer

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@ScurveDream I don't think anyone's perfect. It reminds me of an interview I heard with Ray where he said something like normal people are people you haven't met. Everyone has some kind of dysfunction or quirks about them that aren't entirely healthy. While it's good to reflect on all that, I wouldn't let it get you down about yourself.

You could use that as a tool to make changes in your life that you want to make changes with and do things that you're interested in doing without worrying about getting external validation or brow-beating yourself over your issues. You could also use that to just be and accept that you don't need to be anything, you don't need to save the world. You can just be, simple as that.

A lot of us are on this forum in the first place because we came here to figure out how to fix our health, and heal from years of being in poor health. Keep that in mind, nobody here is a perfect angelic being -- it's not a fixed position, it's a process. I think many of us are trying to understand ourselves and understand the world better. Everyone doesn't necessarily gel with everyone, and not everyone needs to, so my point is, I wouldn't let that prevent you from finding like minded people and exploring things you want to do. Be kind to yourself. A lot of people feel the same way you do. It is a lot more common than you think to feel confused about yourself, your sense of identity and relationship to the world.

I would recommend looking into therapy. It's not a cure-all, but it can help with depression to have someone who will listen to you without trying to judge, imo, depending on who you get. I don't think this forum is enough if you're in a desperate state and nobody should rely on it for fixing their mental health problems. When you go to therapy, you realize your therapist has their own issues too, and they bring a different perspective in understanding your own issues as well as someone that will just listen which can itself be therapeutic. Seeking out a wide variety of perspectives can help keep people stay "grounded" in this insane world we live in. Whether that's with friends, family, or a therapist, finding someone that will listen to you without judgement (in person, face to face) is important.
 
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