Published on 12, July, 2020
Who am I? I have little idea. I know what I am interested in, and I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, and what I like and dislike. I am often told that I am a very articulate and self-aware person.
However, most of my life has been an act. I have internalised multiple personas over the years, pretending to be someone I am not, regardless of whether this someone is real or a figment of my imagination. As an extreme example, once, when I was at school, I imitated the precise way a girl pouted her lip. I ended up pouting my lip, and must have looked quite ridiculous.
I try and imitate hair styles, dress styles, speech patterns, actions, almost anything. Sometimes this is very conscious, sometimes it is almost unconscious, but I am always aware that I am playing a part. Even when I am alone in my bedroom, I act 'through' others. Even my interests are often dictated by someone else, someone I admire or want to be like. It feels like I have no autonomy or 'self' that I can call my own; everything is stage managed.
My interests currently come and go, but I am only interested in one area of a subject, and find it hard to generalise my interest to related fields. I have always had this problem, but I am more aware of it now; it means that I find it hard to plan my life, decide what I want to do, and what I want to achieve in life.
I also get obsessed with certain people, and live my life 'through' them, often in fantasy.
Can anyone else relate to this lack of self, identity confusion?
Hope said:Sometimes my life feels full of meaning, and sometimes it feels as though I have no direction and that I am looking into the void.
Sometimes my life feels full of meaning, and sometimes it feels as though I have no direction and that I am looking into the void.
This is exactly the problem that religion was invented to solve. Traditionally, it was useful to reassure people that the bits that they didn't understand were God's works and were nothing to worry about.
Personally I don't need this reassurance and it all seems too artificial. The pomp and ceremony is bizarre and the issues that religion brings in terms of sectarian strife make it a distinctly flawed concept in a lot of cases. I don't think God exists but I think that it is a useful concept that can help some people live their lives by a set of rules that help them get on in the world.
I think you are describing a problem that billions of other people in the world struggle with hence the popularity of religion. I don't think this is a particularly autistic thing but I guess we tend to get obsessed about problems like this so it seems more difficult for us.
I haven't studied philosophy formally but initial reading of
en.wikipedia.org/.../Existentialism
seems to fit with some of my ideas.
Perhaps, if one is prone to obsessive thinking, we (most people on this forum?) should at least systematically study and understand thought/philosoophy itself?