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on new year's eve i stood in the driveway and stared up into a tree, as upon the highest branches sat a crow bellowing out its song to me with a persistence that could drive one mad. i took it as an omen for the new year, an omen of change, of rebirth. as i type this i can already feel my body turning inside out in expectation of the metamorphosis i will be undergoing into this new chapter of my life and the new person i will become. by the end of the year i will emerge entombed in placenta, a newborn baby.
the day before new year's eve, i had been rubbing the dead skin off of my bottom lip and accidentally sliced my lip open with the fingernail of my index finger. i still don't understand how it happened exactly. regardless, i have since been chewing on the roughened skin around the wound, bit open another new wound, and chewed on that one as well. my lips have been beat to hell and back by the gnashing of my own teeth as i've grown fond of the minuscule jolt of pain it sends rushing to my nerves. if i'm not chewing on my lips, i'm pressing fingernails into my skin. if i'm not pressing fingernails into my skin, i'm ripping the hair out of my head. if i'm not ripping the hair out of my head, i'm eating the skin around my fingernails. sometimes i think of what would happen if my autocannibalistic tendencies developed into something more intense and debilitating, like esther in dans ma peau. i have certainly thought about it, but i don't think i've reached that point yet. there is always a chance it could happen, i suppose.
i can't seem to remember what i did today, new year's day, which is odd because i remember the previous two days with such crystal clear accuracy. all i remember is being obnoxiously busy yet still constantly haunted by the ever-pervasive worry of identity. never in my life have i felt a stable sense of self. my names have changed multiple times over, as has my sex. i ebb and i flow and i oscillate through different phases of being in a vein similar to the changing phases of the moon. faces of others have always been my greatest weakness, as they morph and fade and stretch and mold before my eyes -- my own face being no exception. on occasion i grow too weary of what i can't see of myself and have to cover reflective surfaces so as to not suffer a breakdown. often i'm left wondering what it's like to really know oneself, and to be so overtly sure who you are is who you are and what you look like not only to others but to yourself. as a young child i was convinced that i didn't exist at all on a metaphysical level. nowadays i still lapse into this idea, that i exist as simply nothing, a puff of smoke that carries a soul but no physical body. i wish i could be nothing, that people could look at me and see nothing, no distinctive features, no secondary sex characteristics, no hair no teeth no eyes no nose no lips no ears no arms no legs no torso no skin no muscle no organs no skeleton, just nothing. only then, i think, would i finally know who i am.
this is causing me a great deal of melancholia tonight.
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aljules333
interesting food for thought thou, i hope you are feeling better today.
when i was younger i really struggled with this, i didnt know who i was at all. i defined myself by my few fleeting friendships, kind of consuming their personalities and becoming them, and then when the friendships quickly broke i was plunged back in the void of being nobody. and then i was terrified. what did i like? what kind of things did i do? what was i like? i didnt know, and i think maybe i didnt like anything, didnt do anything and wasnt any particular way. i think it might be a side effect of anhedonia, or it was for me at least.
ive kind of abandoned the project of self, i think that that might be the best option. i dont know who i am, i feel like a ghost. nothing and no one really clings to me the way stuff does for others. but im at peace with that. i do what i do, i like what i like, and it all changes at the drop of a hat and i just have to go with it. for you it might just be something that takes time to be at peace with, or maybe youll find yourself. if you can, id recommend a Buddhist approach of letting go (easier said than done of course).
if youre interested in ideas of the self, i might recommend reading "the divided self" by r.d laing if you havent already. hes an old scottish psychiatrist and i believe it was written in the 60? he was very progressive for his time, i dont think its very outdated at all. its about conceptions of selfhood in schizophrenia patients and, while im not schizophrenic, i found some of it really helpful in understanding my own struggles with the self. if not helpful to your case, it is still a very interesting read and not very long.
thank you kindly for the recommendation, i will definitely be looking into that book. afaik i am also not schizophrenic but suffer infrequent bouts of psychosis, so with that it seems hopeful to offer some additional insights in my case (reading the summary on thriftbooks, it's already resonated with me a bit and brought me to tears so i think this could certainly be a very beneficial read lol).
however you are probably correct that learning to abandon the project of self may be the best course of action. the only thing that's really stopped me from doing so thus far is that i find myself rather frightened of outside perception and therefore feel the need to control every minute detail of how i present myself so i'll know exactly how i come across to others. but it's a little hard to even manage doing that when your identity is constantly shifting and you end up feeling as though you've lived as 50 different people in one body yet simultaneously none at all. its so difficult to explain in a way that doesn't sound absolutely bonkers ahgghhh perhaps it's healthier in the long run to simply let go of how others will view me for this and just try to live as i come, because i'm not sure when this instability will ease up, if it ever will.
by thou; ; Report