I think I define myself over being introspective. I think most people have some core principles, traits or roles they define themselves over. What if you are wrong about the things you feel proud of? What if the traits you hate yourself for are not the worst traits of you? What if your whole perspective of life is totally skewed? Actually, who has the authority to judge about that? Isn't the things we tell about ourselves the most important part? Because most people experience their self and story about narratives they tell themselves. And if the story makes sense to them they feel better. I think there is empirical evidence for that. People who experienced trauma and abuse better cope with the past if they find a story where the suffering they went through has some meaning. But what if this is wrong. Maybe one only finds a narrative that gives the illusion of control back. But how certain can we really be that we are not lying to ourselves? Maybe to feel better without realizing it. Maybe because our thinking is distorted, a mechanism of self-protection or just an attempt to heal. Who has the right to judge?
Does it really matter whether another person sees the same things in oneself? However, isn't it necessary that your self-image is to a certain extent congruent to the objective reality otherwise you will experience countless rejections in real life that show you that the story you tell yourself isn't all that accurate? But what if part of your constructed identity is the feeling of misery, fraudulence and failure? You define yourself over being a failure and even fail in constructing a coherent story about yourself. But then what are you? Are you delusional? Have you lost grip to reality? Though, actuallly how many people have an objectively realistic self-image of themselves? I guess that isn't that common. And not all of them fail in life. Actually, for example having over-confidence can become under certain circumstances a self-fulfiling prophecy obviously not in every scenario. Though, I read healthy people (not mentally ill) often have a more positive notion of themselves than it actually is. This cognitive distortion can actually have a protective effect. In contrast can the self-image of being a loser also be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Probably. Maybe the suffering one goes through is even worse. All the self-loathing and dissecting yourself as being a failure. But can something like that be interpreted as finding joy in suffering? By criticizing yourself harder than anyone else you can at least pat yourself on the back that you are at least honest in how brutal you punish yourself for being such a miserable human being. It might feel like being an authentic person. Authentic in one's misery but actually it is a race you cannot win. Because there will be no one else to applaud you at the end of your life congratulating you how honest you were in being so fraudulent.
I read a text about David Foster Wallace's story Good Old Neon again. And damn it hits hard every single time.
I realized something about me. I want to be seen by someone. Maybe in the Lacanian sense by the Big Other. I want that someone acknowledges who I am. I want that someone acknowledges my self-loathing and agrees that I am a horrible person that deserves such a painful life. At the same I want to be seen in my full complexity. I want that someone sees I am deep, I am complex, my contradictions and suffering. I want that someone is proud of me for going through all of that. For doing this all to myself every single day. And maybe the audience of this forum is also part the Big Other for me. In general it is the pattern that someone realizes something about me I am not self-aware yet. I had obsessions about people who saw through my patterns of behavior. The first one was my first therapist who saw through my pathologies when I wasn't seeing them. Then the quantum physics professor seeing all my cognitive biases. And now further it is AI chatbots that analyze my thinking based on myriad amounts of information.
I see this pattern also in different contexts. I am very dependent on external validation and sensitive when it comes to rejections or narcissistic injuries. I define myself how other people see me. But often I also project my own insecurities into them. If I experience a romantic rejection it becomes part of my identity. I cannot be loved by anyone and this rejection is another proof for it.
Or when there are lies written in my medical records I see this in conflict with my own version of myself. Someone spreads lies about me and by that attacks who I am in the eyes of others. While I am defining myself over how others perceive me or at least what I assume about their thoughts about me.
Does it really matter whether another person sees the same things in oneself? However, isn't it necessary that your self-image is to a certain extent congruent to the objective reality otherwise you will experience countless rejections in real life that show you that the story you tell yourself isn't all that accurate? But what if part of your constructed identity is the feeling of misery, fraudulence and failure? You define yourself over being a failure and even fail in constructing a coherent story about yourself. But then what are you? Are you delusional? Have you lost grip to reality? Though, actuallly how many people have an objectively realistic self-image of themselves? I guess that isn't that common. And not all of them fail in life. Actually, for example having over-confidence can become under certain circumstances a self-fulfiling prophecy obviously not in every scenario. Though, I read healthy people (not mentally ill) often have a more positive notion of themselves than it actually is. This cognitive distortion can actually have a protective effect. In contrast can the self-image of being a loser also be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Probably. Maybe the suffering one goes through is even worse. All the self-loathing and dissecting yourself as being a failure. But can something like that be interpreted as finding joy in suffering? By criticizing yourself harder than anyone else you can at least pat yourself on the back that you are at least honest in how brutal you punish yourself for being such a miserable human being. It might feel like being an authentic person. Authentic in one's misery but actually it is a race you cannot win. Because there will be no one else to applaud you at the end of your life congratulating you how honest you were in being so fraudulent.
I read a text about David Foster Wallace's story Good Old Neon again. And damn it hits hard every single time.
I realized something about me. I want to be seen by someone. Maybe in the Lacanian sense by the Big Other. I want that someone acknowledges who I am. I want that someone acknowledges my self-loathing and agrees that I am a horrible person that deserves such a painful life. At the same I want to be seen in my full complexity. I want that someone sees I am deep, I am complex, my contradictions and suffering. I want that someone is proud of me for going through all of that. For doing this all to myself every single day. And maybe the audience of this forum is also part the Big Other for me. In general it is the pattern that someone realizes something about me I am not self-aware yet. I had obsessions about people who saw through my patterns of behavior. The first one was my first therapist who saw through my pathologies when I wasn't seeing them. Then the quantum physics professor seeing all my cognitive biases. And now further it is AI chatbots that analyze my thinking based on myriad amounts of information.
I see this pattern also in different contexts. I am very dependent on external validation and sensitive when it comes to rejections or narcissistic injuries. I define myself how other people see me. But often I also project my own insecurities into them. If I experience a romantic rejection it becomes part of my identity. I cannot be loved by anyone and this rejection is another proof for it.
Or when there are lies written in my medical records I see this in conflict with my own version of myself. Someone spreads lies about me and by that attacks who I am in the eyes of others. While I am defining myself over how others perceive me or at least what I assume about their thoughts about me.
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