finding out who you are

hi. i was wondering if maybe anyone else here has gone through a problem like this. i been working on self esteem stuff a lot at therapy and part of it is trying to figure out who i really am. i wonder a lot what i would be like if i hadn't been abused as a kid and try to figure out who that person is and how i am supposed to be. i try to find places where i fit in or people i fit in with but it seems like the things i'm drawn to my wife and my therapist say are bad for me. and that always happening and them always saying that makes me feel like if the real me comes out then i'm gonna be a bad person.

I can only say that I relate (I'm female )

Keep posting!!

Welcome to PC, sincity.

I can relate. I have had some definitions going on in my life about what "fun" is and what "love" is.

And I came kicking and screaming into a saner perspective on life. But now that I'm here, I see my dysfunctions rather clearly, and I would not want to go back to being who I am -- even though I am rather glad that I had some of the seedy adventures I had in the grimy underbelly of society.

I'm glad I was young enough and silly enough to enjoy it and that I was apparently protected by angels or youth or good luck.

I wish you all the best in young wonderful, exciting journey in learning who you are, which as I approach the big Six-Oh, assure goes on for a lifetime. It is a journey, not a destination.

Enjoy the trip.

And do keep posting.

My problem is that I can't think of anything I like! People ask what I do for fun.. and my mind completely draws a blank. My advice is just to keep trying new things, even if they don't seem like a ton of fun to you, and maybe you'll stumble upon something new that you really love.

i can't figure out how to say of any of this right sorry

you're working on yourself. you have a T........good for you!!

maybe pay a little closer attention to what your T and your wife tell you. we know that they have your best interest at heart.

what are the activities that make you feel as though you are a bad person?

please don't think that we don't understand. sometimes we makes mistakes when we read something.

how about a little more detail . your post would pretty vague, love, pat

Hi, Sincity, and welcome to PC!
Like others who have responded here, I am still on my quest to find out who I am, though as I've gotten older, made hard choices, as well as many mistakes, I've become more comfortable with "who I am." I recognize that I have been drawn to dangerous, self-destructive behavior and attractions most of my life, been self-defeating, and limited myself...no one had to do this for me. I have allowed other people and circumstances to make the choices for me, rather than listening to my own inner voice. Finally I seem to listening to myself more and finding peace.
Patty

thank you for writing back. sorry i will try to explain it better. i'm working on a lot of self esteem stuff in therapy and i'm trying to figure out who i am. and i don't really have any friends except my wife and some people in her family but they live pretty far off. and i'm trying to figure out who i am as a person cause before i never really thought about myself. and theres a lot of stuff i like but it always goes wrong when i try to do something for myself. i got a motorcycle and i keep trying to pass the test to get the license but i failed nine times. now i gotta wait until i can try again. i got some brain damage and i never been good at taking tests or school or stuff like that and i just feel stupid all the time. my wife and my therapist are always saying i'm not stupid but i always mess stuff like this up and i can't pretend i dont. and i really like boxing i kinda always wanted to be a boxer but i can't cause i can't get hit in the head anymore. so i started going to this boxing gym to try and make some friends and find people who like the same stuff and i was just working out there not boxing. but then i was just practicing with this one guy and we weren't really boxing, not hitting in the head just tagging eachother i told my wife and she freaked out cause she thinks i'm gonna get hurt and now she don't want me doing that anymore so i can't do that either. i understand that its cause she cares and i'm really lucky that she does care but it feels like everything i do is wrong. and i'm so angry almost all the time now. i always grown up with violence and i don't know how to get it out. i would kill myself before i ever did anything violent to my family. i will never hurt them but i used to hurt myself a lot. i used to cut and burn myself but i stopped doing that a long time ago and now its getting hard again to not think about that. i guess i feel like i'm trapped. i don't know what i'm supposed to be or who i am or what is right or wrong.
i hope maybe this explained it better. sorry i'm not good at writing stuff.i hope it made sense.

Have you talked to any of the "better" relatives in your family that might be around from when you were really young? My aunt was around when my family went through heavy turmoil which is why I was in therapy and she was able to tell me stories about myself from when I was 1-3 or 4 and that was really really helpful. It gave me "back" myself. I could identify with her stories and knew they were "me" and then I began to think about and remember things from when I was 4-6 or 8 or so and what they "said" about me given my now adult self.

In short, start from within you instead of looking at things outside you now. Who you are/have always been is inside you rather than something you will find laying around :-) out in the world. Let the world come to you, you don't need to go to it. You are the prime mover in your own world.

If you don't have grandparents or aunts, uncles, older siblings, good friends of the family, etc. then just start listing some of your day-to-day memories from as young as you can. My mother died when I was a toddler and my father remarried and my stepmother's taste was a lot different from my mother's and I preferred my mother's! I didn't figure this out until I was in my 40's and realized that I preferred my uncle's house to my own (my stepmother's). When I analyzed it I saw that it was the "coziness" of worn rugs and wood, delapidated :-) furniture that I liked (my stepmother was all European) antiques, standard split-level house with "normal" rooms -- my uncle was always building additions and adding features, etc. his old houses were always under construction of some kind and all had odd little nooks and cranies, etc. which children love) and looking at pictures from when I was 2 and 3, our house had the same "style" that my uncle and aunt maintained. Get some photographs from your childhood and analyze how you look, try to remember what you were doing, what you felt, etc.

Sincity, all I have is hugs and hugs and hugs for you. Please keep working with your therapist and trying to figure out things you enjoy that don't involve a high-risk of head injury.

It sounds like you are on the right track. You will figure it out. I am sure of it.

PS -- There are all kinds of smart, and being able to pass tests is just one kind. I think your wife is right about this. I'm really good at tests, but I'm crappy at relationships, being good working with people, making people happy, comforting them, hugging them, making friends -- etc.