Discussion How would you describe your sense of self?

[Vaermina8]

This was just a question I had that was lingering around in my mind for a couple of days (still is lol)
"How would you describe your sense of self?"

I think it's really interesting how some people answer it. (My philosophy with basically everything, is that if someone truly answers something with passion, they're showing a bit of themselves to you, which in turn allows you do learn more about that person.)
For me, I would say it's like a solitary animal in a den. It's this constantly shifting unknown creature with a multitude of colors, and you would barely see it emerge from this cave. But on the days it does, to me, it could be either be the most beautiful creature ever imagined or the most disgusting and vile thing you have ever seen.

One of my friend's answer, to summarize, was the culmination of all of their experiences and memories.
So now I open it to the public void lol, if anyone decides to answer : P

 

[-Link-]

It's been a long time since I've fully recognized myself as a human being with thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs, wants, etc.

I'm not sure how to put it. It's like I'm detached from my own self? I suppose this is a depersonalization as a defense mechanism against self-hatred -- as if I can't hate myself as a person if I don't perceive myself as a person in the first place?

It's just kind of strange to me in that for as detached as I feel from myself, I remain totally in tune with other people.

It's an emotionally difficult reality to confront, that I've denied myself my own humanity for so long, to a point I can't answer a question like this. Or maybe I could answer it, but I'm too uncomfortable looking at myself in a way to be able to do that.

 

[Adûnâi]

I'm a dying cell in the body of a dead race (the one which perished in 1945 CE). My life never began. All that remains is vengeance against America and its Christian heritage. Hence my figurative prayers are with the Juche Koreans and all other anti-Christian powers that endure. May the gods give them strength where my kind failed!

(Apologies, but this isn't politics, this is religion. Aurë entuluva.)

Aurë entuluva!

Aurë entuluva! (Q. ˈDay shall come againˈ) was the battle cry of Húrin during his last stand after the Fifth Battle of Beleriand, also known as the Battle of Unnumbered...

tolkiengateway.net

 

[painfullypointless]

I read the title and first thought I had was, what is a sense of self? lol.

 

[Mirrory Me]

I think I am imagining myself to be a certain way, or that how it flows through me (could start acting like some person in my head)- it changes over time, depending on the circumstances I am in.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Rough, dense, and hard to chew. The centre is raw yet the outer parts are all burnt to a crisp somehow. It has a strange and somewhat pungent odour. It's like a mix between a durian fruit and fox pee. Its taste is quite unpleasant and hard to describe. It's like overly salty and sour, yet somehow simultaneously bitter and bland. It's this weird concoction of contrasting and contradicting flavours that don't go well with each other at all. Truly one of the worst things I've ever come across.

EJ's "Self" gets a 0/10. If I could rank it lower then I would, but sadly this is about as low as this rating system goes.

 

[etherealspring]

lacking. severely

 

[Innereye]

Sense of self is an illusion. The easiest way to describe it is that we are what we do repeatedly

 

[mint]

I'm a ghost operating under the false assumption of humanity. I'm the last mourning cry of an alley cat that lost too many fights, dying of hunger in a pile of trash bags. I'm a stain on a white dress. I'm a chalk outline. I'm suspended in aspic. I'm nothing.

 

[Tombs_in_your_eyes]

I have a strong sense of self when it comes to my personality, character, values, etc. Which I won't go into here.

But in relation to other people/society/the world, I have a particular analogy: I see (most) other people like trees: with large firm roots in fertile soil, in constant communication with one another, anchored to a community or sense of place, and all wrapped up in earth's warm embrace. That is, they have a place in society, and are connected with one another.

On the other hand, I see myself as a hydroponic plant (being grown in a tub of water). All alone, with no roots, no grounding, no community, no place in society or the world. That's what being housebound with severe disability for many many years will do to a person.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm the living embodiment of reluctance.

I think I'm probably mostly defined by grief though. I don't think I ever really got over close family deaths in childhood. I just found coping mechanisms to disappear in to.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Literal feces.

 

[alienfreak]

I don't really know.

I think a lot about the concept of Anattā in Buddhism which involves the self being an illusion in some sense.

For a long time i have an uneasy feeling that i can see other people as independent individuals, but i cant see myself in the same way. It is disconcerting. It has been like this for a long time. I can see my 12 year old self and have a concept of who he was. But then I lose grasp of it. It feels like a puzzle that i cant solve.

Sometimes I think I am like a rare, exotic animal. I am not like the others. I am in the wrong environment. It's like if you were to take an endangered lemur from a Madagascan forest and dump it in the Siberian tundra. It's not necessarily that i have low self-esteem. Academically i have done very well so i have often held onto the fact that i am supposedly intelligent. And i found unexpected ways to support myself financially despite never having a job. Everything about my life is strange, and ive had to survive by subverting all sorts of social norms. I don't understand how i am so strange compared to everyone else. It is alienating. If i could just find another madagascan lemur then maybe everything would be fine, but i cant. I am so tired and lonely so now have to just lie down and let myself freeze in the icy tundra. Genes that dont match with the changing environment are meant to be eradictated, that's how natural selection works, so im just not meant to persist here.

I dont think this post is coherent but that's how it has to be because my understanding is incoherent.

It's been a long time since I've fully recognized myself as a human being with thoughts, feelings, emotions, needs, wants, etc.

I'm not sure how to put it. It's like I'm detached from my own self? I suppose this is a depersonalization as a defense mechanism against self-hatred -- as if I can't hate myself as a person if I don't perceive myself as a person in the first place?

It's just kind of strange to me in that for as detached as I feel from myself, I remain totally in tune with other people.

It's an emotionally difficult reality to confront, that I've denied myself my own humanity for so long, to a point I can't answer a question like this. Or maybe I could answer it, but I'm too uncomfortable looking at myself in a way to be able to do that.

I have a similar feeling.