Venting Sense of self

[venua]

How can I tell you about how I'm feeling when I don't know who I am? I know things about whatever myself is. I have a body that's female, a voice that can say whatever comes to the mind I supposedly inhabit. I have blonde hair, pale skin and my fathers personality. But all of that, all of these things. Are from other people. Nothing about this myself, is myself. Stolen attributes of other people. I imitate the behaviours and mannerism of my peers and alike. Because I don't know my own. Everything about me, isn't me. I don't know who I am. I look in the mirror and I feel nothing towards the thing staring back at me. There's nothing there. It's nothing. There is nothing. I can't be myself if I don't know what myself is. How can I be my own person if I don't know myself?

Ontop of all of this. I fear love. Not in a romantic sense, I've never felt that and never will. I fear the love of my peers and affection of others. I don't know how to deal with it. Overbearing attention. What's there to like about this? This thing that can look at you and think a thousand different things at once, but never open their mouth about it in fear of judgement. I can't find myself. If I were not in this body, I wouldn't be able to be found in a crowd of people. Nothing about me stands out, I have no identifiable features. Nothing about this body, brain, persona and spirit is unique to me. It's all features of others. I've never understood this "person" facade. What even is a person? Who am I? What am I? What am I here for? To spend my entire life in anxiety and worry because I don't know who I am? What even is identity? What am I? Who am I? what's my purpose here? How can I even begin to understand identity, when I can't even get to the stage of understanding it?
Identity is ones self. But I don't know what that self is.
And nobody but me can tell me what it is. So I am stuck.

 

[oofuf]

Failing to find oneself is the worst. It made me feel like I wasn't there to begin with. Like I was a vessel that was there for others to shape.

I can't know how you exactly feel, but I know that you must feel awful and helpless. I wish I could help you.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm sorry. That sounds really tough. Do you have any interests that are uniquely yours? That your parents don't share? Music, films, books, art, fashion, interior design? Any places that are important to you? Have you had to study things your parents wanted you to? Rather than being able to follow your own interests?

Our physical appearance is of course influenced by our genes. I guess it depends how much your outer appearance means to you. I've made an effort at times but now, I can't be bothered and I don't like catching myself in the mirror. I guess that's different to not feeling like that's 'me' though. I'm sorry- that has got to feel very disorientating.

 

[why am i alive?]

Changing ones self cab feel good at first but u later learn that u loose urself in the process.
I'm sorry that u have to go through this I can relate

 

[Blue Elephant]

How can I tell you about how I'm feeling when I don't know who I am? I know things about whatever myself is. I have a body that's female, a voice that can say whatever comes to the mind I supposedly inhabit. I have blonde hair, pale skin and my fathers personality. But all of that, all of these things. Are from other people. Nothing about this myself, is myself. Stolen attributes of other people. I imitate the behaviours and mannerism of my peers and alike. Because I don't know my own. Everything about me, isn't me. I don't know who I am. I look in the mirror and I feel nothing towards the thing staring back at me. There's nothing there. It's nothing. There is nothing. I can't be myself if I don't know what myself is. How can I be my own person if I don't know myself?

Ontop of all of this. I fear love. Not in a romantic sense, I've never felt that and never will. I fear the love of my peers and affection of others. I don't know how to deal with it. Overbearing attention. What's there to like about this? This thing that can look at you and think a thousand different things at once, but never open their mouth about it in fear of judgement. I can't find myself. If I were not in this body, I wouldn't be able to be found in a crowd of people. Nothing about me stands out, I have no identifiable features. Nothing about this body, brain, persona and spirit is unique to me. It's all features of others. I've never understood this "person" facade. What even is a person? Who am I? What am I? What am I here for? To spend my entire life in anxiety and worry because I don't know who I am? What even is identity? What am I? Who am I? what's my purpose here? How can I even begin to understand identity, when I can't even get to the stage of understanding it?
Identity is ones self. But I don't know what that self is.
And nobody but me can tell me what it is. So I am stuck.

If there is no self then you can start building one, from scratch. Think about who do you want to be, do you want to be a good person or a bad person? Think about what would you like to do and if you don't know what you would like to do then you can start testing, trying different things.

How do you think we started? How do you think we became who we are right now? We followed the same process.

And know that: We have stollen too, we have borrowed too, and we took these tools and we built as we saw fit. We imitate too when we don't know what to do. Everyone does this.

So many people wear masks, so many people lie, so many deny having an identity. All these questions that you are asking .. you are already more then so many because you are aware that you are copying, and you're not denying it, and you have the courage to acknowledge it. I think you have more self then most.

Do you want me to give you straight answers to each of your questions? : )

 

[AllCatsAreGrey]

OP I think your feelings here are true to the complexity of how we define ourselves. I've struggled with this all my life. One thing that I've found helpful is remembering that we're always changing. Who we are is more a verb than a noun. There's no one answer to who we are. We're in the middle of becoming who we are.

I relate a lot to the unsettled feeling of being unsure in knowing yourself. If you're one to read philosophy, I highly recommend Simone de Beauvoir's "Ethics of Ambiguity". Here's a source of the full text.

Also, I think it's really interesting that your concerns mirror those of core Buddhist teaching. If interested, here's a blog post about that.

I offer these lines of thought as they've been helpful for me at times in navigating these dizzying existential feelings. I want to thank you for sharing your feelings as it makes me feel less alone in having similar thoughts. I know that we're painfully isolated in being able to manage this in our own ways. That's really painful sometimes.

 

[Blue Elephant]

@AllCatsAreGrey Thank you for the link to the blog post! I also study Buddhism and I'm always happy to learn something new. : )