Who am I?

[lost5656]

Hi, I am excited to have found such a forum where I hope someone could understand me and even help me.

I'm a 21 year old guy and having problems in identifying who I really am.

I don't have a permanent and healthy view of myself. It keeps on chaning according to situations and people I spend time with. It usually changes twice a day sometimes I can keep a personality for more than 3 days.

I have problems differing habits from personality, for example being a quite person. I can't determine whether it is my own personality- who i really am or a bad habit formed over the years. This only is an example of many such cases.

My brain is mostly occupied with thoughts, of how I should be and which 'personality' is the best for me.

By personality I dont mean choosing to be angry, polite, competetive or laid back.

The need to change I experience is related to what my style should be, my personal appearance, my values and goals.

I just want to have a stable personality which is healthy but simply cannot differentiate from what I am and what I want to be. I can't draw any boundaries.

Examples of me

- I find my self getting interested in god and religions and quickly start buying books about it, start searching the internet for information and start behaving in accordance with religous teachings. To this point I feel happy, this state lasts for a couple of days. But slowly I get into it too much, I devote myself to the subject that it starts feeling unreal and uninteresting and I completely switch off from this mode.

-I start to behave in a perfectionistic manner, I start to overly plan everything tidy up all my belongings groom by appearance. Again I feel happy and normal. Up to a point where I get sick of the extra efforts I have to put in to live this way and again switch off and start to live a more care free life.

Its like I devote myself to a cause so much that It gets out of control and I want to change it to a different me.

What do you people think it is? I don't know what this is..I have thought of suicide a couple of times but immediately got rid of that thought.

Thank you for your time,

have a good day

[Athena]

Hi Lost and welcome to the community. I started a thread with the same title not too long ago. I am 48. You'd think I'd have figured it out by now. I ended up researching "personality disorders" on the internet, including in this site. Borderline Personality describes my entire life. I'm no expert on this stuff, so I really can't say what your "problem" is. But when you find a match, it is great to feel understood. No doubt other more experienced members will chime in here with some helpful advice.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

[flander]

It sounds like you're either at idle or full throttle. Do you ever try to take breaks or look into something else when you're in one of these moods?

[lost5656]

Hi Lost and welcome to the community. I started a thread with the same title not too long ago. I am 48. You'd think I'd have figured it out by now. I ended up researching "personality disorders" on the internet, including in this site. Borderline Personality describes my entire life. I'm no expert on this stuff, so I really can't say what your "problem" is. But when you find a match, it is great to feel understood. No doubt other more experienced members will chime in here with some helpful advice.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

Hi Athena, Thank you very much for your welcome and reply. I also have searched the internet for personality disorders and like you Borderline Personality disorder matches with my symptoms the best. I have the tendency to forget or not believe of my illness and go on searching for other problems. I remember writing stuff down to not forget. One of the symptoms of Borderline personality is stated as the fear of abandonment. This does not match with what I experience, I even enjoy being by myself.

On the other hand I have too much anger at the most trivial matter which I cannot control. I argue alot and sometimes hit myself to not hurt others but it happened once or twice.

Do you also face self identity problems?

Thanks again and have a nice day...

[lost5656]

It sounds like you're either at idle or full throttle. Do you ever try to take breaks or look into something else when you're in one of these moods?

Hi Flander,

Yes that generally is the situation. I devote myself so much that I feel the need to take a break and that leads to totally getting uninterested in something. Because I feel I have behaved contrary to what I wanted and sometimes some other thing gets my attention and the particular mood i am in seems to be useless compared to what caught my attention and I start getting involved in that. It's like a rapid cycle.

[Athena]

One of the symptoms of Borderline personality is stated as the fear of abandonment. This does not match with what I experience, I even enjoy being by myself.

On the other hand I have too much anger at the most trivial matter which I cannot control. I argue alot and sometimes hit myself to not hurt others but it happened once or twice.

Do you also face self identity problems? ...

I have a HUGE fear of abandonment. Unfortunately, I had a very bad 20 year long marriage to a guy who manipulated and verbally abused me for at least the last 10 years of it. One article summed up my BPD experience with this guy perfectly "I hate you, don't leave me!" It's a wonder I was the one who managed to break it off but he was leading us into bankruptcy. I am constantly worried my therapist will "fire" me. Or retire on me. Or get hurt. I am worried my kids will give up on me and prefer to be with their Dad. I have recurring dreams that I am left behind and nobody will tell me where they're going.

Anger, or more like rage, occurs frequently. It is virtually uncontrollable. However, I have so many crises going on right now, I tend not to get into a rage over trivial stuff or I'd probably die of exhaustion.

I don't argue a lot, I tend to bottle stuff up inside and let it all out when I am cornered with no way out. Then I either hit walls/doors/tables, or cut myself - and yes, I'd rather attack my attacker but I don't because i fear it will make them even meaner.

Self identity problems? Absolutely. I am full of fear and yet I am a thrill seeker (hang-gliding, scuba diving, jumping off cliffs). I have a huge maternal instinct and take on the mother's role, but I also take on the father's role. I am a woman but work in men's fields (Engineering, Investment Advice). I sometimes have dreams I am a man. People view me as strong, together, successful. I view myself as weak, a pushover, no boundaries, falling apart and having made a total mess of my life. I desperately seek to bond with people but end up pushing them away. I desperately want to die but am too good at surviving. I hate work but am a workaholic (except this past year, where working any longer would have killed me). I find the phrase, "Be kind to yourself" confusing. I don't know who the "self" is. I look in the mirror and get this weird sense that it's not me staring back.

As I recall, you are quite a bit younger than me. For me, the problems started out more subtly, but became full blown over time. It may be a little harder for you to put yourself into a box. I can't recall if you mentioned it, but have you gone to see a mental health professional to get their opinion? It may be helpful to get a few opinions, then go with your gut as to what you think the problem and best solution is.

[nathan]

ey man, I am the same age as you but I used to have similar feelings.

Maybe the problem is that you have thought s like this:

My brain is mostly occupied with thoughts, of how I should be and which 'personality' is the best for me

Maybe your with a girl, and you are think, I 'should' be making her laugh.

Or maybe your with a with certain friends, you feel you 'should' be acting a certain way.

then with other friends you say you 'should' be acting another way.

But these kinds of thougths first of all, can create a lot of unneeded anxiety (I don't know if you have anxiety or not), and anxiety itself can make you apear quiet to others, quiet out of fear. So you could ask yourself if your being quiet is some kind of reflection of your anxiety. If you do not have a lot anxiety, then you may be genuinely quiet. But if you feel like you are anxious all the time, especially around others, then perhaps you being quiet is a result of distorted 'i should' thoughts that caused you anxiety.

But second when you are thinking about what you 'should' be, you are also in that same moment trying to be something other than what you currently are.

But you already are something! you already are someone, with your own personality. That's not to say that your personality is forever static, it can be developed. But make sure you are developing yourself, and not what you 'should' be.

Also you say you have looked into religion...have you looked at what most religions say about the 'self'? You'll find that they all point in the same direction. They will tell you to watch out for your 'ego', which would include thoughts about what you 'should' be.

Not to say not to become someone or not to play some role, but its saying to not look for your 'self' in your role, becuase you will never find it there.

[idied]

You may want to try this test out and see what kind of score you get...

http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/des/index.html