How do you identify who you are aside from your illness?

Perculiar but a cool question posed to me by my Psychologist.
Thoughts since…
Does your identity become like a shadow? Is this your shadow self? That’s hiding from plain sight. I’m just wondering this. And how to find out?
What is your identity?
If your illness or illnesses have been a decade long say. Can you still find out whats dissappeared as your identity secondry to the disorder?
Does negotiating or navigating the illness hide your true identity? Can you find your identity again?
If you have lost it?
Chime in if you’ve been through this. Or any ideas,

:bulb: :thinking: thoughts, feelings…

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The illness is an integral part of us I’m afraid.

If you had a physical issue like I broken leg, you wouldn’t try and differentiate your leg from the rest of your body. Would you?

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I don’t think I have a good personality and I struggle with my identity now. I mean I’m a wife, I’m a mom and I have some friends. But outside of that I’ve got nothing going on personality wise. I can’t truly define my identity. I almost feel like I don’t have one at all

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I guess the psychologist I have was just posing the thought that theres more to a person than the illness. But it puzzles me too as it becomes part and integral to your life and experiences.

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Interesting question. When I was young a psychiatrist said to me, quite stunned, you haven’t got the slightest insight into yourself, he meant that I was nothing apart from my reactions to other people. I simply didnt know myself in any sense (and he was right)

When i was young i had all sorts of identity issues, mostly a deep feeling of nothingness.

I still dont know who i am, but i’m not that bothered anymore, and stopped seeking for a chore. I am just how i am at the moment, and i have an ambition to be kind to other people if i can and reduce the harm i can inflict on people, mostly involuntary. I try to reduce the pain of living with this illness, increasing the good periods, and accepting i because of my age and my MI can’t have any professional ambitions anymore…

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I don’t know you, but it sounds really sad that you feel that way about yourself. It’s really challenged me to think about this question.

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Yeah. I feel kind of lost. I’m glad your psychologist poses thought provoking questions to you. It’s a great way to work through things as you explore them together

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I have no separate self
apart from sz

But you are you. Everything. All the qualities that make you who you are are I imagine distinctive to yourself aside the illness? Theres so many qualities to a person surely that makes you individual.

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Sorry this last message was for Om.

Schizophrenia has taken away my personality. I tried fighting it… to no avail…

thanks for posing this question, @Nimbus – it really has me thinking. i’m just under a year into my journey with a sza diagnosis. i think one of my biggest challenges is integrating the illness (and diagnostic label) into my life, and accepting it as part of who i am. working against denial is a constant task for me. while i used to try to cultivate a relationship with my identity outside of my illness, i’m increasingly working towards healthy integration. i’m still trying to understand exactly what that means, but i know that it doesn’t serve me to exclude my illness from my holistic self.

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But if you have qualities like warmth, curiosity, wonder at things around you. Can that also define who you are?

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I like that notion of a holistic self. Im trying to see whats blinding me to identity. And how to integrate myself with the world better. But theres so many internal and external influences.

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I suppose, but I don’t have any of those things anymore. Hoping I can get those things back. I hardly remember what I used to be like. But I’m sure it would be obvious if I were just able to feel positive emotions again. Sorry, I’m low functioning.

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perhaps you’re not blind at all, and merely finding a new way into understanding your identity – which can take time. our identities are, after all, in a constant state of flux. as we grow and change, it seems healthy for our understanding of ourselves to, as well. and i’m right there with you on the path of integration.

yes, there are indeed many internal and external influences. do you have a meditation practice? when i’m in a good place mentally and emotionally, i find it useful in sifting through what belongs to me and what doesn’t; separating who i am at my core from what i’ve inherited (from my family, the culture, or elsewhere).

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I’ve been looking into a more spiritual path. I used to meditate at a buddhist centre but became ill so quit that. Also used to practice yoga. Now mostly I guess art has been, particularly painting a form of oneness, concentration. I got lost in nihilism and antinatalism for a while… but started reading books around enlightment practices and people such as howdie mickowski has caught my attention this year. The TAT foundation on youtube’s been pretty good to listen to seen as i havent been able to read books for a year. But its supposed to be particularly good for men, meditation practice. Balances hormones differently. Im trying to be open to change anyway. But its hard because I tend to not like being around anyone.

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Sure, subjectivity, individuality is inherent in all people. But back then when i was in the twenties my core was so little and i was not aware of it.

You might be interested in the concept of self disorder, and the phenomenological approach in general, here from wiki:

(people with schizophrenia often have a very basic lack of understanding of their basic self according to this view)

A self-disorder , also called ipseity disturbance , is a psychological phenomenon of disruption or diminishing of a person’s sense of minimal (or basic) self-awareness. The sense of minimal self refers to the very basic sense of having experiences that are one’s own; it has no properties, unlike the more extended sense of self, the narrative self, which is characterized by the person’s reflections on themselves as a person, things they like, their identity, and other aspects that are the result of reflection on one’s self. Disturbances in the sense of minimal self, as measured by the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE) ,[1] aggregate in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders, to include schizotypal personality disorder, and distinguish them from other conditions such as psychotic bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.[2]

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That’s why this is my favourite song

It deals exactly with losing your identity and the search for it.

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I was also really into antinatalism and nihilism. I think it was just because im depressed. Lately im looking into non duality

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