How does one build an identity?

"poets, priests, & politicians..." I want Plan9 to answer my question. Administrator Jazz will obviously do whatever he likes. How are the boys?
If my identity grows & shrinks, it's not unlike my penis. I like my penis, & I liked a place to put haiku harmlessly/opportunistically, such as I am...
You build your identity by using its root-word to its utmost & hope for the best.

 

I'm responsible for at least half of those "likes". Plan speaks the truth and I like it.

 

"...have words to thank for their positions." You know why I have these "likes," OCM? Simple: because I'm generic.

People agree with me because I'm blunt, use small words and offer nothing new or amazing. I am Standard Issue Stupid.

I'm the intellectual equivalent of a fucking pizza. I appeal to everybody. I'm not too spicy, you can eat me three meals a day.

I'm boring. I'm safe. I'm predictable. I'm a book you can put on your coffee table. I'm here (all the time) and I'm forgettable.

Unlikely given that he's got a wife and 19 kids. He's never going to splurge on a Ferrari now.

OCM, I have no doubt that you're a fine individual, but the passive-aggressive shit on TFP has to stop.

You're being worse than I am. And I'm a huge butthurt emo crybaby that does nothing but complain.

 

Alrighty. I hope I've built this partial identity by being recognized as caring. Take your passive-aggressive shit. What I've done here has been more questioning than complaining.

When do you listen
through the noises you can hear?
When you're willing.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'd say there's not much of a timeframe, maybe over the next few years. I just got out of a 7-year stretch of back-t0-back longterm relationships. Trying to break the habit of serial monogamy and just figure out who I am, already.

 

It sounds like your question is actually, "How does one build a new self-identity?"

Figure out who you want to be. Act how that person would act. Realize those people are the same. That's how I do it, anyway. If you ever feel that weird OMG-this-syncs-with-me-feeling, or that HOLY-SHIT-this-is-fake-I-regret-that-feeling, for the love of Pete, listen to it.

I've seen a lot of people who have this want to find\build an identity thing going on move locations or start\stop (frequent) relationships in order to somehow find it. Since this process is about how you think about you, I don't think that helps. Wherever you go, there you are, as it were.

 

Isn't this what narcissist would do? Pick an identity he/she likes, not let it naturally evolve.

I'm not saying this is the case in OP.

I know practically nothing about psychology, I just happen to read things. The descriptions about narcissim have intrigued me, since in the net I've met people, who don't reveal much of themselves or just certain things. I've acted like that myself, when I haven't wanted to tell too much about myself, I've told details that aren't true to hide my true identity in fear of an "identity theft".

 

Other reasons I can think of: Life planning, wanting to become a better person, having an analytical\less emotion-driven personality, being unhappy/depressed in your current situation and desiring change, becoming (more of) an adult, learning how to interact with others in a productive manner, etc. Pretty varied reasons, if you ask me.

 

Yea, that pretty much sums it up. I've lost myself somewhere along the road of my life. This question isn't so much about how I want others to perceive me, it's about how I can learn to perceive myself.

Some back-story:
I'm the product of a 15-year old single mother who moved us around constantly (about every 3 months) for around 6 years, until she settled on an emotionally abusive asshole.
I left home when I was 16, running from one situation to another.
I've just stopped running. It's been 8 years since I left home, since I left taking care of my mother, raising her, making the majority of her decisions, etc. I did this in a lot of my relationships, too.
I have not much of a foundation nor sense of self.

My attention has always been turned outward. And I haven't had a chance to really focus on myself through all of the running from abuse and pain. You know, a better title for this thread would perhaps be "How do I build a better working model of my identity in my mind?"

 

My attention is turned outwards. Focusing on myself has never seemed to me to be an option. Caring for Plan9 has been rejected. I still do. ...must be that third brain cell. Your identity evolves within, & you can share it or not. Pretending intactness has never worked for me. I want & need input to build my identity.

 

Hi Lirpa

Thank you for sharing some of your back-story.

I read you saying "I'm the product of a 15-year old single mother who moved us around constantly (about every 3 months) for around 6 years, until she settled on an emotionally abusive asshole.
I left home when I was 16, running from one situation to another."

Did your running 'from one situation to another' feel similar to your mother's 'moving us around constantly (about every three months)'?

I'm not asking you to think about it. i am asking you to get an overall sense of each, and check with your gut to what extent they might match. If they don't then I'm barking up the wrong tree. If they do, then I can say the following: One of our jobs when building our own identity is to grok the difference between our own influence on ourselves, and other's influences on us. Unconscious following the 'example' of significant others needs to be unearthed and outed. Then the positive aspects can be chosen to be kept and the negative ones discarded.

When we move on and away from someone on the outside ... especially if they are our parents, it is good to find out how many of their messages, how much of their influence is operating INSIDE us, even though they might not be physically present.

You said "My attention has always been turned outward" Then part of your building a new identity will include learning a new skill: How To Navigate The Inside

The question "How am I being like people I've moved on from" is one to explore, and great practice at internal attending.

Your back-story leads me to presume the following: You learn to be come familiar with new situations, you are able to assess the needs of others and assist them in achieving them. Please practice internal attending on this one; I want, gain, to know to what extent I might be barking up the wrong tree, and to what extent am I giving an accurate reflection of you who are writing?

This is because you seem to have indicated skills which have been, until now, directed outward, and I am therefore avidly curious what happens as you contemplate turning them in wards ... indeed, you may have already, to some extent, been doing so.

I mean, Lirpa, this is so dang exciting - it sounds like you have already turned part of the biggest corners in your life so far, and are committed to doing it properly and thoroughly. That time frame seems realistic, and you don't have any 12 week deadlines. Mind you , a lot can get done in 12 weeks, especially when you are beginning to rule, for the first time in your life, your own true domain.

