I live in a seaside town, not far from a big city. Like all the big cities in the UK, my city has become really vibrant. Huge glass tower buildings seem to have sprung up from nowhere, and it's hard to remember what was there before they were built. It's as if they've always been there. At Christmas time, the streets are full of continental type markets, and there are a couple of really cool Morrocan stalls there, full of exotic ornaments, ornate mirrors, and wall rugs. It's like a hippy's paradise. There's also a funfair, with a helter skelter, and a permanent Big Wheel. All of the other UK big cities seem to have a similar theme, and have changed drastically in the last five years or so. It's as if the UK has suddenly evolved and caught up with the rest of the western world. I like change. I thrive on change. I like to reinvent myself every five years or so.

I think every city in the UK has its own distinct personality, that permeates into all the people who live there. Each city has its own distinct accent or dialect, and the UK is unique in having so many different accents, especially considering it's a really small country. In the UK, people become defined by the city they live in, and adapt to the ways of the local people. Maybe by doing so, they lose some of their individuality, but if we are to take Jung's concepts seriously, maybe they're establishing and claiming their own unique part of a Collective Consciousness.

I started a thread in HPD today about archetypes, and the defined roles that people play. I could recognise myself in the archetypes I talked about in my thread, and I began to wonder how much of an individual I really am. It seems that we all adapt to and adopt defined roles in life, and we all live by labels. I've come to define myself by various labels. I'm not defined by my nearest city. The natives of that city all seem to have distinct mannerisms, attitudes, and outlooks. I've always been different, more artistic and Bohemian in outlook, but that in itself is a definition and a label. I'm also typical of my disorder - not in a bimbo Barbie Doll sort of way, but in a flamboyant, colourful, arty way. Sometimes I wonder where I begin and my HPD and cyclothmia ends. Since I've grown in awareness about the disorder, I've been more aware of how I could let it define me.

As I walked around my city recently, I found myself looking at all the people, each of them different, and each of them wearing their own labels - mother, brother, boyfriend, wife, daughter, office worker, road sweeper, bank clerk, solicitor. They each seemed to be behaving according to the labels they and society had attached. Their faces seemed to have their characters etched onto them. I could see this in their lines, their smiles, their frowns, their expressions. I wondered who these people would be if they took off all of their labels one by one. Who would I be, without all my labels? I have many labels - mother, aunt, partner, female, HPD, moderator. These are just a few of them. I have so many more. Even my name is a label that I was given at birth. In the past year or so, I've begun to call myself by my middle name, or a hyphen of my first name and my middle name. Maybe it's my way of establishing my own identity? My user name on here is interesting. It just about describes HPD in a nutshell.

When we all take away all of our labels, one by one, we're left with our own uniqueness, and a spark of humanity that could be described as a soul if you're at all spiritual. I believe it's that part of ourselves that we recognise in others, when we reach out to them and it's that part of ourselves that we begin to access through therapy and self awareness. When someone takes the trouble to reach that part of ourselves, we're truly privileged and moved in profoundly deep ways, but when we reach it ourselves, it's almost a mystical and spiritual experience. When we detach ourselves from that part, we can become disordered.

I've begun to meditate, and become familiar with that deep part of myself. I've only had fleeting glimpses of it, but it's something to aspire to. If we can all try to find our deeper selves, without the labels, and relate to others without seeing their labels, then we can all begin to heal.

This blog was deep and a bit philosophical, but that's where I'm at today. Tomorrow I might be light and fluffy again, such is the fickle nature of HPD. The glue that attached the HPD label to me is becoming thinner, and I'm aspiring to the day when I can remove it completely.

beautiful masquerade. Just beautiful.
Sam

Thanks hun. Hugs