Do you know who you are?

AProphet wrote:

GadSitar wrote:Tricky territory to be honest. Psychosis makes you incredibly vulnerable and incapacitated you from functioning. But I see what you are saying.

Mine wasnt that bad I guess. Only had 1 intense episode and never lost touch with reality. Was more like: "hmm, when did all this happen?". After a few days I concluded, that it didnt happen.

Then it wasn't psychosis. Psychosis specifically means a detachment from reality.

It was detachement , but not total. The delusions were real enough. Like it realy happened. Just always remained that question, "when did this happen?"

I don't really know who I am, no.

even when talking to other people, learning about all the disorders, I see traits in me from them.
But I never see one that perfectly fits me.

Like I have a lot of narcissism, but also at times don't give a shlT about myself.

Gotta say, I am a pretty unpredictible person.

GadSitar wrote:Do you have a good sense of identity or is it all flimsy? I don't have any clue who I am. I don't stand for much either. I sometimes feel like an empty slate that uses logic to reduce things. My ex once called me a robot and that I should live on an island by myself. I think at one point she might have referred to me as an "it".

I think my identity is rather stable.

I know who I am, what I like and don’t like. My opinions tend to shift, quite drastically sometimes, I was not even remotely aware of this until I started therapy and the therapist would ask me a question and then compare it to the notes from a month or two ago. It was a little shocking to be honest.

I do have a very weak sense of self and a total lack of life narrative. It changes depending on things like who I'm around, how I view my reflection/photos day to day, or even after watching films, I sort of 'take on' the narrative of the person in the film, like I can just "feel" my self-autobiography change within me, anyone relate? It's not exactly great most of the time because when I try to reflect back on my life and make sense of it, there's... nothing there, just random experiences in my head, like my mind just hasn't kept track of a narrative for me. I thought I may have had some dissocative disorder because I've had DP before and regularly get DR, but now I think it's just because of the identity disturbance. I try to stay grounded and pay attention to what I'm doing to make a narrative up, but to no avail. I've always had this, not sure what sort of therapy or whatever could fix this

AProphet wrote:Its a collection of defense mechanisms against feeling

Guess that's where the lack of empathy comes in; empathy requires feeling and caring genuinely about others, which narcissists tend to lack.

Yes and no. Self knowledge is a sliding scale and a life long process whether you have a PD or not.
I would be seriously cautious of anyone claiming superior/infallible self knowledge as if it was some sort of special talent, it’s almost always accompanied by some pretty wacky self perception (a user in the AsPD forum originally called rogueking being one of the most amusing examples).

Some great advice and insights in this thread.

I would say I know who I am. But that depends on who I am interacting with. I have a certain set of "features" that characterise me in general but I can shift my behavior to some extent - depending on who I deal with and what I want from that interaction.

When I am alone I have a certain set of interests that I like to dive into. Always the same stuff that I like to explore more and more.

I would also call myself an observer. But I somehow tend to be in the center of attention quite often. So all in all who I am depends on who I deal with and why. Otherwise I process information.