Carrie,

Thanks again. I didn't think that you went off on a tangent. Finding a real identity is probably my main issue. Growing up, my parents insisted that they owned me. They didn't allow me to have an identity, or even really to pursue interests, beyond being their child. That was the only identity that was really acceptable. My attempts to develop an identity focused on group affiliations and relationships. I was a member of the marching band, so-and-so's girlfriend, and then wife. A student, a goat breeder. Eventually I started to base my identity more on the things I did, but there was still affiliation involved in it too. I still needed an individual identity, something that defined who I am. Maybe being a self-injurer was a step in that direction. This past year I have had an identity as a student again, but that one is lost now. I guess I just want to be somebody. Erik Erikson said that having a negative identity was more tolerable than having no identity. It seems that he was right. I don't know if I'm at the point of being able to want to identify myself as being essentially well, yet, but I have been trying to figure out what that would be like, and who I would be, and how to live that way. I don't think it is possible to let go of the old identity without having a new one to replace it with.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and will try to find that book you mentioned.
Wendy

<font color=orange>"If we are going to insist that people pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, we must ensure that they have boots."</font color=orange>