As a third exercise in internal attending, please shine an internal searchlight on to your past and your future: gather information to answer the following question: "What, in the next twelve weeks could distract you or divert you from your chosen course" Given that, ask yourself "What shall I do about that?"

I think you'll come up with ideas.

A final thought occurred to me before I go: I've got a feeling that writing in the Blog section of this forum could be useful. Some of them have an updatable autobiography feel ... find out what it would be like if you did something like that. Do you keep a diary or journal? Do you every write a stream of 'where you're at'? I used to do a lot of that before I discovered the Internet. You are used to turning your attention outward, therefore IF, through writing, you put some of what's INside onto the OUTside, your skills of turning your attention outward can read what you've written. At the moment, turning your attention outward is your strongest suit, and doing this could let it work to the max to help someone new ... YOU.

<<< again, please double and triple check, cos obviously, I could be barking up the wrong tree, or just needing a lot more guidance from you for my input to be better relevant to where you are at.

OK take care

 

That's a good question. I think that in some ways--yes, some ways--no. It doesn't feel for me how it felt for me, then. But having a lack of supportive parents and fleeing from difficult situations is likely what got my mom migrating so much in the first place. So it's possible that it feels for me now similarly to how it felt for my mom then. So, in a nutshell--she certainly taught me to run from, rather than solve my problems. Solving my problems is something I'm having to teach myself.

That's a good picture.
In the breakup I just went through, my ex basically said, "Stop focusing on me, start focusing on you. For every time you want to help me, help yourself first!"
It never even occurred to me to do that. But a friend of mine shared with me that what we give from our surplus is a gift, what we give from a deficit is toxic. So, focusing on myself has sort of become a way for me to be able to continue giving to people without it becoming toxic. I hope somewhere in there I actually start doing it primarily to help myself, but I guess it'll happen in stages, if it's supposed to happen.

Yea, I actually am really excited about it. The only trouble is that I'm going through so many changes on so many fronts, it's been a bit overwhelming! Difficult for me to measure progress, I just detect a lot of shifting and expanding.

Oh, that's a good plan. I hadn't even thought of that. I tend to be very idealistic and optimistic, not really thinking that anything bad will happen, and especially not planning for it!

I do have a wordpress blog that I occasionally post to: http://fallendowntree.wordpress.com/
I'm using it to come to terms with feelings, story ideas, things like that. As far as keeping a daily log, I have a hard time staying consistent with them, but I suppose I could give it another shot on here.

Thanks for your ideas and input! You sound like you've gone through quite a lot of soul-searching, yourself!

 

I have had a couple of MAJOR identity crisis' in life. I wasn't sure who I really was, but I knew I didn't like me. I picked a few qualities I decided I wanted to develop, and started faking it until it became natural to behave that way. I realized that if I wasn't happy with the man I was, then I needed to start behaving like the man I wanted to be. It sounds simple, and it is, however, simple does not mean easy.

Yes, I really did just tell you to fake it until you make it. Decide who you want to be, then start practicing being that person until it stops being practice and becomes the norm.

 

I've always been stuck with myself. There are some things that I don't necessarily like about me, and I don't expect to be able to change them. When I have been able to change things, it's been a process of asking myself "why the fuck do I act like this", finding the reason and then trying to figure out a way to take the piss out of that reason. I don't think that this is the same as building an identity. I think that we're all stuck with the identity we've got, and while we can change how that identity manifests, at the end of the day, we're still the person we came to the party with.

Study yourself. Figure out your limitations. What makes you tick. What it means to be human and what makes you a human. If you do this enough, you won't want to build an identity because you'll be more focused on utilizing the potential of the identity that you already have. You'll understand what you can change and what you can't. The rest should follow naturally.

 

So, Lirpa, now that nearly 2 years have passed since you posed your question (and got great responses), what would you say to your own question now?

 

Hi, rogue49. I only posted because I noticed that Lirpa has been posting recently, last July 25, so I think she might likely see the topic. If not, no biggie.

I wouldn't post on an old, sleeping topic, without extensive quoting. But I wouldn't post on an old topic by an active member without getting their feedback on time passed, because posting to something longstanding by and about a person very actively engaged in changes, would be egoistic.

 

... very old OP, just saw. deleted reply

 

I did happen to get an email when you replied, I had it as a watched thread.

This is a complex question to answer. I think the summary is that I still haven't found a solid identity, but I have made a lot of steps towards trying to figure out who I am and what I want. I have thought back to this thread many times recently, and I laugh to think that I thought an identity is something that I could decide and build in the way you decide to rearrange furniture in your house.

My memory is still pretty fragmented from the stuff I went through when I was younger. I feel like there's a hard reset switch that happens about every 3-4 weeks in my mind. It makes it difficult to isolate and draw comfort from any kind of stable inner person. In fact, I have virtually no concept of myself existing at all. I've had near-constant stress most of my life, I blame this.

What's going to be most important for me is developing confidence in expressing whatever is going on from moment to moment and really owning that. As a few people pointed out, most of us already have an identity. It's in recognizing what's already there that you develop one. What I think this quest most reflects for me is just finding something stable and continuous that can't be ripped away from me. Lately, I've been focusing on visualizing ropes holding a weight. That the weight fell and the weight is pulling the ropes tight. As long as I still feel the ropes there, I know I'm still existing. It's when I start to lose sight of that that I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of nothing with no inner compass and no identity or existence.

 

Your response is fabulous. I'm going to think through all the earlier responses and yours and share my sense of this, later this week. Issues of identity are so important to me. I'm 67 now and I know that my identity is still changing, and I'm glad.

Later.