I hear it all the time just be yourself. I guess being normal is being yourself. Don’t act in any way that isn’t you. Discuss how you genuinely feel. Don’t act different for nobody. Don’t go out of your way to please anyone. Fend for yourself. When it comes down to it its all about yourself. Am I right?
Be myself - feel all my injuries’ glaring pain until I don’t notice the outside world. No, we all have to put on a cover and hope no one is so mean as to blow our cover. We wake up in the morning and just like getting dressed, we put on a cover.
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I like pleasing others. I don’t put myself out for everyone I see but there are some people who are important to me, I like seeing them happy.
As far as fend for myself, I know I can’t. I have a lot of help getting through my day.
I do try and act normal to some extent. I don’t want to embarrass my sis. She’s cool with everything and I’ve never seen her embarrassed by me, but making life as easy as possible is no real skin off my nose.
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I think “Be Yourself” is usually a simpleminded remedy for social anxiety. It works about as well as a TV remote without a battery. 
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I like to make sure my folks are happy, and when I do something very right, I want their feedback on it. In the past I hurt a lot of people, especially close family members, I am making up for it - now that I am feeling better
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Yes be yourself, sadly some of us will collide but its for the best. I’m off medication now and have never felt more alive, it shows me whats important in life and sends my head spinning too. I was a little greedy selfish idiot once but the illness is leading me in the right direction.
I thought about this post again tonight when I was reading a Chekhov story. He makes it clear in “Neighbors” that not being yourself is common as grass. One character realized that he had “never acted on or said what he really thought.”
There are some memorable times in my life when I acted on or said what I really thought… such as when I asked my wife to marry me, or another time when I broke up with a girl because I thought that with my schizophrenia I couldn’t handle her difficult son.
There are lots of times when I’m not myself. My wife, on the other hand, acts on or says her thoughts a great deal. Sometimes that gets her into trouble and she has to pay the consequences.
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its funny because i think there are two selfs here to consider, the good self and the bad self
so i think when people are saying ‘just be yourself’ they are talking about your best side of your
personality,
the good self is the part of yourself where you are not suffering from symptoms and you are managing things and planning and you are happy, talking, joking and generally doing good things.
the bad side as we all know is the side where we are symptomatic and we need help and we are very insular everything is a struggle with lack of motivation and stressful and nothing is easy.
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well said, daydreamer. I agree with you wholeheartedly and appreciate that you wrote it down for us all here.
thanks, judy
Just be yourself.
But i was already doing that, what else could i be?
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I’m just discovering myself, I felt like I had no sense of self until my illness gave it to me, so I’m finding out what it means to be myself, good luck in finding yours!
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Well not being yourself is not feeling like yourself. Being yourself is being able to express yourself. Feel good and not alter your emotions mood or whatever for something else.
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To suffer. At this point I pretty much accept my role in life - will be to suffer. Thats all I do. Just suffer. Pain after pain. Insult after insult. Persecutory delusion after delusion. Suffer. Thats me.
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Suffering is not how you should be. Coz when I suffer that ain’t me. Thats the illness.
I cant separate them. I cant. They have been part of me for too long. Thanks for trying to cheer me up - its really nice of you.
What it means to be myself-being in possession of my own soul, caring and taking care of the ones I love, dressing, talking, walking the way I want to be. helping those who need my help.
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I make a distinction between people who have schizophrenia and schizophrenics. I hate the term “schizo”, it’s offensive as can be, it’s the equivalent to calling a black person the n-word. It’s prejudiced and demeaning. You’re a person who has schizophrenia, you have schizophrenia, it doesn’t have you. Be proud of that. Not that many people can say that. You can’t control having the genes for this illness, but you do well for yourself despite it, just like me.
Be yourself…what does this even mean? When I think of myself, I think myself gritting my teeth and enduring pain only to let it make me stronger. I spent two years psychotic and gained invaluable insight into schizophrenia from it, now I am on my way to grad school in psychology. I became a raw, natural powerlifter after schizophrenia. (raw means no powerlifting suit and natural means no steroids, other guys can’t say the same, they juice up and wear powerlifting suits. I am on two classes of tranquilizers and wear a t-shirt and shorts. 
)
I recieved an email from the university telling me to pay to join some club celebrating my being in the top 10% of my class. I felt proud.
I define myself by being a badass and skullfucking (go look that up on urbandictionary) schizophrenia with medications, insight, and an above-average life despite it. I laugh to myself sometimes when I think of how well I compare to normal people and how I have every right to just say “■■■■ my life”.
I was myself to a strong degree despite schizophrenia. I laughed, I lived, I loved despite my illness during my unmedicated days. I developed a strong friendship with an old friend from way back when I was psychotic. I made a 3.5 and hit the gym, I wasnt as strong as I am now but I was still pretty strong. I spent the weekends living without a care with my drinking buddies, we had exams earlier at this time last year and I remember how we would all get together and be drunken college kids at this time last year.
Now I am sober and have relationships that go beyond being drinking buddies. Now I am a competitive powerlifter. Now I have a 3.96. Being myself means not holding back.
But some days I am exhausted. I have been to hell and back. Functioning only made me suffer more while I was psychotic. I have to take some days off to relax and rest. I have nightmares and flashbacks. I didn’t do anything productive today, and that’s ok. I napped and watched anime and met some people on an online dating site, chatted with a couple of friends. Being myself means accepting my weaknesses, sometimes I just don’t need to workout and study all day, sometimes I need to take it easy and give myself a break.
I still have days and days to study for finals, and finals have never been a problem for me in the past. I am pretty intelligent, I don’t study as much as other people and make better grades. I know that’s not normal, I know that I am fortunate. I just got my 16 page research paper on schizophrenia back, I got an A and he didn’t write a single criticism on it, he wrote praise for it, three sentences of praise actually. I wrote that paper in less than 4 hours.
Being yourself means making your own decisions and not letting other people make them for you. For me, being myself means being strong. I try to be strong because the only other option is to be weak, given my diagnosis and prognosis I received upon being evaluated at 19.
In powerlifting, a common phrase is “UP”, meaning push or pull the barbell up, always up. For me, being myself is always going “up”. There’s a powerlifter who trains at my school’s gym, I met him before I joined a special powerlifting gym and he has the word UP tattoo’d on the inside of his forearm where he can see it.
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being my self is being allowed to not feel bad for the lights are on but nobodies home thing ive got going on at the moment.
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I think the term “be yourself” is mostly used in social contexts. I think it really means to draw on your own humor and not take things too seriously when you are around other people.
When you are part of a group of people you are somewhat restricted in your actions… You can’t just start whistling in front of people for example You also shouldn’t express a lot of anger habitually when you are with others. I think being yourself in a social setting means balancing whats reasonable etiquette with communicating in a style that best expresses your own unique sense of humor, feelings, knowledge and experiences. It doesn’t mean a total absence of self-consciousness but it means having enough self-confidence to hold your own in a group discussion.
In a non-social setting, “Be Yourself” means doing things you like to do: music, art, watching tv, cooking, weight lifting… whatever unique things that make you enjoy life more.
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