Identity issues

So, I know that identity issues are a core problem in BPD. I'm kind of in the BPD diagnosis phase I guess, even though I've been told I have it.

This is kind of a vent, but does anyone else feel like they have completely lost themselves? I feel like when I was younger I used to know who I was, what I would do, etc. I defined myself by facts about me. I am a twin, I'm left-handed, I'm the shortest person in my class. Once I got older, it was harder to define myself. I thought if I achieved certain things I would feel less empty. Graduate from college. Become a nurse. Become an icu nurse. Start grad school. Now I'm unhappy and stressed in my profession, not sure I want to continue direct patient care or even nursing. I'm on short-term disability from my job. I'm withdrawing from the class i'm taking in grad school for the second time. I don't even know if I'll ever finish. I feel like I changed when I got boyfriends and did things I said I'd never do, like drugs. I feel like I caused my problems, but I hope I didn't. I feel like I make decisions for the wrong reasons. I'm wrought with anxiety and depression and my moods change throughout the day. I am anxious for an hour. I am so low I lay in bed for 10 minutes, wondering what if death is better. I am motivated and start cleaning for 10 minutes. I tell myself I'll get a shower and run all my errands. Then something in my head tells me I can't handle that and I better wait and I return to anxiety. When I'm around people I'll be so glad I'm not alone, then 10 min later I want to be alone and am irritated. I cut myself, feel like I'll never cut again. Do the urges come back?

Sorry this is long, I'm just trying to work through things and would like to hear anyone else's experience and to know if this is something that could be related to BPD.

This is absolutely related to BPD. I have felt this way my entire life. I always feel like "if I just had "this" or "that", if I could find the right career, the right man, the right state and city to live in THEN I would find my identity, that place I feel at peace and where I belong but it never came.

I'm still currently working on this issue myself and I've heard DBT/CBT is very useful. Are you in therapy at all? I'm working with my Therapist on one issue at a time at the moment but we haven't gotten to the lack of identity yet.

You are not alone and your thoughts/feelings are the same as mine.

Hello,
It is said that BPD shows up in your late teens or early 20's. I am like you in that I knew, or seemed to know myself when I was younger. I had a close friend in high school, was pretty outgoing, and I knew what I wanted to study in college. My trouble also started when I got a boyfriend at age 17, and got worse from then on. I was never that person again
I'm sorry you are having such a hard time Hang in there...Hugs

You have no idea how much hearing this has helped. Thank you so much! I appreciate it. I am starting an intensive dbt program on monday... Will have weekly therapy and psychiatry appts. I plan on bringing the issue of bpd up. I was just inpatient in the hospital and the psychiatrist there told me i had bpd and i was scheduled for this program. I am now assuming that bpd diagnosis is a process and i am in the process of being diagnosed with it.

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Thank you! I also act different ways with different people, in different situations, etc. It is so comforting to know that there are people on this site willing to listen and help you.

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I have always felt different, especially when I started High School, but thought at the time it was because of the whole teenage thing. I struggled so much though and looking back, I always felt somewhat lost and continued to be so . . . now it seems worse than ever at 48. It seems that many things in life effect me and not in such a good way. All of my accomplishments, good experiences, friendships, etc. have left me with what seems like nothing positive for myself and the more negative things just continue to feed this lost, confused soul within and my low self-esteem. I understand well the extremes in the motivation to the lack of it and the mood shifts in short amounts of time. I never know what to plan or not because about the only thing I can depend on is that in a matter of even a few short minutes, I'm going to feel differently . . . just not sure what that feeling is going to be and generally speaking it's not an easy one. Good luck with your upcoming DBT program . . . I wish you the best.

Oh this is VERY BPD, I do it all the time! My identity has changed so much because of friends or boyfriends I am only now starting to figure out who I am. I have been a chameleon for so many years it's hard for me to even know what I want and like.

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Yes, while it's not extreme changes, it's enough to be really confusing! I am feeling more confident in my assessment of myself now, thank you!

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Totally.

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It really does help. I am not so weird, there are others that feel like I do.

I am still trying to figure out who I am. I have always referred myself in reference to others, Sean's wife, Robbie's mom... never I am Mags and this is who I am. Something for me to work on.

I always feel as if my identity is tied to feeling as if I belong to someone. I am Seth's girlfriend, Mitzi's daughter, Mason's Mom kind of as you say. I wonder if this need to feel possessed by someone has to do with feeling as if no one wanted me when I was young.

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I spent most of my life as Meghan's twin sister. I think that has played a role in not knowing how to be an individual. Now i want to be that still, but be someone's girlfriend or friend.

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I just want to be me and have those relationships. It's so hard to retrain my brain to think that way.

