Do you ever feel like you don't know who you are?

Feel76 wrote:I think a lot of people struggle with their identity.A lot of people identify themselves in terms of who they are NOT. "I'm NOT rich". "I'm NOT good looking". I'm NOT smart enough". "I'm NOT worth crap" etc. To find out who one is, it might makes some sense to stop obsessing all the time about who he/she is not. Surely people are not ONLY who they think they are NOT but ultimately are who they want to be. We all want to be happy and to have inner peace in the end, bottom line. But that doesn't necessarily mean that if one thinks all the happy thoughts like "I'm worthy", "I'm smart" etc then they are going to be like that in the end. With anxiety/depression negative thoughts are symptoms of the illness itself and getting to the root of the illness/anxiety is the way to fight against the thoughts. Sometimes thoughts determine behaviour and ultimately the lifestyle BUT other times it's the other way round.

Things that people do have an effect on the way the think. Self-destructive behaviour results in self-destructive/negative thoughts. How can one logically feel good after doing a bad thing. Unfortunately that's EXACTLY what anxiety thrives on. We feel like crap and we don't think twice about doing crappy things AND we do crappy things only to end up feeling like crap again.

Hello Feel76,
Yes, if you do self destructive things and think low hurting thoughts, you will stay stuck in the past with all the hurt,sorrow,shame.
It is only when you decide that YOU DESERVE BETTER. That you will have self-esteem growth. Then you are on the road to heal/recovery. No one is going to hand you HEALING.
You have self-esteem. Use it. You are not a bad person, even if you are making RISKY choices, you KNOW what is right and wrong, you know how you react to negative, and you deserve the choice what you do with it.
You have to take responsibility for all actions, emotions, rational and irrational behavior.
I Hope this helps you.

Thanks SmallTalkRed. What you mentioned all makes sense.Unfortunately, the most sensible thing is also the hardest thing sometimes. How can the obvious not be so obviuos (at least in terms of the effort required to efect change) at he same time.As you well know, finding a way through depression/anxiety is almost like walking through a maze EXCEPT in this case, you also need to find the maze too. I mean what's up with that??It's just frustrating at times.Wish all troubles were straight foward with straightfoward solutions.

It's almost like raising kids,wouldn't be such a difficult if the little "brats" didn't have minds of their own. You tell them to go left but they go right. Well it gets worse when they become teenagers. Not only do they go right but they go up instead. I mean where's the correlation there?At least right is the opposite of left.

I guess the same goes with the mind. Our minds are supposed work with us to bring some kind of peace but what happens when the mind works against you. What happens when it sabotages and wages a relentless war when it's supposed to bring peace? Who's the friend and who's the foe in that case? Where is the refuge and where's the battlefield.Funny how the greatest ally to us all can also be the greatest enemy huh?Man sometimes I wish I had instincts like animals and not this magnificant membrane called the human brain. TO BE OR NOT TO BE. That's a tough one. Help me out Shakespeare.

Feel76 wrote:I guess the same goes with the mind. Our minds are supposed work with us to bring some kind of peace but what happens when the mind works against you. What happens when it sabotages and wages a relentless war when it's supposed to bring peace? Who's the friend and who's the foe in that case? Where is the refuge and where's the battlefield.Funny how the greatest ally to us all can also be the greatest enemy huh?Man sometimes I wish I had instincts like animals and not this magnificant membrane called the human brain. TO BE OR NOT TO BE. That's a tough one. Help me out Shakespeare.

I feel the same sentiment, Feel76. When our minds are working optimally and we feel great, we want to keep that momentum. Yet, when our minds keep negatively affecting us, we run away and let it control our sense of rationality, sensibility and self-worth. The mind is beautiful but it's volatile, at best. It would be so easy to say "HEY, STOP THAT!" when our minds go astray, wouldn't it?

And this fits into the issue or personal identity and self too. How do we really know who we are in a static manner when there are so many external and internal forces swaying our minds in different directions of identity? We keep changing and we're never satisfied with who we are at the present moment but then again, who are we at the present moment? If we can't be certain of our present identity then which way are we supposed to navigate our minds into accepting a certain identity?

Ï think, therefore I am. (Descartes)

I am how my mind thinks I am? Tragic, huh. To answer the original question of the post - I will never know who I am because there was never a pre-determined identity to begin with. I am a compilation of all of my experiences, my responses to those experiences and the product of it is how I feel about myself now and only now. I expect my personal identity to change with the future but the only consideration given is my psychological make-up now and how I perceive myself.

Hope that helps.

I wonder if it's possible to answer the original question in the post without getting religious to some extent. Do define the FULL nature ANYTHING it makes sense to talk about its designer. If we're gonna talk about a light bulb for instance, it's inevitable that we're gonna talk about Thomas Edison, since he's the one who inveted the light bulb, isn't? If we're gonna talk about Rock 'n Roll can we leave Elvis Presly out of the topic, although he's not the inventor of Rock 'n Roll there's no denying his influence. Same goes with Michael Jackson and Pop. Nelson Mandela and racial harmony/forgiveness etc.

