#idea:disorder is in the eye of the beholder

[m0nst3rgunxz]

Hey, hi, hello. Pondering Anxious anon here who read your post on "the self" As someone who's definitely spent a lot of time ruminating over the subject, I thought it was interesting. I've always wondered about it. Do I have a sense of self? Have I ever had a sense of self? What is a sense of self and am I just overthinking it? You can spend your entire life building up an identity and for some people it's cemented. Set in stone. For others it's such a fragile thing and I think in a lot of cases, people just adapt to an idea of the self they feel they're expected to.

Or Something. Maybe that's just me. But what is self? I am not very well articulated. I often struggle to turn my thoughts into words so i'll do my best to try to lay out my two cents here as coherently as possible. Apologies in advance.

What you become and what you create, and what you create is often influenced by what you become. I think there's absolutely an undeniable environmental factor in place for the self and as such, memory does play a big part in who you are. I think those sorts of things certainly lay a type of groundwork. Psychologically speaking, how we are raised influences the patterns in our brain's that makeup how we perceive the world and ultimately, how we respond to it. I think in many cases, the line between self and disorder can and will often blur. Like in the case of personality disorders. They are behaviours we adapt that have helped us survive and so we continue in those patterns because they've worked for us. But also they are behaviours set in stone. They become who you are. But they are classified as disorders because outside of the situation our brains picked up those patterns for, they are less useful. More of a hindrance than a help. The self, as an idea, is shaky I feel. You can use text book definitions to make sense of things. Use it as a reference or a framework, but there will always be nuances to the idea as a whole. But i think at the end of the day, there's a kind of comfort in that idea. And I think you kind of mentioned that. You have the agency to pick and choose what defines you and if you need, you can put them on and take them off like ill fitting clothing items and try something else. I've gone my entire life living inside of my mental illnesses with no room for me and it's become a little bit scary at this point to think about living without them. Because outside of anxiety and depression and OCD and cluster b and c or whatever the fuck else my psychiatrist thinks I have, what is there? I've lived my whole life as an undiagnosed or diagnosed problem. So is that me? Am I mental illness? Or has mental illness ultimately swallowed me up and is now riding around inside my flesh like a parasite?

I think it's a part of me, and if I ever heal, the resulting scars will have gone a long way into developing whatever I become later down the line, because I do think the self is subject to change. Always. You'll never be who you were yesterday and that's good.

Or it can be bad.

Anything can happen.

It bothered me for so long because I tried so hard to fit into categories and diagnosis' and outside perceptions of me and sometimes I'd even try to slip into the skins of friends to see if maybe there was something there for me too.

There is something very freeing of the self as a nebulous concept. being an amorphous dust cloud in the grand cosmos is not so bad. I may not be a fully formed planet but goddamn does my cloud glitter with the corpse dust of fallen heavenly entities.

What the hell does that mean? Pseudo-poetic nonsense maybe. I think we'll remain pieces and rarely ever be fully formed. Or if/when we are, it'll be a long time before we get there.

Something something the discovery of self is a journey.

Opinions opinions opinions.

I'm not really sure if this provided anything of real value or if it just lent more questions.

Or maybe the aimless state of this ramble has helped bolster my point a little?

Or maybe I'm just pretentious as fuck and like feeling like I know things, ha ha. Who knows! It was fun to think about though.

I hope this isn't a line of thinking that stresses you out though. And if it is, I hope you figure it out one day.

With my limited perspective, -Silly Anon

First of all, i love you anon

Second of all I love your perspective and its given me a new idea on what identity could be, and thats a concept. Im thinking something akin to time, your sense of self and sense of time are maybe both present to keep things in order societally and to keep things in order in your head.

It would make sense given you can lose your sense of time, and similarly you can loose your sense of self. Time is measured objectively yet experienced differently, and similarly the self is divided into objective categories while being experienced different.

Lets introduce a new sentiment, for conversation sake. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I think that can apply to a lot of things, but im thinking about who plays the role of the beholder. Because I am just as much of a beholder as you are, and we both are just as much the beauty being beheld. Thats confusing so I'll deconstruct it, and change the quote "the self is in the eye of the beholder". you can behold me, obeserve me, and suddenly my subjective identity(subjective in the way beauty is) exists in your eyes. But in the same way I can be my own beholder. And suddenly there is an internal division between the me observing myself and myself(and theres conflict with how what I see in me conflicts with what you see in me sometimes). And this leads me to believe that the sense of self is when you feel the beholder and the self are aligned, when your self is confident in that what you've beheld is the truth of your self. And thats where it can faulter, because now you need to figure out where the beholder ends and you begin, and maybe the beholder is the eye and maybe the beholder is just as much the self as the personality is and suddenly your sense of self is in shambles.

I think the reason I occasionally find distress in the lack of my sense of self was because my identity was the foundation of my mind, every action and thought would lead back to this one idea of what I am. And it was a constant in my life. Well i dont have to see it like that if i dont want too, the foundations acted more like barriers, I'm a free man-entity-thing now i say!! I dont need to be anyone or anything or act in the confines of any identity or feel out of place when i dont aline with my established identity.

(Tis why i doubt I'll ever have a real name lolol)

#🥩answer🥩 #idea:disorder is in the eye of the beholder #idea: psychiatrists have made the catagories of disorder for the sake of treatment #and you dont exist in the confines of your disorder #disorders exists as a means of communicating the aspects of yourself you need help with perhaps #THIS ISNT EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR PLURALITY LMAO #actually autistic #autism #otherkin #got real #philosophy #< is this philosophy?? #plurality