Identity

[Cogs Of My Cranium]

I'm 32 and I still feel like my life has no definition or identity. I haven't worked in years and my hobbies are not as strong as they used to be. I actually feel I'm losing myself rather than getting a stronger sense of self. Has anyone else felt like this and what did you do to begin a process of stronger self identity?

 

[Judge]

That's always a constant battle for me. Attributed mostly to chronic clinical depression, comorbid to my autism.

 

[wanderer03]

I'm 32 and I still feel like my life has no definition or identity. I haven't worked in years and my hobbies are not as strong as they used to be. I actually feel I'm losing myself rather than getting a stronger sense of self. Has anyone else felt like this and what did you do to begin a process of stronger self identity?

You definitely are not alone, Cogs. I'm pushing 40 and struggling to find an identity. I'm slowly learning that my identity is tied strongly to the work that I do. I'm trying to find some hobbies and interests outside of this. My life is either work or not work. It isn't healthy long term but for now it staves off the major depressive disorder which I suffer from.

 

[Mr Allen]

I went through a brief period of depression back when I was on the Dole in 1997-98, till I got fed up of being messed about and told some suited jobsworth in an Office to sod off, and I was coming off the Dole, effective immediately.

 

[Rayner]

I'm 32 and I still feel like my life has no definition or identity. I haven't worked in years and my hobbies are not as strong as they used to be. I actually feel I'm losing myself rather than getting a stronger sense of self. Has anyone else felt like this and what did you do to begin a process of stronger self identity?

My identity also is tied strongly to my occupation. My identity also is tied to my mannerisms,personality traits,me how I carry myself.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Yep, this is me all over. I don't feel like I have an identity, or if I do it's made up of a patchwork quilt of other people's. I guess if you don't have a job to do then that can be an issue as a lot of people define themselves by what they do for a living.

 

[wanderer03]

Yep, this is me all over. I don't feel like I have an identity, or if I do it's made up of a patchwork quilt of other people's. I guess if you don't have a job to do then that can be an issue as a lot of people define themselves by what they do for a living.

Or it can be a negative if you have a job you dislike and the job defines you in a negative way.

 

[Mia]

One of the most difficult things in attempting to find out who you are is questioning your ideas and perceptions. Thinking about something that that you believe to be true, and then trying to discover where that truth came from, and whether you still believe those things as you have aged, and lived life.

Did you learn it? Read it in a book, newspaper, online? Did someone tell you this? How and why is it true? When I began to question certain truths in my life, something I have done throughout it, I tried to disseminate the ideas, and the answers.

This time I began to discover that many things I believed and thought came from my family, friends, school, reading. The givens in my thought process were influenced and developed by others, over and over I pulled apart the answers to
questions, to find their origin. When I did that I discovered that they were other peoples answers, not mine. So what did I really think beyond the influence of everyone, if that was even possible? That's when I began to think for myself, to look at things in different ways, from many sides and to decide what I thought.

Although we are all influenced by others from the moment we are born, it's up to us to pick and choose and rethink those perceptions as we mature. To eventually come up with something that becomes our particular way of thinking. Discovering our individuality might be our greatest strength, in a sometimes unthinking world.

 

[Datura]

I would say I have a strong identity, but it isn't exactly defined. I am always in a process of redefining and questioning myself. My identity is perpetually liminal in one respect or an other.