I guess you know were I'm going with this don't you? Can we talk about who we are without talking about the origin or the originator/maker. Some call that the Bing Bang. Some call that God, gods. Horror of horrors, some call that originator MONEY. They say money is power and it also makes the world go round. That means it runs things. If you have a lot of it, the common belief is that you'll be happy but will you TRULY? As for God, the common understanding is that you need to have faith in order to relate to Him. But what happens when you just don't have that? Infact, what is faith? Even better, who is God? I believe He exists but sometimes it's harder to believe in someone you cannot see. As for the Bing Bang, isn't it just a theory.

I don't know if this question can ever be adequately answered.

Feel76 wrote:I wonder if it's possible to answer the original question in the post without getting religious to some extent.

Definitely. Well, easier for me anyway since I'm not religious. I simply define my identity in psychological, philosophical and biological terms. I'm not sure as yet of who (i.e., the origin of self, purpose of existence etc) I am but I believe I have fair idea of it. First and foremost; I am a person: self-conscious, sentient and able to perceive pain and pleasure. From this, I evolve into a character that consist of all my responses to my experiences that makes up my identity. It's enough for me to know essentially that my identity is formed from all my experiences. It becomes too abstract to break up all the tiny bits of that identity composition.

I don't believe in God as the creator of our identities or selves. If we supposedly owned or can't recall any sense of self-consciousness before our births, what's to say there's a transcendental, immanent entity that deliberately created us with our present self-consciouness? I'm no theologian but my intuitions beg that question. We have too limited knowledge to know with certainty how we were created. There are loopholes in both scientific and religious theories of origin but I dislike religion as it can create a culture of fundamentalism and seems - for me - too improbable and illogical to be acceptable. That's not to say that we can't be tolerant of those who are a part of a religion; I may not like the idea of religion and some principles but I'm not going to prance around throwing directives that people aren't entitled to believe in whatever they wish to believe. That's obviously oppressive.

Bottom line - my opinion about our identities is marked by simply our experiences based on internal and external perceptions and pressures. Thinking about our origins obscures it too much for me; I'll let science do all the work.

I think a lot of problems in life, infact ALL problems in my opinion, can only be FULLY solved if we TOTALLY know who we are. And to do that, we obviously know where we come from. But how's that possible when even people from the same circles, eg. religion, cannot agree amongst themselves about the nature of God and the meaning/purpose of life and creation. Scienctists on the other hand don't unanimously agree about the origions of the universe. The Bing Bang theory itself has undergone many revisions as the theory of the formation of the universe.

Maybe the problem is that we cannot possibly trace our roots since we've been here for SOOO LONG that it would be impossible to go all the way back to understand our origins. At least with the things we've created/manufactured ourselves we know how they work and the meaning behind them. We know why we build cars, for transportation. We know why we build computers, for communication, data storage etc. We know why we build war planes/bombs/weapons of mass destruction, to kill and anihilate one another until eventually there'll be nothing left (I know this sounds scandalous but how else can we explain the logic behind world conflict?).We know why we abuse kids,because we're full of evil.We know we shouldn't be killing/destroying humanity BUT WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP BECAUSE WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO WE ARE.

Someone out there had better know who I am. Like Jackie Chan's character asked in that movie of his, "Who Am I?" I'd also like to know WHO I AM. Okay, I don't even who I am, so how the heck am I supposed to know who somebody else is? Goodness, this is SOO confusing. Maybe I should drink a few bottles of beer and only then will I know who I am. I know I'll be drunk that's for sure. So I'd be a drunkard, that's who. Pheww!! Finally, I see some light. So, I'm a drunkard because I'm drunk. I'm evil because I commit evil. I'm good because I do good. I'm human because ???? Goodness, I'm confused again. I GIVE UP.

Now gimme that bottle of brandy so I can get drunk in order to be myself again, a drunk. Oops, I'm now sober. So I'm a sober guy. So that makes me a sober-drunk? So if perceptions and choices determine our character then we're ALL THINGS, good and bad. Sober while drunk?How's that possible? We are conflicted individuals then. Conflicted individuals are confused/depressed/anxious indivuals. So eventually we end up at the only place we feel we truly belong: discussion forums for the troubled/conflicted minds. So welcome home to planet earth guys.

Now were did I put that bottle of brandy?

Seems one thing we can conclude for sure is that we hurt and rejoice and all our pursuits in life end up produce either of the two or a blend of such. Most of the time we exists between the two continuums. Wouldn't you rather be a bad ass or a saint. Being a bad ass today and a saint the next day is frustrating. Even God of the Bible agrees : "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!" - Revelation Chapter 3 verse 15. But don't we aspire to be better/good people even though it's frustrating to be this today and that the next day?

We don't know the self completely but we all wanna be happy. So that's who we wanna be in the end. Happy people. Only problem is that we don't know how to find that for sure. We have to go to the source for absolute happiness but then again what/who's the source