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very hard

Very hard! I have trouble with intimacy... First too much, then I feel like it's immediately lost. We can do this though, just persevere and be supportive of ourselves!

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This is part of what I talked to my T about today. My inability to recognize when I do something good. I need to stop concentrating on the negative but reward the positive.

I definitely have trouble with that too. If I am successful, I cant be proud of myself or feel like I dont deserve it or faked it.

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That is what I do . . . . and I never struggled so much as I do now with the inability to recognize. It is so difficult to realize it first which is obviously a MUST in then being capable to change that way of thinking. WHY is it so damn difficult? It is like my brain insists on and pushes so hard for the derogatory and as much as it does not feel like me (not having always been this way) it is so easy and so 'comfortable.' I guess like an old slipper . . . they look like crap but they feel so right? This sort of thing is what makes me feel as though I have lived myself masked or like I was pretending then and that I never really knew who I was and I sure don't now.

Not sure who you are or how old you are, but I feel like you're writing about me...like literally words straight out of my head. I am dx w/BPD. None of us here can dx anyone, but it does sound like you may want to talk to a professional about these concerns of yours.

Thanks! That's my plan... Hopefully I can get some answers!

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hello this is actually my first post so let me introduce myself. I'm (obviously) mordecaikenshin and i think we can relate. now in the normal world we'd relate in the very general sense of humanities conditions but as of now i believe we can relate on grounds far more personal. through a medium thats so public! isnt that backwards and forwards at the same time ?
Anyways....
back to the matter at hand...
i am also having some form of identity quandrys. in the sense that i allow other people define the way i act because these people get the things i say thus resulting in an ambiguous display of fine crafted sociopathy. we have an idea of the way we think people view us through standards that our society holds that intern make us act in certain ways because that is how we think other people view us we turn into that expectation.
myself for instance. my mother died when i was born. and my father was nowhere to be found so off i come to california from texas. upon arrival i lost a mother a father i never had the chance of knowing but gained a remarkably loving family of four siblings. all who already had kids and were adults by the time i was adopted. everything was going good until around the age of 12 when i got caught with weed. now im not saying weed is the cause of the problem but i feel that all this will tie up together if you bare with me. i had started smoking weed out of peer pressure with the older kids in my neighborhood presumably after i started to sell joints at school. of course i got caught because i told the entire school i had weed. when i came home from school that day i had to tell my mom that i got caught with weed. now my mother is a very traditional catholic mexican. upon this she got very hysterical and called everybody. since everyone else had the same naive nature they treated me in the same way a drug addict was to be treated. over five dollars worth of weed that probably couldnt get a cat high. all i remember is dissapointment. and being hit. and feeling like im the worse person in the world. since the expulsion from there nobody has ever treated me the same. everyone gets forgiven in the family. except for me. i was held with four parents telling me whats right. whats wrong. whats this. and whats that. nnone of them had a ****ing clue. now i wonder. could our identity crisis be a product of early childhood influencing? my basic question for you......

am i who i am based on the things ive done? the things ive come from? or the ideas of what a person is supposed to be instilled by parents or guardians?
what defines us? i believe why we do what we do has a big play on our identity. why are you a nurse? did you want to be a nurse? if not... whats your child hood dream?
ive always had a notion that since i have no mother no father. no blood connection to anyone in this world. am i destined to feel apart. to look apart. to act apart. am i the burden nobody should have bore. sometimes i wish it wouldve been me. sometimes i wish i died on that hospital bed instead. after all im just a junky. the world could miss me or kiss me and it wouldnt know the difference. all i ever dreamed of was being a junky. since twelve. i havent been sober. not one day. ive always had a girlfiend since the age of 14 i cant be alone. who am i with out the crowd to relate to?

you have accomplished great things to be proud of. but if you dont assign meaning to your own life your only letting other people assign meaning to it. such as in my case i hang with druggies. thus the idea that i hold for myself is a druggy hence i behave in a manner that is consistent with the idea i have for myself. i know its wrong. but ideas are the key to our identitys. after all im just an idea of a man writing on a board to seek companionship into the maze that is the psyche.

Thank you so much for your post. I think you brought up a lot of fantastic ideas, you sound like a really smart person! I think any mental illness is probably influenced by how we were brought up along with genetics.

I think that self-esteem plays a large role in your identity as well. As well as accomplishments and the way we were raised. I have very poor self-esteem most of the time. I'm great at faking it and pretending like I know what I'm doing, but inside I feel empty and worthless. As far as my identity, I know that I am me, but what makes me any different, worth anything? I don't know what makes up my identity. Is it a feeling? I feel like there is a big hole in my stomach that I have never been able to fill.

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