Published on 12, July, 2020
Since I got my diagnosis a few weeks ago,, (aged 51 female for those that don't know me) I'm not sure who i am. I have struggled always, masked most of the time an had catastrophic mental health problems but also raised a family of 5 children got a degree and held a professional job for 20 years untill i became too ill.
I don't know how to be me. How to not mask, I can do all of nothing, mask or curl up in a ball. Stay in bed or up but I'm my nighty or go out and be that ever coping mother/ house wife etc. This is not working for me it messed with my head being the super masked woman, I need to not be her, but how do I be someone else that isn't just a fat blob in a bed rocking.
I'm NOT feeling suicidal at the moment, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of point to it all.
How do I become me?
Hi Song, I was diagnosed last year at age 56. I had muddled through most of my life by working out how to blend in with other people, but several years ago I became very badly depressed, with a major factor being that I don't have any real sense of self.
I am now in the strange position that I don't feel like myself unless I am with other people, but that concept of self varies depending on who I am with. Being on my own for extended periods of time is pretty much unbearable, & rapidly degenerates into savage levels of self criticism & feelings of extreme emptiness.
I've already had one round of Psychotherapy on the NHS, which didn't help at all but at least prompted my ASD diagnosis. My Doctor has left it with me to try to suggest any further therapy. but I honestly haven't a clue what to suggest, so I just keep taking the tablets, which make my depression more bearable.
I still don't really know what identity is supposed to be & when I see myself in photos or even the mirror, I don't feel any real sense of recognition either. By default I feel more like some sort of adaptive computer algorithm & only feel like a person when I am with friends because being around them gives me a sense of definition.
Not sure what the answer is, but if you find out let me know ;-)
Take care
I had a therapist tell me that I didn't have much 'sense of self'. However, I didn't have much sense of what 'sense of self' meant.
I've heard (typical) people remark that they're social chameleons and have different personalities depending on who they're with. That makes sense to me - our 'identity' isn't all inside us, but is about how we act and interact. Meanwhile, being isolated I have found is pretty unhealthy as there's little to anchor your thoughts and feelings to. The difference with autistic people may just be more isolation.
I think actually discovering your authentic self may take more than a year.
Sounds like a stock 'therapist' remark. I was told that I'm remarkably self-aware. I'm still not sure what that means in the context of 'therapy'.
I think we're in a bind. Isolation is unhealthy... and so is socialisation. That's my experience, anyway.
I am alive
Why, how are you feeling?
I'm better than dreadful, probably.
I don't know about the pie but a warm cat is a wonderful thing. I hope everyone 8s feeling better than me today
'Hell is other people' - J-P Sartre.
'Hell is oneself' - TS Eliot.
For a while, it worried me that both were correct. Then I concluded that heaven must be spinach pie and a warm cat.
Same here Tom, I've been told that a few times but no-one seems to have an answer to the question of , "So why doesn't it feel like that to me sometimes?".
I wonder if it's that, if it's true that humans in general get most of their sense of identity from the people around them - and I'm not reading the people around me very well / accurately - is it that MY sense of myself keeps crashing against what I think I see reflected back at me from others? The two versions just don't match up?
If so, that might explain why I feel perfectly fine about myself right up until I have to interact with other people. Then everything feels messed up.